Xians,is the search for knowledge wrong?

in the story of Adam & Eve bible God forbids them to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge.
why would God want that?

since I dont believe in Gods and think the bible was writen by men,(only interested in controling their followers)it would seem that part of bible teachings are subconsiously sugesting to its followers to reject any search for knowledge,reasoning/thinking,in other words evolving.

 

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Let's be correct here - it was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Once you ate the fruit then you would know the difference between good and bad.

The real big catch 22 for Christianity is that Adam and Eve could not have known it was BAD to eat the fruit and disobey God UNTIL they ate the fruit. Ah ha, says God - GOTCHA.

The entire justification for Jesus coming to save humanity from the sinful nature started by Adam Eve is based on a trick played by God.

Christianity then simply becomes a collossal, pointless and baseless farce.

Kat

 

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Katazia's point is invalid without a proper definition of the knowledge of good and evil. It would seem the knowledge of good and evil does not necessary mean the knowledge of what it means to be good and what is evil, but specific actions which are good and evil, divorcing the role of God from the knowledge, making God a mere observer who declares what is good. After all, only God is ultimately good so the knowledge of good and evil Adam and Eve obtained was not what was absolutely good but what was considered good by God.

 

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The fall of man was to "innocently aspire to be God."

My favorite "corrupt" dissemination of the verses--which only serves to show what a small number of people do with The Bible, and thus suggests at least one minimum boundary of flexibility of interpretation--actually turns Genesis on its ear at this point:

Notice the transition in the first part from "Man has become like us" (Bible) and, "Man was like us, but he changed" (TCW).

While I admit that TCW's take on it would make a certain degree of sense that would easily appeal to the contemporary "lowest common denominator" of society's sinners and outcasts, it doesn't appear to be particularly biblical.

Notes around -

(Q)

The superstitious are often dubious of change. Christianity during my lifetime has mistrusted at least the leading edge of science--human life issues including disease, aging, and fetal; has challenged the propriety of medicine; openly distrusted psychology and psychiatry, and while they were right to do so in some cases, they did so for the wrong reasons; there are implications to AI research . . . strangely, some Christians have supported development of instruments of oppresssion and death.

This is, in part because people create their gods. Even the sharpest insight beyond the superficial manifestations of base humanity becomes mangled beyond recognition after slamming against the walls of the religious box for a period. Only the most abstract religions avoid this by generally making God irrelevant to such issues.

Industrialization made life better for many, except of course for the coincidental (but apparently unconnected) rise in heart disease and cancer. Those folks, at least, enjoyed a better form of suffering than if they'd had cancer in the old days, which most of them wouldn't since most of them wouldn't have been born because the population only skyrockets after certain needs are accommodated and this happens most in cities and . . . (it can go on and on and on like that.)

I must also here note that I've often said that the difference between Islam and Christianity in the modern day is that Muslims take God much more seriously than Christians, and furthermore that Christianity's reduced awareness of God comes because they found something more important than God: money.

The corruption of faith in the face of comfort brings a certain demand for austerity; industrialization brought luxury, and the occasion--and here's the tricky part--to re-evaluate morality, so that in the time since the mid-to-late nineteenth century, we've come to admit that ten years old is too young for a girl to give consent in relation to her health, that women are "supposed to be" equal to men, that religious persecution is only okay if you're not violating someone's American constitutional rights, &c. Slavery is wrong, apparently, and remarrying a divorced woman is cool enough. Although the sodomites . . . .

Progress that does not lead toward the Kingdom of God is no progress at all within an unadulterated Christian perspective. Only when one chooses the path of socialized luxury does progress take on a meaning more familiar to most of us in the West.

I mean, look at Seventh-Day Adventists ... they're ridiculously superstitious; they carry an interpretation of history by which A Tale of Two Cities can be, by "logical" extension, called a true story. But you know ... if I don't quit cigarettes before my heart stages a rebellion, the hospital and surgeon to go to are both SDA. It's the strangest thing.

Catholic hospitals can provide amazing care, as well. It's all a balance between superstition and the reality that demands attention. The modern Catholic hospital has come a long way since the days of Saint Ignatius Loyola.°

And somewhere around here I run into a wall where it's left to the individual of faith to determine implicitly for their own self, and it becomes seemingly impossible to account for the myriad factors involved in any one choice or action.

Katazia -

You might be amused to know that according to the above-cited TCW, it was all part of the Plan from the get-go. I used to make that argument quite frequently, but having it handed to me in an a-biblical Bible paraphrase gave me a good chuckle that I'm not entirely over. I can't keep a straight face about it even as I type.

Okinrus -

What? Okay, specifically, this is where you tripped me up:

Regarding that part at the end ... um ... there's a difference?

I mean, within the faith. Obviously, I see a difference.

But ... what, by faith, is the difference between what is absolutely good and what is considered good by God?

I've ... never witnessed the division made outside the infidel's argument against consistency in the Christian message and method.

____________________

Notes:

° TCW: Blanco, Jack. The Clear Word. Review & Herald, 2000. - This "Bible paraphrase" is the subject of much debate; for more on the "corruption" of a rewritten Bible, see The Watchman-Expositor, David Newman's 1994 letter, Miller "In Defense of The Clear Word", or a 22-page PDF by Striefling.

