palmer@uw-june.UUCP (04/30/84)
fnord
A simple question for anybody with a religion which supports prayer.
Does it have any effect to pray to prevent or cause something which
may or may not have happened or refused to happen.
If, for instance, you see a house explode (or some other
catastrophe that has no possibility of leaving survivors), would it do
any good to pray that there WERE no people in the house at the
time?
What about events where the ordering is relativistically indeterminate?
If you see a star, 10 light years away, that looks like it may have become
a supernova at a time 5 years after the light which you are seeing left
the star, that is 5 years before the present, would it do any good to
pray that it didn't? (A supernova 10 l.y. away can have nasty
consequences) If you move into some other frame of reference, then, by
relativity, the prayer may actually occur BEFORE, the time when the
star might go supernova. (For my fellow physicists, I mean that the
interval between the prayer and the possible supernova is spacelike.
For theologians, I assume that omnipresent, as well as meaning "being
everywhere" also means "being in all frames of reference").
Also, is god non-local. That is, can different parts of him
communicate at greater than the speed of light.
If this question sparks a large debate, we may have to move it to
net.religion.relativity :-)
David Palmernlt@duke.UUCP (N. Tinkham) (05/01/84)
[">" = David Palmer] > A simple question for anybody with a religion which supports prayer. > > Does it have any effect to pray to prevent or cause something which >may or may not have happened or refused to happen. > > If, for instance, you see a house explode (or some other >catastrophe that has no possibility of leaving survivors), would it do >any good to pray that there WERE no people in the house at the >time? I have no access to the mind of God, but given that prayers do affect God's actions, I think it reasonable that a prayer made after an event might influence that event (e.g., it might well do some good to pray that no one was in the house that exploded 5 minutes ago). At the time of the explosion God, I think, knew that I would be praying 5 minutes later, requesting that the house be vacant, and thus could, if he chose, honor the request prior to the explosion. > Also, is god non-local. That is, can different parts of him >communicate at greater than the speed of light. If I understand your question correctly, the traditional doctrine of omnipresence implies a positive answer. God is not located at any particular point in time and space, but rather is equally present to all places, so that yes, he could communicate simultaneously to me and to a being 20 light-years away. It's not so much a matter of communication travelling faster than the speed of light; instead, it's that God isn't a physical object in space. N. Tinkham duke!nlt
rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob]) (05/01/84)
David, et al
Let me throw some doctrinal talk at you about some properties
that most of the major Christian sects agree that God has.
Omnipotence - God is capable of doing anything that is "do-able"
which does not include logical absurdities like a square circle
or making a stone so big He could not move it.
Omniscience - God knows the beginning from the end.
Omnipresence or Immanence - God is not localized like we are.
Transcendence - Tied in very close to Immanence but in severe
tension with it is God's property of transcendence - He is not
part of Creation. This concept differs from Eastern God concepts
where "all is one" or perhaps the thought that God = Universe.
Relativity question - Your query on "Can we pray to God for
suspension or reversal of time for us ?" (that is the way I
interpret the heart of your question).
First, I think that IS possible for God but I think He generally
wouldn't do it.
Universal Law #? - "The Law of Sowing and Reaping" - Somewhere in
the catalog of Universal Laws we have to deal with this item.
I state this Law and offer no more objective proof than the agricultural
cycles. I believe that human behavior operates by this law in the
natural world. There are consequences for our human actions.
However, the confusion arises because it appears that the Spiritual
world impinges on the Natural in ways that we call miracles.
Is raising people from the dead an action that satisfies our
relativistic question ? Jesus is recorded to have busted up
every funeral He ever went to by raising the decedent.
Well, enough for now...
Bob Brown {...clyde!akgua!rjb}
AT&T Technologies, Inc.............. Norcross, Ga
(404) 447-3784 ... Cornet 583-3784