In God's Good Time

Here's a teaser - an excerpt - from a very interesting  text (a lecture delivered in 1977) by Philip K. Dick, titled "If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others". 

It will tease you, certainly; or it will comfort you, annoy you, intrigue you. You decide.

The great medieval Arabic philosopher, Avicenna, wrote that God does not see time as we do; i.e. for him there is no past nor present nor future. Now, supposing Avicenna is correct, let us imagine a situation in which God, from whatever vantage point he exists at, decides to intervene into our space-time world; i.e. break through from his timeless realm into human history. But if there is only omnipresent reality from his viewpoint, then he can as easily break through into what for us is the past as he can break through into what for us is the present or future. It is exactly like a chess player gazing down at the chessboard; he can move any of his pieces that he wishes. Following Avicenna's reasoning, we can say that God, in desiring, for example, to bring about the Second Advent, need not limit the event to our present or future; he can breach our past -- in other words, change our past history; he can cause it to have happened already. And this would be true for any change he wished to make, large or small. For instance, suppose an event in our year A.D. 1970 does not meet with God's idea of how it all should go. He can obliterate it or tinker with it, improve it, whatever he wishes, even at a prior point in linear time. This is his advantage.

I submit to you that such alterations, the creation or selection of such so-called "alternate presents," is continually taking place. ...

Want to know more?
OK, just one tidbit more:

Often people claim to remember past lives; I claim to remember a different, very different, present life. I know of no one who has ever made that claim before, but I rather suspect that my experience is not unique; what perhaps is unique is the fact that I am willing to talk about it.

Want more still?
You know where to click. 

EDIT (May 18, 2011): 

The link now points to an archived copy. 

The original article appears to have been teleported to a parallel dimension.