Adam and Eve incorrectly blamed?

[Infinity's Dice]

arghhhhh.

what i'm trying to say is when you speak or your own mind ,that is what you speak of.

I'm with you so far.

Where do you get you ideas from? It's all from the world and from other men.

How can you trust anyone when you know they all lie.

First, you’re contradicting Christian dogma here, as Christ was supposed to have never lied, and though all people are sinful, there are, I believe other people in the bible that were supposed to have never lied as well. Therefore you are incorrect in saying “How can you trust anyone when you know they all lie,” because this is an inaccurate and misleading generalization. In other words, you lie.



Second, though people lie, we can generally discern if they are lying or not through the application of reason and logic. If you merely had faith in a person, irregardless of whatever evidence might come up, you might be judged as being naïve and foolish. Alternatively, if you have no faith in anything that anyone says, you would have no capacity to “know” much of anything. No man is an island, and all persons have only a very limited capacity to come up with anything new and useful, we are all products of the culture in which we are enmeshed. The vast majority of what we are is culturally determined.



The bible is a product of culture as much as anything, even assuming is was the direct inspiration of an omnipotent being. No part of the bible is thought to have been written directly by God. All parts were necessarily written by human hands, with human intentions, and human prejudices. There are many verses within the bible that would seemingly bear this point out – verses that made a perfect sort of sense in the time in which they were written, but verses which are abhorrent to our modern eyes.

what i'm saying is Gods word is the truth.

Prove it.

have you tried reading it?is it not true?

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.”

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Yes, let’s start stoning stubborn and rebellious sons, let’s never eat pork, nor ever let the abomination of shellfish pass through our lips.

hard to understand yes ,but you only learn to understand it when you stop listen to your own mind ,which is influenced by society .

Stop listening to my own mind. Stop thinking, in other words. Frontal lobotomies for Jesus!

and start listening to Gods word which is truth.

Again, how do you tell what’s God’s truth and what isn’t? How do you distinguish between the two?

how do you know this ,you know it by believing it ,you repent all to Christ first.

then you are capable of things you never knew before.

Ahh… I see. “Magic.”

i know the bible does seem to contridict itself ,at first ,but when you truly read it you get understanding ,which only really comes from God.

i can't teach you to be a Christian ,i can tell you what you have to do ,but you have to do the rest.

Understanding comes from God, eh? So all those gosh-darned atheist scientists don’t understand anything?



If understanding comes only from God, why are there a thousands sects of Christianity in the United States alone, with many of them being mutually exclusive?

being a Christian is not what you know ,but what you want to know ,it's not what you are now ,but what you want to be .

So far, I’m not very impressed with what I see.

you have to want to give up this life and serve God .

i think now that those who don't believe are ignorant ,i don't mean this to sound rude ,i'm just trying to explain.i can 't blame anyone for i was once the same.

i want to explain ,but you have to want to beleive.

I wouldn’t mind believing in a god, I just want a rational reason to believe first. I’ve never run into a fully rational reason to believe that a god exists, let alone a reason to believe in such a god.



If you want me to believe, give me a good reason to believe.

i don't deserve Gods love any more than you do ,i am no better than you ,that's why it's so important for Christians to try to make others believe.

It’s important to make others believe in Christ because we are all equal in God’s eyes? Or did I mistranslate here?

we were once ignorant of Christ ,so know how easy it is to not believe and also know how hard it is to believe.

I’m not ignorant of Christ, I merely don’t believe that, if he existed, that he was the Son of God. I find it hard to believe that an all-powerful being would have to send himself to kill himself to save the people he created from a punishment that he’s responsible for putting there in the first place.

we can only try to make you understand the best we can.

We are Borg of Christ. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

(Sorry, cheap dig, I know. Couldn’t resist.)

but you have the most important choice to be made.

Believe the literally unbelievable, or not don’t believe the unbelievable. Hmmm…

i will keep on trying to explain the best i can ,but you still have to repent of yourself ,i can't do that for you of force you.

Still haven’t explained how you differentiate between God’s true word and something concocted by the devil.