° St. Ignatius Loyola - The conversion of St. Ignatius allegedly took place while he was recovering from a serious leg wound; the question of faith is whether he had a vision or was merely delirious. See the Patron Saints' Index.

 

So when you were a child and your mother told you not to cross the street, she was just setting you up so she could say GOTCHA when you got hit by a car? Therefore we must conclude that the entire justification for parental care is based on a trick played by your mother. Parenthood then simply becomes a collosal, pointless and baseless farce.

 

Aspiring to be God be done innocently?

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Or are you actually looking forward to the first big screw up in genetic engineering?

Actually, the fall of man occured when man stopped being God-directed and chose to become self-directed.

 

So when you were a child and your mother told you not to cross the street, she was just setting you up so she could say GOTCHA when you got hit by a car? Therefore we must conclude that the entire justification for parental care is based on a trick played by your mother. Parenthood then simply becomes a collosal, pointless and baseless farce.
Yes, because then the mother uses the event to condem her child and all of her childrens offspring for eternity to hell because the mother can't see that the child is young and does not understand that crossing the road can be harmful to itself through getting hit by the car. Great wisdom there; I'm sure the child really did want to get hit by the car. That's why parents tend to hold on to their childrens hands until their child is of an age to realise the road can be dangerous and can wisely cross it on its own. Use an analogy that doesn't show god to be an impetuous son of a bitch who doesn't care, not that I can see it any other way.

 

Okinrus,

I suspect you were trying to make a point but I’m afraid I didn’t see one.

It is not relevant to consider what A&E learnt after eating the fruit but what they knew before eating and what God considered bad.

Did God consider A&Es defiance of his command not to eat the fruit a bad thing? Clearly yes since the punishment was the condemnation of the entirety of mankind to death and the apparent solution was the eventual pretended sacrifice of his son. I say pretended because according to Christian mythology he was resurrected so there was never any real sacrifice or loss.

But I digress – did A&E know and understand the consequences of their actions and did they know and understand the difference between this apparent horrendous act and being ‘good’? In terms of degree an action that condemns billions of people to follow to death and suffering has to be by anyone’s standard the greatest evil imaginable. So did they understand this? Of course not otherwise any informed person would not take such an action. All that God told them was that they would surely die. Did they understand what death meant? They had never witnessed death before; they were of course the first humans.

So where would they have obtained all this somewhat essential information that would enable them to make informed choices about good and evil? Well there was this tree that gave such knowledge. And we are back to that fundamental paradox and the classic catch 22.

So I think your statement was a rather muddle minded and tortuous attempt to wiggle out of admitting that Christianity faces a fundamental paradox with the A&E story giving the justification for the coming of Jesus.

Kat

 

atheroy,

Nice answer.

Kat

 

What Eve intended is a separate thing from what she and Adam accomplished. Read the verses. They became like God. If they got hold of the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would live forever. Therefore God cast them out.

 

Death=condemnation, no matter how it is arrived at. You could say that the mother "condemned" her child by predicting death in a busy road. Did she invent that condemnation, or was it merely "fulfilled" when the child disobeyed? Even if it's she herself who ends up driving over her child. Think about that.

I'll make another analogy - one you're very familiar with. God promised death and destruction in an eternal fire as the result of sin, and to safeguards those who believe in Him (think "Daniel's three friends in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace")

Isaiah 33:14
The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: "Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?"​

God is holding your hand even while you're standing in the fire, but still people are letting go of it. You have let go of it, have you not? Isn't your condemnation deserved, as Paul would say, for persisting in sin and letting go of your only salvation? So what's the problem? Sin is just a taste of hell, right here on earth - you can see it all around you as clear as daylight: wars, suffering, crime, hatred, immorality... Remember Jesus said:

Mark 2:17
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."​

Eternity in hell is the road you are warned against. Nobody forces you to walk it, in fact - God sent His son into the fire to endure it with you while you remain faithful that you will be delivered from it. Letting go means accepting your fate - whether you call it hell or just "death", in the Bible they're the same thing.

 

Kat,
What Okinrus means is that whatever knowledge A&E lacked for making that crucial decision, God provided with His words. God could have done no more than warn and command without taking away the choice itself, other than providing an experiential example of the consequences themselves. Did the mother say "go play in the road and see what happens", or "never, ever, go near the road, because it is lethally dangerous - see, I have put up a fence (in God's case: His Word) to keep you away from it".

 

Yes, what I mean is what Jenyar said. I would view the knowledge of good and evil as a list of what actions are good and what actions are evil but not knowledge of the one who is good.

No, I think most Christians will agree that the knowledge of good and evil is not the knowledge of Jesus John speaks of. A distinction must be made, however. Someone who knows Jesus is brought into His goodness, while someone can know what is good and what is evil without ever doing good.

 

Jenyar

Isn't that a bit ... false?

(A) The road wasn't lethally dangerous.
(A.1) God's word was incorrect.

(B) God's Word is no more of a fence than leaving the cookie jar within reach of a child.
(B.1) Childlike innocence is easily lied to.
(B.1.1) The Serpent, oft-described as Satan, tempted Eve with the truth: You will not die.

(C) The fall of humankind was necessary to God's intentions.
(C.1) Satan obeys God. (see B.1.1; cf Job)
(C.1.1) The fall of humankind was known from the outset - it was God's Will.

