# Atheism and the Concept of Time (?)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-and-the-concept-of-time/512283>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 1, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-and-the-concept-of-time/512283 "2009-10-01T21:35:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-and-the-concept-of-time/512283/41 "2009-10-04T16:43:22Z")

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> [@mangeorge](#):
>
> My very first strawman, I think. I’m not sure how it is, but I’m proud of it anyway. 😛  
> Peace,  
> mangeorge

I know how you feel,I remember my first woosh,better then sex:)

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**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-and-the-concept-of-time/512283/42 "2009-10-09T22:00:27Z")

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> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#):
>
> “God is the universe” […] sloppy, wishful thinking

Yes, that’s really a critical test. I am an athiest too. But I understand “god” as any of a variety of memes that generally share an anthropomorphic but magical nature, hidden but omnipotent and omniscient, involved in natural affairs by creating the universe, and interested in human affairs. Even religions or spiritual systems that are quite vague or empty on the anthropomorphic part but still invoke magic and creation, like deism or buddhism, are distinct enough to allow belief and therefore athiest or similarly critical disbelief.

But if god is the thingness of beingness or the sense of the universe, what would it mean to believe anyway? These air puddings aren’t right and aren’t even wrong.

If it isn’t a large, old, and well illuminated version of a culture’s typical body type, or in earlier cases a bizarre animal or something empty that associates itself with the form of a bizarre animal, it isn’t a god.

You can speculate about whether an underappreciation of time lead to a subconscious, erroneous rift that created an artifactual legendary version of time with long flowing golden hair and white robes. This is the kind of thing archaeologists might work out some day. But if you are speculating about whether god “really is” time, it’s no different than shredding a dictionary and reading the pile.

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**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-and-the-concept-of-time/512283/43 "2009-10-09T23:15:09Z")

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If I _had_ to have a god, maybe he would be kinda like [Joan Osborne’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USR3bX_PtU4&feature=related), like a holy rolling stone.  
But the christians wouldn’t allow that, I fear. No lake of fire, no divine retribution, no stranger on the bus.  
Oh well.

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