In the begining

When I hear the words "In the begining" I think, well, What is the begining? It seems to imply that time goes in a line but the begining of a line is a dot or circle that is in the present time. A circle is continuation, implying to me eternity. growing out of this circular,present,eternity is the line of tempory existance and the creation of past and the idea of future. Future itself I don't see as truely existing. Could there be two sets of time itself? the eternal now and the temporary line that is past growing out of the present?

I don't know what to think of this it just came to me

Yesterday evening there was a great TV programme presented by Professor Brian Cox about all this, the beginning and end of the universe. The second law of thermodynamics was explained with special reference to the probability of forms from sand castles, to stars, to animals, breaking down from their definitive low entropy forms to high entropy formlessness. So the laws of physics provide for the arrow of time that is one-directional---from low entropy to high entropy. The laws of physics also provided for the low entropy forms to occur.

The wonder of the universe is the human form which amounts to the universe becoming conscious of itself.But this wonderful stage in the flight of time's arrow will pass away and eventually all the stars too will pass away and the universe will be dead.

If time exists it is a line; time is a sequence of events, a sequence is a line. A line may or may not have a beginning or ending point.

A line without a beging and and end I cand imagine as anything but a line that bends into a circle. If eternity exists would time eventually have to bend and overlap the past? When I hear of a begining I cant help but think of temporary existance which has to end sometime.

Instead of going in a circle, what about dynamic spiral.

what's wrong with an eternally straight line?

What's wrong with an eternally straight line is the second law of thermodynamics. All things have a beginning and and an end.Time itself has a beginning and an end.

That is, if by 'eternally' you mean the same as 'everlastingly'. Actually, although the two words are often used interchangeably, they have separate meanings.

'Eternal' means timelessness, no past , present or future.

'Everlasting' means never-ending within a time structure that involves the one-directional arrow of time.

I should have been more precise; I wasn't referring to time at all, just to space. I guess it just sounded more poetic or something than 'infinitely.'

'Everlasting' means never-ending within a time structure that involves the one-directional arrow of time.

I did mean everlasting

The belief that the afterlife is everlsting time on earth being temporary.When I heard the beging of time,I got the thoughtof the temporal branching out from the everlasting to create the line of time with a begining and an end.

I found this very interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPjv5gIUeU8

Ever increasing complexity without thought or design. Chaos and order. Simple, yet complex and unpredictable.

As to what started it all, who knows? Why don't we call that thing unknowable and leave it there.

Paul I think that why we don't call "that thing" unknowable and leave it there, is that the old Aristotelian teleological explanation for anything, including the beginning of the universe, since the scientific enlightenment, is no longer credible.

Another reason for not simply leaving the teleological explanation hanging is that to posit a creator God, often implies that the creator God intended not only the gases and rocks of the inanimate universe, but also humans, to be specified according to his Word. While rocks and gases may not be affected by dogmatic theories as to their nature, humans are. Thence arise punitive attitudes towards those humans who fail to comply with what some arrogant priest or other says is God's Word.