In reason,



Josh.

 

[Crazy Liz]

I agree that many people will try and pass blame along, in order to avoid responsibility for their own actions. I agree that this is a genuine problem in the world today. However, and I hate to open this can of worms again, but this is this particular thread's topic--

How can a person be responsible for his or her actions if:

a) they are unaware of the difference between right and wrong, and

b) they are unaware of the meaningfulness of the consequences of their actions?

In reason,
Josh

This is why I don't think the story is really about punishment and blame. It is about why the human condition is as it is. Did God make it by accident, as claimed by the competing myths of most of the surrounding cultures at the time of Abraham? Was the world created by some malicious evil force? Genesis says no. God created the world in a way God thought was good. Humans were innocent and naive. Yet they were deceived and fell into sin.

Developmentally, I think each one of us, reflecting on our own childhood or watching our children, can see the same pattern. Humans first fall into sin out of naivete. By the time they realize how bad it is, they are trapped and can't "undo" things and make everything right again. We live in a world where evil exist and we can't always avoid it. God says, "This is a catastrophe, and as a result, life will get harder. But I still love you (provides clothes) and although there will be real consequences, including real suffering, that will result frm this catastrophe, I have a plan to make right in the end what you can't undo."

IOW, I don't see God punishing Adam and Eve, but simply telling them a little of the results that will come as a result of knowing good and evil.

Our first parents are responsible as I would be if I set some harmful chain of events in motion without realizing it. There are bad consequences and there is responsibility, but not punishment or blame. Just having to live with the consequences. That's how I read the story.

 

[Infinity's Dice]

Thanks for the well-worded post. You apparently put some thought into it, unlike some people.



If God wasn't punishing man, why does he say to Eve,



"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."



and to Adam



""Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life. It will produce
thorns and thistles for you... By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food until you return to the ground"



How does it follow that eating an apple (or any type of fruit) would naturally follow in these things?



If a kid's told not to play out in the street, it might naturally follow that he or she might have an encounter with a car if he or she disobeys. The car's not punishing the kid, cars just tend to drive on streets. Streets are dangerous places because of cars.



If a kid is told not to play with the stove and the kid ignores the instructions from the parents, he might be burnt by it. This isn't the stove punishing the kid, it just naturally follows that stoves, improperly used, burn people.



If God's the parent, and Adam and Eve were like children, why doesn't God take parental measures in preventing Adam and Eve from eating the fruit, if he doesn't want them to eat from it?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Thanks for the well-worded post. You apparently put some thought into it, unlike some people.

Awww shucks...

How does it follow that eating an apple (or any type of fruit) would naturally follow in these things?

I'm not sure, but I think it has more to do with acquiring the knowledge of good and evil than it has to do with eating fruit per se.

There was also the tree of life, which they were excluded from the garden to stop them from eating. Perhaps some of these consequences would flow from being excluded from the garden and from the tree of life.

There is a lot of speculation about the nature of the tree of life, but based in part on its description in Revelation 22, some theologians think the humans were not immortal, but had free access to this tree for healing all injuries, diseases and pain. I'm not sure. I just think the story plays out more as a catastrophe than as a punishment. It then seems like God looks at the possibility them continuing to live in the garden with access to the tree of life, and sees something terrible that would result if they were able to live forever in their current state. It's now a dilemma for God: Let them live forever in this state or exclude them from the garden where they will have to work hard and have pain in childbirth. God now has to make a choice.

...maybe?

I haven't worked it all out. I just see punishment as not the only possibility. I also see a parallel between the story interpreted this way and our common experience in human development. With the knowledge of good and evil comes the realization that we are trapped on the evil side, and can't make everything good again. We've already spoiled our perfect record before we realized what we were doing. Now what?

If a kid's told not to play out in the street, it might naturally follow that he or she might have an encounter with a car if he or she disobeys. The car's not punishing the kid, cars just tend to drive on streets. Streets are dangerous places because of cars.

If a kid is told not to play with the stove and the kid ignores the instructions from the parents, he might be burnt by it. This isn't the stove punishing the kid, it just naturally follows that stoves, improperly used, burn people.