The fall of humankind comes with the introduction of certain knowledge; the ability to discern morality and propriety invested in humankind lessens the power of God.

At Eden, humankind had plenty; there exists in that mythical utopia no need to adapt, no impetus to evolve. The growth of human knowledge comes from our separation of humanity from God and God's Knowledge. "The Lord helps those that help themselves," says a common adage. And certes, many bow their heads in prayer of thanks for the bounty of genetically-modified foods on their table.

In addition to the actual lifesaving technology, cancer and AIDS research--influenza, diabetes, heart disease, acid reflux, small genitals and erectile dysfunction--the quest for betterment of the immediate and future human condition has coincidentally taught us much about how the Universe works. True, 'tis a pittance compared to the Universe itself, and were we truly brilliant we should have figured out a few things about how to get along, but such is God's Will--we are born into sin, inherently evil.

It seems that the necessity that is the mother of invention, the scarcity of what the world provides a man and woman accustomed to having everything given them on a platter--it works better as a parable for high school students about the next ten years of their lives.

That necessity would not exist if humankind had not fallen; still in Eden, God would provide for Adam, Eve and their descendants. After all, this is still God's wish, but God has decided Himself unable to reconcile His own Will to avoid the threat of sin and death. Analogously, it's like falling out of love with a girl at age 16 when you find out she's not a virgin.°

But without the fall of humankind, God would have continued to provide in some luxurious manner in which the soil needed little or no tilling, childbirth was easy and life was happy.

In that sense, an argument can be made that increased knowledge of the physical Universe around us contradicts God's Will. Research takes us farther from God's Will and closer to what God feared in the Garden.

The one thing God has in common with the Universe is that humanity, in terms general and specific, will largely continue to seek to know them both. If we last until the end of time, we might get to know the Universe.

Many religions acknowledge the pursuit of learning as the pursuit of discovery in God's Universe, but in the case of Adam and Eve, fallen Humanity, and What Happened at Eden, how much of our learning as a species becomes necessary by the eating of the fruit and casting out in fear?
___________________

° not a virgin - A note for women: There's a cold wash that comes over a boy when he learns that the angel of his heart has already had sex with the one person in the school he hates more than anyone else. I don't preclude a feminine equivalent, but I've never personally been so (un?)fortunate as to encounter it face to face. A friend describes seeing it a few years ago in my partner, but I don't read the situation the same way. Another friend claims to have no equivalent because it is socially-rooted in the double-standards of sexual conflict; that she lamented her own loss of virginity and felt guilty for somehow diminishing his first time. But it's this curious feeling that you come to regret when you get older; a sense that something is spoiled or ruined. All that's come crashing down, though, is one's own expectations. The only difference in the person standing across from him is how he looks at her. And think of it in terms of Genesis on two levels; God's disgust for humanity, and what "knowledge" might have been--if, as some would assert, the "forbidden fruit" was "casual" or "extra-relational" sexual conduct, I don't even want to guess what happened to Adam's heart that day, for it is enough possibly to corrupt the world for all time, indeed. However, God looking upon his virginal creations only to find out they're already scandalous ... that is the more important aspect of this.

 

Rather, your reading and interpretation of the word is incorrect:

First God created light and it was good.
He separated light from darkness.
Later, he created the greater light (sun), lesser light (moon) and the stars.

It is on you to resolve that these two lights created at separate times are somehow the same thing: simply physical light. Otherwise they must mean different things, as they do to me. The bible talks both about the physical and the spiritual. The light and the dark that were created first can be 'understanding' and 'ignorance', or perhaps 'good' and 'evil' - maybe both and maybe more. Either way, the light and darkness are not the physical light of the sun and moon, which were created later.

When God said that A&E would die, he was referring to the loss of the blissful life of the garden, and the perfect relationship with the Creator - a terrible loss. And God's words were true. The snake's lie lay in focusing the meaning only on flesh existance, physical death. Any one who believes in the existance of an unseen and eternal reality is looking at two different worlds at the same time, but has only one language to describe it. God's word is always truth about the unseen and eternal. Anyone who thinks that there is only the world of the flesh - physical reality - thinks believers are {fill in your favorite insult here}

If a parent never allows a child to act from it's own will, if the parent directs the childs every move and proscribes where the child can and can't go on in all matters with fences and chains, how will that child grow into a healthy adult? Children make mistakes and mistakes have consequences. You say childlike innocence is easily lied to, and yet you say that the serpent didn't lie but told the truth. Twisted. You are dangerously close to agreeing with the Christian notion that man is born with a nature that desires to be misled, to sin. I'll modify the metaphor a little. The child who obeys the parent will not get into the car with the stranger, because the parent said so, regardless of what the driver says. But the willfull child who desires to test what his parents say will be tempted to get into the car. Being a spiritual being living in a physical existance is hard. It's almost impossible not to be fooled into thinking that the physical world is the only world. So maybe your right that the fall was inevitable, and that God saw that it was inevitable. Yet, a good parent would have a plan for helping the child they love try to recover from even the most terrible mistake.

Satan obeys God - who is being a bit false here? And knowing in advance that something will happen does not mean that it is your will or desire that it happens.

 

A bit disingenuous, don't you think, Turduckin, to edit out of that the biblical citation in order to object?

Yep. God lied.

