Wayne wrote:
"But Dan, you're still thinking like a time traveler. I'm not talking about a traveler - I'm talking about somebody off the timeline entirely."
I'm following you but not agreeing with you.
If the laws of nature allow events in the future to alter events in the past. They will be altered. And they will be altered in a manner that benefits some unless you've seen a dramatic change in human behaviour since I turned off the news.
Wayne wrote:
"God doesn't need to come in and fix something after something has gone wrong. It's all part of the creation of the whole thing. This gives him the ability to fine tune everything as he's making it."
Except that the bible, the basic tenant of your religion specifically states otherwise. It says he makes floods, he kills first born, he knocks down walls, he heals, he turns people into pillars of salt. These are not the actions of someone content to let nature run its course.
Now if you want to say he was an activist up until 21 centuries ago and now only dabbles in the occasional piece of toast or road sign ok but I don't think most Catholics or Protestants would receive much pleasure considering that possibility.
It strikes me that you believe what you wish to believe, disregard the rest, and struggle in the middle. This may work for you, it certainly worked for me for awhile, but I suspect a certain German cleric would take umbrage.
My read Wayne, and I don't intend this to be disrespectful, is that you accept that you have a religion not based upon the supporting pillars of your faith but rather on those few remaining pillars not yet torn down by science to your satisfaction.
Statements such as "it took as long to create the universe as it took" should, I think, be no more satisfying to you than they are to a physicist. For example: I'm not happy with the square root of minus one.