If God's the parent, and Adam and Eve were like children, why doesn't God take parental measures in preventing Adam and Eve from eating the fruit, if he doesn't want them to eat from it?

Another good question. Do you think maybe God does want them to eat from it? Or is it inconceivable to think that God has some ambivalence about it, just like human parents have some ambivalence about our children growing up and making their own mistakes?

 

[Infinity's Dice]

Another well-put post. Thank you again.

How does the acquisition of the knowledge put Adam and Eve into a greater danger than they were already in? In my experience, knowledge generally decreases danger rather than increasing it – with some notable exceptions – the Pandora’s Box of ever-changing and ever-more powerful weaponry might be a counterexample.

But we’re not discussing a knowledge of how to build a more dangerous bomb, but rather a knowledge of good and evil. Why would it be dangerous to be aware of good and evil? Or perhaps the knowledge of how to commit evil is inherent in knowing the difference between the two.

If so, why provide the tree?

Maybe God wanted us to argue over the matter until we get tired of the issue, or alternatively, we learn something about the nature of morality.

There was also the tree of life, which they were excluded from the garden to stop them from eating. Perhaps some of these consequences would flow from being excluded from the garden and from the tree of life.

There is a lot of speculation about the nature of the tree of life, but based in part on its description in Revelation 22, some theologians think the humans were not immortal, but had free access to this tree for healing all injuries, diseases and pain.



I'm not sure. I just think the story plays out more as a catastrophe than as a punishment. It then seems like God looks at the possibility them continuing to live in the garden with access to the tree of life, and sees something terrible that would result if they were able to live forever in their current state.

Could be.



Thomas Malthus, a mathematician who lived in the seventeenth century, noted that all living things reproduce far more often than what is necessary for the mere continuation of the species. That, if the species were to reproduce as much as they liked, and if all progeny were to survive to reproduce in their turn, the earth would be overrun very quickly with the results.



It’s been calculated that, if elephants breed at 30 years to 100 years, with each female producing but 6 young in her lifetime, in 750 years about 19,000,000 elephants would be alive. Elephants have one of the longest gestation periods of all vertebrates.



If a side effect of eating the fruit were the capacity to reproduce, then further access to the tree of life would have been catastrophic. But this is just, of course, speculation.

I haven't worked it all out. I just see punishment as not the only possibility. I also see a parallel between the story interpreted this way and our common experience in human development. With the knowledge of good and evil comes the realization that we are trapped on the evil side, and can't make everything good again. We've already spoiled our perfect record before we realized what we were doing. Now what?

Are you interpreting the creation account as a metaphor for a transition in human development? If so, congratulations, as you have evidently graduated to the next level.

Another good question. Do you think maybe God does want them to eat from it?

Could be. It seems very plausible at least, given the context of the story.

Or is it inconceivable to think that God has some ambivalence about it, just like human parents have some ambivalence about our children growing up and making their own mistakes?

Forgive me if I’m making a presumptuous assumption, but does this mean that you think that God might not be all-powerful, or at least not omniscient?



Ambivalence is the child of uncertainty. I don’t think God would not feel ambivalent towards a decision his creation makes, if he were all-knowing. Of course, the way I think of it, no perfect deity would need emotions – emotions result from a need to change. God, being perfect, would only make himself less perfect in changing, so I assume he would be changeless.

 

[Crazy Liz]

Are you interpreting the creation account as a metaphor for a transition in human development? If so, congratulations, as you have evidently graduated to the next level.

Thank you

Forgive me if I’m making a presumptuous assumption, but does this mean that you think that God might not be all-powerful, or at least not omniscient?

Ambivalence is the child of uncertainty. I don’t think God would not feel ambivalent towards a decision his creation makes, if he were all-knowing. Of course, the way I think of it, no perfect deity would need emotions – emotions result from a need to change. God, being perfect, would only make himself less perfect in changing, so I assume he would be changeless.