A better metaphor, I admit, but still we run into the problem of what the evil guy in the hooded sweatshirt and the mirrored sunglasses doing beign completely out of the parent's hands in a way in which nothing is out of God's hands.

Of course, that's the problem with metaphor; it's necessarily imprecise. Nonetheless useful, don't get me wrong.

These are the things that stick out at first. Not all of it is so easy.

In terms of reading and interpretation, we might turn to a simple idea: "Why does God allow (evil/temptation/sin/weakness)? Why didn't God just make things right?" This question usually comes up in the young when exposed to the idea that faith and redemption are the only ways to fix what has gone wrong. The simplest answer is that this is the only way things can be; this is as God has willed. Anything else suggests that God is somehow extraneous. However, and extraneity aside, we also encounter issues of the boundaries of God's authority.

God wanted it to be this way. Else it would be different. What criteria the state of reality meets is a question that will keep the philosohers guessing until beyond the end of the human endeavor. We cannot say that the inability of God to make things elsewise necessitates a higher authority, but rather that God sets His own limits, and has specific reasons for doing things this way. But this is God's choice nonetheless.

It's a very arbitrary objection. Not that something has been used, but that it has been used by the Serpent. Kind of like not wanting to buy a horse because it was owned by a Jew. (A long story, I assure you.)

 

Jenyar,

Death=condemnation, no matter how it is arrived at.
The analogy has nothing to do with dying. The child running out onto the road and getting hit by the car was meant to symbolise adam eating the apple.

You could say that the mother "condemned" her child by predicting death in a busy road.
No. Because again, the mother did not condemn the child if the child was to run out onto the road, but simply told the child not to because the mother knew the road was dangerous; just like god with adam. The mother condemned the child only after the child got hit by the car; symbolising god condemning adam after adam ate the apple. God then used the event to condemn everyone to hell. What a nice understanding fellow you worship.

Did she invent that condemnation, or was it merely "fulfilled" when the child disobeyed?
No, as I explained above. The mother should know to hold the child's hand and not let it get near the road. It's a child damnit. You'd have to be a retard to leave a child alone next to a busy road. You're asking for an accident to happen- i.e. god leaving adam alone- it was only a matter of time before he ate the fruit. Why did god even let that stupid tree exist in eden, he was definitely out there looking for a reason to condemn adam and eve.

Even if it's she herself who ends up driving over her child. Think about that.
It may as well be the mother driving over the child because she was foolish enough to let the circumstance occur when the child could run out onto the road. It doesn't matter whether the child was told by its mother not to cross the road. The mother should know that this is a child. Likewise god should've been able to foresee adam eating the fruit. If adam had no concept of good or bad, eating the fruit after god had told him not to wouldn't have spiked his conscience; because he didn't have the ability to comprehend what he was doing was bad. It's simple. God drove over adam.

God promised death and destruction in an eternal fire as the result of sin, and to safeguards those who believe in Him
WOW. NICE GUY. Create something unable to comprehend sin. Give it more than a chance to sin. Then condemn all it's offspring throughout eternity to eternal death and destruction in an eternal fire by giving them the ability not to sin because he set the originals up to fail. What a dick! I can't believe you worship this guy.

God is holding your hand even while you're standing in the fire, but still people are letting go of it. You have let go of it, have you not?
This is a common christian misperception. I never had god to let go of. I grew up without god or religion. I didn't know anything about it till I was maybe 10 or 11; at which point the more I came to know about religion, the more it conflicted with what I had already learned about the world around me. If there is a god he isn't the flawed one you can read about in the bible, or quran or any other 'holy' text.

Isn't your condemnation deserved, as Paul would say, for persisting in sin and letting go of your only salvation?
Didn't paul believe the world was going to end during his life time?

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
I must congratulate jesus on stating the mega obvious. Who would've thought? I could've NEVER guessed.

Eternity in hell is the road you are warned against.
No. It's the alternative existence one god chooses to let perpetuate even though in all his perfection he should be able to realise he created imperfect beings which he should therefore accept as his charge. Your god is not one I would care to associate with.

Nobody forces you to walk it, in fact - God sent His son into the fire to endure it with you while you remain faithful that you will be delivered from it.
Yes, god forces us. By letting hell exist we have only one other choice for our afterlife which is presumably preferable to an eternity of death and burning and other such things which couldn't physically harm a soul anyway. Where's the bio matter to burn? Heaven isn't much of a consolation prize anyway. Eternal boredom. Sweet

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Letting go means accepting your fate - whether you call it hell or just "death", in the Bible they're the same thing.
Trust the bible to be wrong again. I don't really need to explain to you what death is but there is an obvious difference between death and 'hell'.

a

 

First of all, God didn't lie. Satan's lie was ingenious - it convinced Adam and Eve that what he meant with "life" was more trustworthy than what God meant with it. "You will not surely die"... how many people will vouch for the truth of that today? Name one person who won't die. Satan had something sinister in mind - he definitely knew that "the righteous will live by faith", but his deception was therefore all the more devious: if he could convince only these two people to desire life more than faith - their own lives more than the life God had in mind for them - they would exchange their godly existence for his watered-down version. You know the story from there on, and it's the same lie you're believing. Only by God's power is it possible to say Satan was telling the truth, otherwise it was a blatant lie.

