To fill in all the dead air and vaporous mumblings on his far-too-long broadcasting schedule, Pat Robertson pontificated on the nature of time recently. I suspect that he may light up a little weed during the commercial breaks.
Well, clearly, this indicates that Sean Carroll either needs to run for president or start a religion.
Sesame Street has really gone downhill since I last saw it.
Sorry, but Pat is right. He does not seem to have a point though. It’s also a theological problem because an infinite being would not perceive time and therefore could not make decisions or change its mind. The completely rules out an interventionist god.
How can there BE eternity without time??!?
Sorry, Pat is an idiot. He needs to study General Relativity.
Time Lords have two hearts. It remains to be seen if Pat even has one.
Wrote this comment long before the post.
Wait. That´s not even funny.
I will change it yesterday.
Duuuuude, that’s like totally deep!
To paraphrase somebody who knows what the hell he was talking about: Time is what keeps everything from happening simultaneously.
PS: did you know photons experience no time. Well, they wouldn’t if they could, but since they can’t, this is a bit…circular. Anyway, no passage of time at the speed of light.
I think it’s brilliant that Robertson has started to think about things in this way. Time is a huge problem and if Robertson’s starting to worry about it, even in a confused way, that’s a sign that he’s thinking about how things in our universe fit with his God.
Surely this is good, because we want people to question the universe and be confused about things because that makes them think harder instead of simply accepting God as is.
You ever type out a comment and then realize it wasn’t working out and scrap the whole thing ? I just did that here.
Time is more complex than a Time-Lord’s brain.
Sean Carroll for president ?? That might work (assuming you mean Sean M Carroll of Cal Tech, and not Sean B. Carroll — who’d want an icky-icky biologist for President ? )
Pat is building arguments off words put in a fictional character’s mouth about topics he has almost no understanding of? How unusual.
The idea that God isn’t subject to time has been investigated by people far smarter than Pat Robertson. That he’s applying modern science to it, saying that there was no time before the Big Bang gave us photons, is sort of typical of woo purveyors. It reminds me of the people who say that acupuncture stimulates the flow of Chi and then try and tell you that neural activity is another name for Chi. Weirdly Pat rejects all science that indicates there even was a Big Bang, just as acupuncturists reject all science that says there was no change in neural impulse.
Doesn’t really come to Dembski’s level of reverse causation.
It’s not easy to see what objection he has to evolution after that, actually, although I suppose he’d deny that evolution would have access to his woo–um, and why not?
Glen Davidson
“F**king magnets, how do they work?” – ICP
This reminds me of the mishmash some FB friends were making of Evolution so they could discount it with the simplicity of Goddidit. All of them graduated from the same school I did and all had the same teachers but I’m the only one who even remotely understood what they were trying to talk about. We can probably discount 99% of what comes out of Pat Robertson’s piehole because he’s obviously going senile and is just put on camera to keep the “one foot on a banana peel” members of his viewing public happy so they keep sending their Social security checks in.
I already knew that. Deja vu.
We don’t allow faster than light neutrinos in here, said the bartender.
A neutrino walks into a bar.
======
More seriously, even if god existed he would still be subject to an arrow of time. Saying that he is not subject to our universe’s arrow(s) of time does not mean he does not need his own.
In other word, it is wrong to say that god operate outside time, at best he operates outside *our* time in the same way that I operated outside the time of the universe of the video game I am currently playing, thus allowing me to go backward and forward in that universe’s time.
Similarly, The Doctor, when he travels back in time with the Tardis is still travelling forward in time in the Tardis, thus both being outside of our universe’s time but still subject to his own timeline.
Sounds like Time The Avenger has wroth havoc in Pat’s already sub par head. You think you have time. You have no time. I got got got got no time for you.
Where is the meeting between David Tennant and Peter Davidson from?
Answered my own question. Time Crash. Just missed being a Law And Order: UK meet up.
I think the line between Pat Robertson and a Time Lord is quite distinct. One is fictional and the other is unbelievable. One is more than 900 years old and the other thinks a book more than 900 years old contains the only knowledge needed.
Who put the shrooms in Pat’s apple pie?
That was infinitely hilarious.
