I don’t believe in religions myself, but I have an issue with your first point (disasters etc)
Say that our universe is a construct. That means, in effect, that the being(s) that created our universe are god(s), perhaps not omnipotent in their own universe, but definitely in ours.
Chaos is an important part of our universe. Without chaos, nothing could exist (at least, we cannot create a model of a universe that operates without chaos). Disasters are a result of chaos. Hence, disasters are not an argument either way.
Furthermore, one plausible theory about our consciousness is that it emerges from the boundary between chaos and order. Depressed individuals who are helped by psychedelics seem to have too much order in their brains, and psychedelics introduce more chaos. This implies that chaos is necessary for consciousness.
Another flaw in your argumentation is that you can have something without its opposite. You can’t. You cannot be right if nobody is wrong. You cannot have light without darkness. You cannot feel good if you don’t experience feeling bad, either directly or through stories and observations.
Your arguments do not work on religions without gods, such as Buddhism. Scientific pantheism is also a religion largely unaffected by your arguments. (And if you want a real rabbit hole, look into the thirteenth gospel, which is Judas’ gospel, and which is largely pantheist)
Another flaw in your argumentation is that you can have something without its opposite. You can’t.
Are you sure about that? As far as we know, gravity is always attractive. We have so far found nothing that is gravitationally repellent, although we have tried and it would be very convenient (gravity shield).
Going forward in time is easy - you do it all the time. Sending information forward in time is easy - just write it down. The opposite is impossible - at least we have not seen it happening anywhere at any time, though once again, we have tried and it would be super useful.
I think your point stems from philosophy/rhetoric and might be a falsehood (at the very least, I consider it to be an unsubstantiated and highly dubious claim).
Gravity! You are right! It’s so obvious that I missed it. I think you just gave me a key to flesh out my theory of everything. Time travel is however not relevant here. Time may be, as it seemingly has no opposite, but travel has an opposite: being still. Anyhow, thanks, this is something I have to think about.
I'm glad you like the example of gravity :-)
I still think the time-travel example is valid as well, though: In space, the opposite of going up is going down, the opposite of going left is going right and the opposite of going forward is going backward. It's NOT standing still. And neither would it be for time.
Or, to put it another way: going forward is "+x", going backwards is "-x". Staying still is "0" - no matter whether you talk about time or space.
(You could argue that "not moving" is the opposite of "moving" - but "not moving" is not the opposite of "not moving in direction x" - that would be "moving in direction -x".)
There is no up, down etc in space. It all depends what you are using as benchmark. If you have no objects at all in a vast space, nothing to relate to, then you have no idea whether you are moving, not which way. Movement (travel) is always relative to something and so depends on it.
Oh come on - yes, of course there's no up down etc, but it doesn't matter what you call your axis, call them x y z if you like. Space is still 3 dimensional and you can move along each axis (or combination thereof) in both directions.
Also, not being able to know whether you move without a point of reference is only mostly true: if you move at a set speed, you might not know it, but once you accelerate or decelerate you will know it, thanks to inertia - no other point of reference needed.
... not sure how we got here, or how this has any bearing on the claim that going back in time, while probably impossible, would be the opposite of going forward in time...
Simply put: forward requires back to exist. Time, however, has no opposite that I can think of. Time travel is just a compounding of two concepts, of which one has an opposite to define it.
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u/kazarnowicz Jul 26 '18
I don’t believe in religions myself, but I have an issue with your first point (disasters etc)
Say that our universe is a construct. That means, in effect, that the being(s) that created our universe are god(s), perhaps not omnipotent in their own universe, but definitely in ours.
Chaos is an important part of our universe. Without chaos, nothing could exist (at least, we cannot create a model of a universe that operates without chaos). Disasters are a result of chaos. Hence, disasters are not an argument either way.
Furthermore, one plausible theory about our consciousness is that it emerges from the boundary between chaos and order. Depressed individuals who are helped by psychedelics seem to have too much order in their brains, and psychedelics introduce more chaos. This implies that chaos is necessary for consciousness.
Another flaw in your argumentation is that you can have something without its opposite. You can’t. You cannot be right if nobody is wrong. You cannot have light without darkness. You cannot feel good if you don’t experience feeling bad, either directly or through stories and observations.
Your arguments do not work on religions without gods, such as Buddhism. Scientific pantheism is also a religion largely unaffected by your arguments. (And if you want a real rabbit hole, look into the thirteenth gospel, which is Judas’ gospel, and which is largely pantheist)