The power of his deception was that he to took God out of the picture.

Both result in death. In this case the difference between a warning and a condemnation is just the tone of voice. Maybe your hear God's voice differently than I do.

Read the story in Genesis 3 again: their existence and circumstances were cursed - death and suffering begun to rule their lives. First of all, only the serpent was personally condemned, but Adam and Eve were promised children, although their birth would be associated with pain - like their own birth into the world of suffering and death.

They were now on the highway, with cars flashing by. Before, death was evitable, now it was inevitable. I ask again: who proved to be true, God or Satan? Can Adam & Eve survive life without God?

The ultimate irony is of course that today, thousands of years later, people are still trying to justify their sins by trying to prove Satan was right after all.

But consider this: the faith you have in our fallibility and disobedience (because that's what it is: you distrust our ability to obey God) is because it has become ingrained after millennia without God. You'd rather trust your own human weakness than God's strength. Adam and Eve had no reason to doubt God, but they believed the serpent. It was a 50/50 choice at worst, unthinkable at best. Just as sin and inhumanity today seems unthinkable but is more than prevalent nontheless.

It wasn't a matter of time - it was a matter of choice. Informed choice. God's word vs the serpent's word. God's creation vs the serpents perspective on it. That "stupid tree" was the essence of God's presence in Eden - it represents the realm of God (cf. Revelations), which no man can enter without his nature being judged... and as I said before judgment and condemnation always equals death, because that's what happens when you purge something. The death of faith and innocense was no less significant than that of the body - and no less disruptive of the relationship between God and man.

Does being a child somehow exclude you of the consequences? Does it prevent it from dying? Nature doesn't ask your age before it runs you down. In fact, under ideal circumstances it's your youth that betrays you. Nature runs you down on the very things you take pride in. To borrow from Terry Pratchett, you don't need to stand on a hilltop wearing wet copper armour shouting 'all gods are bastards' to be struck down by nature. It only takes life, and never gives it back.

How many times do I have to drill the fact that Adam and Eve had a meaure of right and wrong: they had God's discernment at their disposal. You can't wish for a clearer authority of what is acceptible and what's not, than the Creator himself. Your objection comes down to that it wasn't internalized (as if that's the only valid form of knowledge) - but it was the very internalization of such knowledge that was undesirable in the first place. They drove over themselves - they shot themselves in the foot, exactly like people are still doing when they ignore God.

The comprehension was there. It's still there. You know the difference between right and wrong, but I'm sure you also only follow it up to a point that's convenient to you. Doesn't that make a mockery of the concept? Would you hesitate lying if there was clear gain and no chance of being found out? If not, what stops you? Your conscience? God is greater than your conscience - if it can condemn you, how much more couldn't God?

But you miss the point: we're not condemned to die - Christ bore our condemnation, our death, for us. That doesn't take us out of a cursed world, because it is still just a creation, and there are still people who live in sin. It's sin that condemns us - the serpent was condemned, and he became our accuser (satan). If the one who is condemned has any evidence on you, then in all fairness you should be condemned with him. Only God can save you. Things haven't changed since Eden. Everybody's pointing fingers but no-one accepts responsibility. And that will be their downfall.

You propose that you're more competent than Adam and Eve (having the knowledge that they had to gain "the hard way") - prove it. Prove that you can resist sin and temptation now that you know it's seriousness, now that you know both good and evil.

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The conflict between the Creator and his creation made you doubt Him? Doesn't that prove that there's a problem? Doesn't that rather support the case for sin, and our state of need?

What do you say now that you have found the Creator of your life? Still nothing to hold on to, even while He wants to pull you out of the way of the oncoming traffic? You've been facing the traffic all your life, and it was evident to you that it couldn't come from God - but if dodging it has led you next to Him, what prevents you from accepting His protection?

No, certainly some people did, but Paul maintained that it will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess. 5) . Therefore we should expect it as if will come today, but persevere as if it will never come. There's no excuse for persisting in sin.

It's you who don't realize what it is that perfection requires. Even Jesus "was made perfect" through suffering during his lifetime, and said: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9). Perfection is only realized within a relationship with God - He never intended to bestow it upon us as an independent quality, because that would be less than perfect.

"By letting hell exist"? Should God have pardoned the serpent and told us "very well, continue", even though hell is simply our undoing. It's what happens when a creation returns to the state from which he was created - but without God. Then indeed would God have condemned us to hell, without any hope. To put it another way: when nothing existed everything was equally hell and heaven. The fact that there is a difference between God and not-God neccessitates other differentiations, such as good and evil. Existence is just the same polarization between nothing and something.

Death or Hell is not a choice, life is. Our existence and the path that leads to Him was chosen by God, but our deaths will be due to our own decision - for following the path in the other direction.

Oh, is there? Have you ever experienced death to know? I suggest you look at the means, modes and manifestations of death again. You have an abundance of clues to work it out from. Even a so-called peaceful death is no match for a vibrant youth. Talk about boring.

 

Jenyar

First of all, God didn't lie.
What gave you the impression I thought he lied about something?

Name one person who won't die
No one in the history of this earth has not not died. Ugly sentence I know.