Did you mean to use a double negative in your second sentence above? On first reading I thought you meant what you said - that God would naturally feel ambivalent toward a decision made by God's creation. But I think perhaps the double negative was unintentional, and you are taking the classical theist position that God's omniscience would negate any such possibility.

Classical theism assumes that changelessness and lack of emotions - impassability - is an attribute of God. I'm quite sure this aspect of classical theism is not supported by the Bible. Oops! Did I just confess I'm not a classical theist?

The God revealed in the Bible has feelings and emotions.

 

[secretdawn]

How were they to know which was the correct one and which was the deciever? Since, as I still feel they did not know good and evil, since it makes no refrences to good/evil judgement. Who would you believe? Some guy who comes down from the sky or a talking snake? They're both equally weird to someone with childlike innocence. Children can be conned into being abducted by people, because they're innocent. Does that make it the child's fault for what happens?

A child does not know the difference between good and evil anymore than Adam and Eve did, but they know to listen to their parent. God said no and they defied Him.

 

[Infinity's Dice]

Forgive me if I’m making a presumptuous assumption, but does this mean that you think that God might not be all-powerful, or at least not omniscient?

Did you mean to use a double negative in your ... sentence above?

I don't see a double-negative. A double - negative negates a point, "I didn't see no double-negative" would mean "I see a double - negative". Something like what happens when you subtract a negative number -- the negatives cancel out.



You appear to think God might feel ambivalent towards his creation making decisions for themselves. I was trying to ask if this would necessarily imply that God either might not know everything the future may hold, and/or God might not be all-powerful.

On first reading I thought you meant what you said - that God would naturally feel ambivalent toward a decision made by God's creation. But I think perhaps the double negative was unintentional, and you are taking the classical theist position that God's omniscience would negate any such possibility.

May I assume that you mean "atheist" instead of theist in your quote above?



I'm aware of the atheistic argument that omniscience and omnipotence would be mutually exclusive categories for a being to have, but I wasn't trying to use that argument. I was asking if the emotion of "ambivalence" would require the being experiencing that emotion to either lack complete knowledge (A human might feel ambivalence towards going white-water-rafting with his or her buddies, because they don't know for sure that everyone will make it through alive), or complete power (In the same situation, the person might be ambivalent because if something does go wrong, if someone dies, they don't have the power to return that person to life, for example).

Classical theism assumes that changelessness and lack of emotions - impassability - is an attribute of God. I'm quite sure this aspect of classical theism is not supported by the Bible. Oops! Did I just confess I'm not a classical theist?

Excellent. I disagree with the idea of "classical theism," but use it often in my metaphors, because it is a dominant religious paradigm, and because it is relatively stable and known.



In what ways are you a non-classical theist?

The God revealed in the Bible has feelings and emotions.

Why does God have emotions? Of what use are emotions to God?

 

[Crazy Liz]

You appear to think God might feel ambivalent towards his creation making decisions for themselves. I was trying to ask if this would necessarily imply that God either might not know everything the future may hold, and/or God might not be all-powerful.

...
I was asking if the emotion of "ambivalence" would require the being experiencing that emotion to either lack complete knowledge (A human might feel ambivalence towards going white-water-rafting with his or her buddies, because they don't know for sure that everyone will make it through alive), or complete power (In the same situation, the person might be ambivalent because if something does go wrong, if someone dies, they don't have the power to return that person to life, for example).

Are you a parent? As a parent, I have sometimes allowed my children to do things when they were young, even though I knew they would be hurt (emotionally or physically) by the results and knew that I had the power to stop them. In these situations, I thought they needed to learn something experientially. However, I felt ambivalent about it. I wanted them to learn, but I didn't want them to get hurt.

Excellent. I disagree with the idea of "classical theism," but use it often in my metaphors, because it is a dominant religious paradigm, and because it is relatively stable and known.

In what ways are you a non-classical theist?

Why does God have emotions? Of what use are emotions to God?

This question is posed in the manner of classical theism. One reasons what perfection (or some other abstract concept of "godness") would be like, then reasons what would be essential or necessary to that concept. Very Aristotelian.

