Things still would exist outside their names and characteristics. You can classify a computer as a 'dfjlkh' but that would defeat the purpose of language in the first place - to communicate. No one would no what your talking about (let alone pronounce 'dfjlkh').

Technically God made the world in six days - he rested on the seventh.

You said time is an idea. I'm guessing your talking about the measurement of it,
because we of course didn't invent time itself. Time has always been here (God may be outside of it, but that's irrelevant). Anytime change happens (i.e. creation of the universe), time has to be present. Think about that. Without time, NOTHING can change. Without time there's no past, no future - everything is constant. That's why I think God's unchanging (according to the Bible).

As I see it, time started the "second" God started making the universe. But again, I don't take everything in the Bible literally. Who knows what seven days really means. I think it was just written that way (like most things in the Bible) for us to understand it. If God literally and fully explained how he did something, I doubt any of us would get it. It might be just that God doesn't want us to know. Anyway, you should read some books on the nature of time. Interesting stuff.

The theologians around may be able to help out here (getting back to Brad's 'seven days'), I have the belief that it was written in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah (?) something to the effect of - In the eyes of God, A day is to a thousand years as a thousand years is to a day. Put your own interpretation on that.

That same verse in Isaiah or wherever was what I was thinking of when I wrote my first post. Sorry, I'm not very good with remembering where anything is in the Bible.

Federico: The reason why I didn't use the Big Bang theory (instead of God) is because jeffery didn't. You're right - by saying 'God just went and did it' doesn't explain HOW the universe was created. I find this to be a major characteristic of the Bible in general. It tells its readers - who, when, where, and usually why, but not too often how. (With the huge exception of it telling its readers how to live.) To the intellectual soul this may be unappealing, but keep in mind the purpose of the Bible. The things it DOES say is all we need to know to be 'saved' and how to live a 'righteous life'. It's not a science text book.

Personally, I don't think a belief in God and the Bible contradict the Big Bang theory at all (and vice-versa). Same goes for macroevolution. The Big Bang theory could have been the HOW that is missing from the Bible. To my knowledge the Big Bang theory doesn't explain how it, itself, got started (if it does, please let me know). One of the laws of physics states that an effect can not be part of the cause, right? So what caused the Big Bang?
If you include God (or a god), which has always been here, into the Big Bang theory then it explains practically everything. Or maybe, since there was no time before the Big Bang then you don't need an higher being to start it all. Without time, everything's infinite.

The second option should read: there existed a god, which created a big cosmic whatever and caused it to explode, creating the Universe. (Meaning before the 'beginning' there exist only a god, not a god AND a big cosmic whatever.) Or maybe God didn't cause the thing to explode, but just created the cosmic whatever in the first place. It exploded on it's own, but God created it with that purpose in mind.

As for why God would USE any "tools" (i.e. science), I have no idea, but He certainly doesn't NEED them. He doesn't need us but we're here. He doesn't even need the universe at all, but it's here. Who knows how He works. Maybe what we call "science" is really just our interpretation of natural "miracles." Anyway, even if you consider them "tools" it doesn't degrade His methods since He's designed and created the "tools" in the first place. I think creating gravity and energy or whatever to make matter (including life), is pretty impressive. Some might ask why God would create the world in a way so that it can be explained (most of it) by science. Well, who/what created science?

Now I'm dizzy.

The same one who created God: man did!

<< It may exist in your imagination, in your faith, or in reality, but it exists. The basic point is that reality and existence are two different things. >>

nobody can argue something that exists in your imagination or in your faith.

i think that the original poster was asking how to quantify something that exists in reality though.

does everything really only exist in our imaginations/faiths?

P.S. OJ did it!

Mindy, did you mean "I think, there I am" (This was a bit of wisdom Penny came up with a while back)?

Brad, you can't talk about "the laws of physics before the big bang". I mean ur welcome to talk about it but you should be careful because lots of Cosmologists seam to agree that the laws of physics as we know them breakdown at a singularity (ie. the big bang at time=0) Any talk of before the big bang is meaningless. As far as I can work out all you can say is things like, "If there was time before the big bang we do not know what the laws of physics were in that time".

Oops! <Enter> too quickly! (Not the key .. something I did)

We understand a Cube.
The Hypercube is something a little different. Some have suggested that this is like mapping a cube (which I consider to be a somewhat fallacious concept) against a lineal timeline. Fallacious? As I extend my cube down the 'hyper' trail, each point, being a solid fragment of the 3D entity, has to be considered as a movement away from some temporal centre.

In a 3D environment, with a square being defined, a single point would form 6 square pyramids set upon infinitum.

No time to explore thie further, but:
1 point explodes into 8 in the first time 'interval'.
Each would replicate 8 fold - ( would not some of these become overlapped? - if so how can two 'entities' occupy the same space) ?

My end thought is: If I can be the creator of a Flatworld, which can be seen by people from my world, "Could the Universe as we know it be a 'Child of the Universe' of that next dimension?