...their own lives more than the life God had in mind for them
I cannot then consider adam and eve to have had free will if god had a "life in mind for them".

it's the same lie you're believing
I don't believe in any lie by believing what I believe, this is something you don't seem to be able to comprehend. You are constantly caught out by thinking that I have in some way considered at some time christianity to be the truth. I haven't. I don't believe in any of it. I haven't thought once (honestly) that christianity held one iota of relevance to this universe or to me. Understand this and you'll be able to understand where I'm coming from easier.

The power of his deception was that he to took God out of the picture.
I'm not particularly concerned with satan's part in the eating of the fruit. Satan hardly had a job on his hands when it came to deceiving adam and eve. I just don't get why god was so surprised by what happened when he is omniscient and knew he had created beings that weren't perfect.

Both result in death.
That's not the point. Please disassociate the preponderance death has on your thoughts and interpret the analogy as it is meant.

In this case the difference between a warning and a condemnation is just the tone of voice.
I honestly thought it was the words you used. "You must not..." still seems like advice to me, whatever the tone of voice.

Maybe your hear God's voice differently than I do.
I'm just reading what is written in a book and applying my knowledge of english to help my interpretation of what is written. And again, I don't hear god's voice, it is your down fall thinking this way. You might, but never in my life have I.

...their existence and circumstances were cursed - death and suffering begun to rule their lives.
Only because god let it be this way. Forgive me for thinking god wanted it this way, but everything I've read seems to point to two innocent people being set up to fall down; at which point the thing that created them uses the event to condemn these people and their offspring for eternity to hell.

...but Adam and Eve were promised children, although their birth would be associated with pain
Is this supposed to be anti-family? God told adam to have sex with eve. A baby would seem inevitable from this command, as would the pain of birth (not the other way round which is how you see it); this doesn't make sense. Were they not ordered to have sex before adam ate the fruit?

They were now on the highway, with cars flashing by. Before, death was evitable, now it was inevitable. I ask again: who proved to be true, God or Satan? Can Adam & Eve survive life without God?
Wow, who proved to be true? Who cares? It is not the point of the analogy- instead the analogy is supposed to represent the fundamental flaw of how god acted after adam ate the fruit.

The ultimate irony is of course that today, thousands of years later, people are still trying to justify their sins by trying to prove Satan was right after all.
How are people trying to justify their sins by trying to prove satan right? As far as I'm concerned I'm not proving anything but rather showing how god acted was far from perfect. I'm not arguing for satan- I don't believe in satan; or god; or anything else you're supposed to take for granted in christianity. I'm just interpreting what is written in a book. Nothing more.

...the faith you have in our fallibility and disobedience (because that's what it is: you distrust our ability to obey God) is because it has become ingrained after millennia without God.
Once again, this is what you think I believe and once again you are wrong; you could hardly get any more wrong about what I think. What is written in a book indicates to me a being created without the capacity to understand what it was doing. The being then did something that it didn't understand and it's creator condemns it to eternal suffering because the creator can't seem to understand that the being didn't understand what it was doing. That is how I see it and therefore I can't understand any justification for any 'creators' actions.

You'd rather trust your own human weakness than God's strength
Wrong again! Your misconceptions and assumptions seems to be a common theme here. I think I understand why you have trouble with atheists, you don't understand them at all. I trust and believe in human strength. I don't believe that there is a christian god to derive strength from, if I hadn't been told about christianity I would've never known about it or your god.

Adam and Eve had no reason to doubt God, but they believed the serpent.
So? god gave adam and eve advice not to eat from the tree. If adam and eve were perfect or at least straight thinking they wouldn't have eaten from the tree. I think therefore that they couldn't understand what doing because they ate from the tree. No sane person would do this after the advice god gave them. Any problems with this logic?

Just as sin and inhumanity today seems unthinkable but is more than prevalent nontheless.
Where do you live? Unthinkable? Are you in some sort of oxygen tent? George W Bush believes he is on a crusade of imperialistic social domination because he is indifferent to other peoples beliefs. He is a christian. He commits sin all the time. Purposefully. And the american population has backed him on this. The american population identifies itself as about 83% christian. I am not meaning to pick on america, but religions all over the world are used as justifications and drugs to fuel on going violence's, despite their so called moral grounding. You only have to look at the cloning and stem cell debates in america to know that the groups who lobby against such medical technologies a immoral in their arguments. In my understanding of their own beliefs they should sent to hell, or at least act morally. But this is the greatest hypocrisy I can think of in people who believe in religion.

Informed choice. God's word vs the serpent's word.
adam and eve cannot have had informed choice as they chose the wrong decision. How can you see it any other way?

That "stupid tree" was the essence of God's presence in Eden
Does this not sound hypocritical of your own belief of your god? Why, if he is everywhere, does he have an essence in a tree. Doesn't this just sound stupid to you looking at it objectively? I guess not.

and as I said before judgment and condemnation always equals death, because that's what happens when you purge something.
That is your opinion only. I would say death came before judgement and condemnation but then I don't and never have believed in judgement and condemnation, only death. On the contrary, if you purge cancer from your system it means life- I don't know where you get your beliefs from but those are very narrow views you have there.

The death of faith and innocense was no less significant than that of the body - and no less disruptive of the relationship between God and man.
Because adam and eve were biological organisms I guess I'm wrong in thinking they were always destined to die. Silly me, of course they lived outside the natural laws of this universe. For some reason this doesn't hold any water with me- god can have it any way he wants. There is nothing that can separate him from us if he doesn't allow it. And it's spelt innocence. And I'm speaking from the point of believing in a god even though I don't.

