Time - Inside and Out

Self proclaimed "Scientist, Theoretician, and 'Biocentrism' author", Robert Lanza, M. D. has been grappling with the concept of Time.

[S]cience has brought us countless insights ... What eludes us is the big picture, which unfortunately encompasses all the bottom-line issues: What is the nature of this thing we call reality?"¹

He postulates a "life-created reality" like a phonograph record (anyone remember those?) with "now" being like the needle, moving sequentially through the tracks. To him, no one ever really dies they just remain where they were after the needle has moved on.

Where's the comfort in that?! The Bible tells us we don't remain in a moment of time - we continue fully conscious into eternity.²

Dr. Lanza also seems unaware that the content of a "record" is determined by an author, not itself.

Take just a moment to ponder C.S.Lewis's view on Time³(Don't go...it will be worth the extra time spent)

Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty--and every other moment from the beginning of the world--is always the Present for Him.

If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames. That is difficult, I know. Let me try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it.

Suppose I am writing a novel. I write "Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door! " For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all.

C.S.Lewi's conclusion? (don't go just yet...)

God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.
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- fritz

1 - Why You Will Always Exist: Time is 'On Demand', Huffington Post, February 14, 2011
2 - 2nd Corinthians 5:8
3 - C.S.Lewis, Time And Beyond Time, from Mere Christianity