Could the “skin around the universe” stuff be a garbled reference to the holographic principle?
Chronological Brane Damage
Mon thats some good Ganga, mon. Jah, Rastafari
I id not remember that meeting of the two doctors that was cool!
Wibbley wobbley timey wimey… stuff.
KG says:
Yes, apparently he’s read some science, and since it doesn’t contradict his religious beliefs (at least not in any way that he can understand), he’s cherry picking this little tidbit from the latest theoretical physics to make himself appear deep, and his god even cooler.
Science does the hard work; religionists and New Age wackos step in to scramble up the results and con people. Tis ever thus.
More evidence for that old maxim “ignorance is bliss”. Pat sure looks blissful.
Sounds like he’s got a bad case of “Time Head.”
Pat doesn’t look a day over 2,087, but as he can only read about 3 words a month, he hasn’t quite digested the essay on the nature of time Lucretius gave to him in 44BC.
Let’s cut him some slack until he turns 3,000.
This reminds me of my grandma talking about how to set the DVR.
I think what he was actually saying is that God is one of the wormhole aliens from Deep Space Nine. At least he’s not asking for anyone to check out his mystical Orbs of the Prophets, or to travel through his wormhole….
Dammit, I’d only just managed to forget that old coot was still alive.
As a side note, goddamn did that wind up being a stupid fucking idea. Worst possible way to end an otherwise decent plot arc.
I remember the freshman dorms, I remember the kid with Da Kine and the big glass bong, I even remembered the conversation, but, damn, I didn’t remember Pat being there. I think after that the convo turned to all the rumors about the tri delts.
Forgive me for repeating myself from a previous post:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/25/take-the-test/
Witnessing pz myers’ and his cheerleaders’ verbal assaults against religious idiots’ specious sophistry is little different than anyone here present crowing about winning a gold medal at the “Special Olympics”.
Yeah? Big deal.
Sure, Pat Robertson and his ilk are idiots. So go pick on somebody your own intellectual size.
Regarding the Nature of time from an empirical vs. a religious/spiritual perspective.
Sometimes the convergence is striking. I remember conversing with a Lubavitcher Rabbi on the question of time and creation from a Chassidic POV with respect to Kabballah.
I was struck by the cogent intelligence of his response – superior to any insights of a popular book during my undergrad days: The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Recalling some articles I read recently in Discover Magazine, I quickly google-whacked these for everybody’s perusal:
Discover Magazine December 2000 “Does Time Really Exist?”
http://discovermagazine.com/2000/dec/cover
Discover Magazine June 2007 Newsflash: Time May Not Exist
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time/article_print
My immediate response is to ask one and all to wipe those smirks off their faces and go pick on somebody their own intellectual size.
Forgive my senile rephrasing of my former post: but, it is possible to be simultaneously well grounded in science, intelligent, lucid and religiously devout. Myself, I would probably be lucky to maybe score two out of four.
Pharyngula would be my favorite blog gladly linked to my website at school for the benefit of my students; were it not for such unnecessary combative excesses conflating all religious belief with silly superstition.
They are also influential. But let us just over look that, just because their ilk has real world consequences.
Self blinkered idiot.
Here is the deal, majorpriapus. When political candidates stop tripping over each other trying to get the support of people who follow the likes of Pat Robertson, the non stop criticism of idiots will stop. Only when people like Robertson and David Barton are just harmless cranks can they be safely ignored.
Which if you honestly conflated Roberston’s rambling with any of the articles you linked isn’t you.
janine – I hear ya… and I understand your POV.
I humbly submit that Pat Robertson and his ilk are beyond redemption and we should concern ourselves with how best to minimize the damage they wreck!
Let’s use a Nazi metaphor: While being tortured in a Gestapo cell, a member of the German Resistance (did you know the German Restistance was bigger than the French version?) shouted defiantly at his tormentors: “Nothing you can do will break me or my comrades’ determination!”
Their reply: “You and your generation are incidental and irrelevant – all we need do is convince your children and and the Reich will last a thousand years.”
That reply broke his spirit.
Like you – I view Roberston and his ilk little differently than I view the Nazis together with all their big lies. On this we all agree.