Does being a child somehow exclude you of the consequences?
No, it excludes the idea that they knowingly placed themselves in harms way.

To borrow from Terry Pratchett, you don't need to stand on a hilltop wearing wet copper armour shouting 'all gods are bastards' to be struck down by nature. It only takes life, and never gives it back.
Stop personifying nature. It's not a being. It's not knowing.
It doesn't 'take' anything.

How many times do I have to drill the fact that Adam and Eve had a meaure of right and wrong: they had God's discernment at their disposal.
So? They had the devils too. They obviously didn't understand they ramifications of their actions otherwise they wouldn't have done it. I still don't get why god can't accept us as we are. When we "get into heaven" we aren't perfect- god can't change this. Indeed if god is half the god he is supposed to be he would understand that adam and eve shouldn't be blamed for what happened- they can't possibly have known what they were doing. Therefore they shouldn't be condemned, resulting in the elimination of 'inherited sin', resulting in god butchering jesus for no apparent reason.

Your objection comes down to that it wasn't internalized (as if that's the only valid form of knowledge)
That's the only way you can understand something!!! If someone tells me something and I don't internalise that knowledge I don't understand it. Why are adam and eve exempt from this?

but it was the very internalization of such knowledge that was undesirable in the first place.
What knowledge? They can't have understood what was going to happen, nor did they have the absolute command of god to stop them doing it. What they did they can't be blamed for because god built adam and eve insufficiently enough to sustain them in eden without 'sinning'.

They drove over themselves - they shot themselves in the foot
They didn't know what they were doing, from a point of view where you can 'save' them from the consequences of their actions you would because you would know that they have hurt themselves when they didn't want to.

exactly like people are still doing when they ignore God.
Man, you just don't get it do you? I'm not ignoring anything. I was brought up not knowing. By suddenly being introduced to something I have never had the concept of before how exactly am I ignoring it? Ignoring it would indicate that there was something there to ignore. But never when I was growing up did I perceive anything to ignore. Only people who have grown up with god have told me I'm ignoring something, but that's their point of view and not true.

You know the difference between right and wrong, but I'm sure you also only follow it up to a point that's convenient to you
Fortunately I'm more moralistic than the people you hang out with. Just a month ago I apologised to someone I hardly knew because of something rather innocuous that happened about 4 years ago. I apologised because I had always felt bad about it ever since. It made me feel better apologising. In fact, I've always had an awareness of right and wrong, uncommon among children, I used to befriend and defend those who got picked on. I follow my morals. If I do something that breaks these morals I feel bad and I do something to right the situation. Luckily I don't break these morals otherwise I would have one big, guilty, conscience.

Doesn't that make a mockery of the concept?
No, my concept is quite intact. christians professing to be tolerant et al has always seemed to me to be a mockery of the concept of christianity as they always fall far short of the characteristics they profess having while acting in a completely contradictory way. That's one of the greatest things I don't like about christians.

Would you hesitate lying if there was clear gain and no chance of being found out?
Yes. I would hesitate. I probably wouldn't lie. If however it meant I gained a large sum of money through a lottery draw I would lie. Because then I could use it for the rest of my life to help others (as long as lying to get the money didn't hurt anyone in the process).

If not, what stops you? Your conscience? God is greater than your conscience - if it can condemn you, how much more couldn't God?
My conscience doesn't condemn me. It's a part of me. It guides my actions by my understanding of right and wrong. Why should god condemn me? I am not perfect nor do I pretend to be. I try and live my life by how I would like others to treat me and I live with respect for this earth. More people should.

That doesn't take us out of a cursed world, because it is still just a creation, and there are still people who live in sin.
Your view of this world is so bad. Cursed? This world seems far more than you deserve if you think it is cursed. And everyone lives in sin. We aren't perfect. We don't know the explicit will of your god. If we did there would be no ambiguity over the bible.

It's sin that condemns us - the serpent was condemned, and he became our accuser (satan). If the one who is condemned has any evidence on you, then in all fairness you should be condemned with him. Only God can save you. Things haven't changed since Eden. Everybody's pointing fingers but no-one accepts responsibility. And that will be their downfall.
I'm sorry but I find this point of view repulsive. Only something perfect would be sinless by your belief. We are not perfect. Your god supposedly is. he should be able to accept us as we are. How can you accept the blame for a crime you haven't committed? How can you be blamed when you have been absolved of condemnation? I take responsibility for my bad actions. adam and eve never acted against god's wishes. he gave them advice on what not to do. What am I missing that I can't see your point of view? What are you missing that you can't see my point of view?

You propose that you're more competent than Adam and Eve (having the knowledge that they had to gain "the hard way") - prove it. Prove that you can resist sin and temptation now that you know it's seriousness, now that you know both good and evil.
How can I when I'm not perfect? When circumstances are out of my hands? I am more competent than adam and eve because I wouldn't have made the choice they did. But given that they didn't know the results of their actions; what can I blame them for doing?

The conflict between the Creator and his creation made you doubt Him?
Man you just completely don't get it! I have never doubted the creator because I've never had him to doubt! Why can't you understand this?!