The Judeo-Christian perspective, though, is rather based on revelation. How has God revealed God's self? We do not reason from our own abstractions, but from revelation. Therefore, in trying to determine whether God has emotions, it does not matter of what use emotions are to God. What matters is that God has been revealed to humans as an emotional being. If you read the Old Testament, you will find many, many references to God's emotions. You will also find many, many more references to God changing God's mind than the 2 or 3 that indicate God is unchanging. This is why I am not a classical theist.

From a Judeo-Christian perspective, I see no reason for an emotional God not to feel emotions similar to those experienced by a parent who allows a child to make a mistake as a learning experience.

 

[First Echelon]

Adam and Eve had to fall.

Without their fall, we would not exist.

It was written to be definitive, andit is.

 

[Philosoft]

Adam and Eve had to fall.

Without their fall, we would not exist.

It was written to be definitive, andit is.

Well, that's not remotely demonstrable. What appears to be true is that, without the Fall, Jesus' very existence is unnecessary. I'm sure metaphorical interpretations of the Fall exist, but it still must be true in some capacity that we needed someone to pay for our sins (however that works), so such interpretations should be too metaphorical, lest Jesus also slip into metaphor-land thereby.

 

[First Echelon]

It is not that Jesus' life was unneccessary, it is only a statement of progression.

If Adam and Eve never fell from purity, then the contention of good and evil would never have come into being.

 

[Philosoft]

It is not that Jesus' life was unneccessary, it is only a statement of progression.

Progression from less sin to more?

If Adam and Eve never fell from purity, then the contention of good and evil would never have come into being.

Nonsense. God could create beings in any state he wanted.

 

[First Echelon]

Progression from no sin in human-kind to their inherent impurity.

But God did not.

Again, Adam and Eve is definition of the reality vis a vis strife between good and evil.

 

[Philosoft]

Progression from no sin in human-kind to their inherent impurity.

See, that's my point. Without a Fall, there's nothing to be saved from.

But God did not.

God did not what?

Again, Adam and Eve is definition of the reality vis a vis strife between good and evil.

If you say so.

 

[Ferahgo-Under-God]

Philosoft, the problem is, without a fall there would be nothing to be saved from, so no, Jesus would not of existed as he did. However, if Adam and Eve had not fallen, the world would be different in its entirety, not a single situation/lifespan.

WE would still be here, as the human race would still grow (that is what we where created for) but instead we would not have the concept of heaven or hell, as we would all be born directly into heaven, a world with no sin.

 

[Philosoft]

Philosoft, the problem is, without a fall there would be nothing to be saved from, so no, Jesus would not of existed as he did. However, if Adam and Eve had not fallen, the world would be different in its entirety, not a single situation/lifespan.

Right, as per a literal interpretation, that seems correct. However, a literal Adam & Eve is a difficult concept to square with modern science, hence the metaphor apologetics.

WE would still be here, as the human race would still grow (that is what we where created for) but instead we would not have the concept of heaven or hell, as we would all be born directly into heaven, a world with no sin.

Wouldn't that have been nice?

 

[First Echelon]

Thank you for the clarification Philosopht as that is precisely what I meant.

I understand that the Bible can be interpreted in many ways (although others seem to struggle with this).

If we are to understand the nuances of the Bible, we must first take into account the literal meaning.

 

[Ferahgo-Under-God]

Right, as per a literal interpretation, that seems correct. However, a literal Adam & Eve is a difficult concept to square with modern science

How is that difficult to square with modern science, even the evolutionist theory has to aquire a literal Adam and Eve, we did not spring up as a race all over the world, we spread from 1 point of origin.

 

[Philosoft]

How is that difficult to square with modern science, even the evolutionist theory has to aquire a literal Adam and Eve, we did not spring up as a race all over the world, we spread from 1 point of origin.

There's still much in question about the "Mitochondrial Eve" lineage. In any case, hominids represent a relatively long, tremendously adaptive line. Given a sufficiently rich series of transitionals, it would be impossible to discern a precise point at which some hominids became human.