However – and this is the important bit – if we are to win the battle for the hearts and minds of unfortunately brainwashed youth: this is NOT the way to go about it!
You are being wrong for all the right reasons – ad hominems and bullying tactics are so unnecessary and inevitably turn potential converts away, those who otherwise may have been swayed by the cogency of your arguments.
Oh Jesus fuck, really?
AGAIN!?
a) Look up what a fucking ad hominem is. You look like a fucking idiot when you misuse it. Because you are
b) Research shows otherwise
c) Grow the fuck up.
regarding the post from Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK :
Thank you for proving my point!
Quod erat demonstrandum!
This is such bullshit it hurts my brain AND ass.
If they were swayed by cogent arguments they woulnd’t be fundies. This isn’t a position they were reasoned into, why should they be reasoned out of it?
People are not, at their core, rational. It is not the default state of mind just like athletic isn’t the default physique. If you want to get through to someone you have to find an emotional in. The winning strategy is to use emotionally influential tactics to promote rationality.
How mature.
Seriously, how come all these goddamn tone wanking idiots are such fucking children with their NAY NAY YOU PROVED ME RIGHT I’M RUBBER AND YOU’RE GLUE NAY NAY NAY!
Allow me to use an other Nazi metaphor. The Nazis were ultimately defeated when overwhelmed and pulverized by the Red Army.
Pat Robertson and Nazis are not a valid analogy.
and yet again I thank Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
this whole experience is leaving such a bad taste in my mouth – I am out of here!
Margaritas ante porcos – donthcya know!
Now I ask all present to extrapaolate and ponder to the degree such efforts are counter productive causing the enemy to suceed where otherwise he would have failed!
You stopped speaking nonsense and blathering on like a twit.
I fail to see the failure on my part.
last word to Janine:
re: “…Pat Robertson and Nazis are not a valid analogy.”
I disagree – I remind you of Goebbels’ “Big Lie”
I have better things to do with my time…
adios!
It’s always so nice to see someone do dedicated to the rightness of his stance that he waves his penis, asserts it, insults everyone and then runs away by challenged deciding it’s not important anymore.
Old hat.
You are gone? Damn but you were so cogent and had such interesting things to say.
*pouts*
an aside to pz myers:
I am your biggest and most grateful fan.
I have directed AP teachers your direction, on more than one occasion, to answer vexing questions that were perplexing the noncognoscenti on subtler matters of genetics and evo-devo.
I am in your debt and thank you!
With hat in hand I respectfully remind you of Aesop’s fable of the Stork and the crows.
Your credibility and influence are being diminished (in non-scientific circles) by having your name attached to such unnecessarily angry rebutal.
best regards to one and all…
This is such an example of what I call rude-politeness. It’s such a blatant snot nosed attempt to talk down to someone by puffing yourself up with such flowery self righteousness and glurgy concern trolling that it’s frankly more insulting than just out right insults because it has the unspoken slight of apparently believing we’re idiots.
I am sure that PZ is quaking in his socks because of your words.
PZ I want to remind you of the Aesop story of the Arse and the Duck
Once upon a time there was a duck who made quacking noises. Then a giant floating arse came around and starting farting to drone him out, spewing shot gun diarrhea all over the lake. Then the arse looked upon the fish and frogs and demanded to be made their king for blessing their water with its defecates. And the arse was well loved because it worse a crown and had a race car and the duck was forced to work for Home Depot and his wife left him for a goose.
Is my point getting through to you at all, PZ?
His head is astonishing-
It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!
Wait, hang on, got that backwards.
It’s bigger on the outside than it is on the inside!
Spacey wacey timey wimey.
majorpriapus,
Sarcasm and ridicule is sometimes the only tool that makes a difference when dealing with the completely delusional, those of them that still have some flexibility in their minds.
The Bush administration did not care about accusations of being crooks, but they hated becoming a target of ridicule.
—- —- —- —- —-
cybercmdr:
“I think what he was actually saying is that God is one of the wormhole aliens from Deep Space Nine. At least he’s not asking for anyone to check out his mystical Orbs of the Prophets, or to travel through his wormhole…”
.
Naah. The Eschaton* would not allow those to hang out in the same light cone of spacetime.
*Charles Stross reference