Doesn't that prove that there's a problem? Doesn't that rather support the case for sin, and our state of need?
I believe there is a problem with your belief by the definition of your own belief. I think we need to help each other before we start worrying about our own needs.

What do you say now that you have found the Creator of your life?
SEE!!! You just DON'T, at all, GET IT!!! Nothing I seem to say to you can make you understand. Understand that I was brought up without ANY knowledge of ANY religion. How am I supposed to know about something when I know NOTHING about something. It never occurred to me to look for religion because I lived happily without it. It never occurred to me that religion EXISTED because nothing in the world I lived in indicated OTHERWISE.

Still nothing to hold on to, even while He wants to pull you out of the way of the oncoming traffic? You've been facing the traffic all your life,
No. You can't possibly make that statement. I have everything to hold onto. And stop using the analogy because you seemed to have missed the point of the analogy to.

evident to you that it couldn't come from God
I have NO concept of god. YOU DON'T GET IT. When I was growing up and didn't know anything about god or religion I didn't think, 'oh there is a god', because I DIDN'T KNOW. There was NOTHING to TELL ME OTHERWISE.

but if dodging it has led you next to Him, what prevents you from accepting His protection?
The hypocrisy of christians. The hypocrisy of christianity. The narrow minded god and his narrow minded actions represented by the bible. The bible. The World around me. The Universe around me. Nature. Growing up without knowing something when I'm told there is an innate belief to believe in something yet never arriving at this conclusion by myself.

Isn't your condemnation deserved, as Paul would say, for persisting in sin and letting go of your only salvation?
Didn't paul believe the world was going to end during his life time?
Sorry, I was being facetious.

It's you who don't realize what it is that perfection requires. Even Jesus "was made perfect" through suffering during his lifetime, and said: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9). Perfection is only realized within a relationship with God - He never intended to bestow it upon us as an independent quality, because that would be less than perfect.
That is perfection by your definition only. Why is suffering the magic key here? Why not bringing joy instead? Why is your god such a bastard?
We can never be perfect. A relationship with your god doesn't change our flaws and therefore our sins. Besides, who wants to be perfect? You'd never have any fun.

"By letting hell exist"? Should God have pardoned the serpent and told us "very well, continue", even though hell is simply our undoing. It's what happens when a creation returns to the state from which he was created - but without God.
Don't worry, you don't get it.

To put it another way: when nothing existed everything was equally hell and heaven. The fact that there is a difference between God and not-God neccessitates other differentiations, such as good and evil. Existence is just the same polarization between nothing and something.
Your god is everything. he made everything. he knows everything. he can stop hell from existing. he knows good and he knows bad. What it seems to me he doesn't know is justice and judgement. I've been trying to convey this but plain words seem the only way to tell you that I don't believe your god to be the god the bible claims him to be because time and again he shows flawed perceptions of justice and therefore passes flawed judgement. adam and eve aren't shown any compassion by an all powerful god who created them with the innate ability to sin. It seems to humans aren't the only ones who can't 'accept responsibility'.
All that you have listed is from human perception. Even then not. You are making statements on something we can't be absolutely sure about (or even sure for that matter) so excuse me from being sceptical of your ideas.

Death or Hell is not a choice, life is.
Life is not a choice whereas death can be.


but our deaths will be due to our own decision
No, death occurs because your body's cells are not reproducing at a rate equal to the rate of cell death. Your body stops effectively renewing itself after the age of 24. You die because your body eventually cannot sustain itself. I can't believe you don't believe this. Biological matter dies.

Oh, is there? Have you ever experienced death to know?
So when your body stops sustaining itself and decays to the point where it dies, that is the same hell which is eternal suffering. Just retarded.

I suggest you look at the means, modes and manifestations of death again. You have an abundance of clues to work it out from.
Yes, apparently you don't need real life observations to come to your own conclusions that satisfy your own beliefs. How does it make you feel that I have never had to look at or justify anything I have believed in my life? While you need to justify your own beliefs, so you come up with anything that helps you believe, no partial observations. Look at all the assumptions you have made about me in just one post alone. All the assumptions about things that clearly contradict the universe we live in.

Even a so-called peaceful death is no match for a vibrant youth. Talk about boring.
I don't know how you draw this out of my post, or where you think I compare youth and death. Talk about boring? Talk about clinging to a belief that you were raised with that is so much of who you are you can't observe this world without any preconceived ideas about it. I am thankful I am not like you.

a

 

Atheroy, I'm not going to reply to your post at length (mainly because of its length). First of all, I was responding to Tiassa's post when I said God didn't lie, but I thought it was relevant to your post as well.

Since you profess to have no knowledge of religion, I don't know why we're even having this discussion. You seem to say you're not rejecting anything because you have never accepted anything. That might be convenient, but it makes any discussion about Christianity superfluous, because you've already decided the outcome.

You willingly follow your conscience, even though you have no idea where it comes from, why it operates against principles of nature (such as siding with the "weak" - people being picked on), or what it's function is, except to make you feel better about yourself. A guilty conscience is one that accuses you (i.e., it says you're guilty) and a clear conscience means you are acting within certain parameters. Where did these parameters come from and why do they make you feel more human - more "perfect"? It's a form of faith, whether you admit it or not. You have no evidence that it will get you anywhere, or that it even exists, yet you still live by it.