Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
I know, I wasn't trying to make a valid argument. Just one with the appearance of validity, it was meant to be illustrative of what a moral argument might look like.You have the conclusion in the premise.
Before disobeying, Adam and Eve were in friendship with God and, in their innocence, nakedness was not shameful. At the moment of disobeying, they lost innocence and, being ashamed of their sin, also became aware of their nakedness. And they hid.Well it's self evident or it isn't. If it's morally self evident....why would they need to eat the fruit to understand that they're naked?
The story seems to be suggesting either God wasn't perfectly clear about the fruit....or perhaps the fruit was some other understanding....sentience itself perhaps.
They knew that God forbade touching or eating the fruit from that tree, and they understood His command. On willfully disobeying God, they came to know evil. Shame and guilt are not synonyms; a sense of shame (they hid) precedes the sense of guilt (awareness of one's evil act). Parents, at least this parent, understand a somewhat similar process in their children.It appears logically contradictory. Did they understand good and evil before they ate the fruit or not?
Still looking for your own backyard resurrection?Well I don't know who you're hanging out with....but God hasn't popped out of the bushes around my house anytime I've been alive.
Seems a bit muddled to me. There is no evil in understanding morality, right? The evil is in knowing and willfully disobeying. For that evil act, we ought to seek atonement.This original sin of understanding morality is what they are atoning for, is it not?
Surely it's not disobeying God. We all do that in far worse ways.
? The story does not indicate any misunderstanding of the command.Exactly. That way they can understand them....before they risk any transgression and the consequences of our judgment. The explanation has to be understood. Sometimes it's difficult for a young child....or someone who doesn't speak the language...right?
Again, they understood. Good behavior subsists in keeping the commandment, bad behavior, in not keeping the commandment.To do so willfully requires that understanding. You're not merely suggesting a course of action as advice....you're describing a relational expectation in behavior. It's not, for example, a suggestion because the fruit is bitter and unpleasant. It's an explanation of acceptable and forbidden....good and bad....because of where they are and who makes the rules....right? Indeed....which seems rather unjust without any understanding.
No, they were not ignorant as they understood the command, ie., the moral or good behavior prescribed (or proscribed, if you wish to see it that way),Yet still ignorant of morality?
(It appears you double posted a response, right? I'll respond to what looks new in the second reply.)Well hold on there partner....let's consider this part...
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
[2] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
[3] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
[4] And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
[5] For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
The serpent says the tree will give them knowledge that God has. God says that if they eat the fruit they will die.
Who told the truth here?
Eating the fruit didn't kill them. Eating the fruit gave them "knowledge" or understanding of good and evil.
The serpent appears to be honest....God appears to be lying.
If we are indeed filled with sin and love lying and dislike honesty (especially that which is undesirable) it makes sense that God would lie to us as we are made in his image.
We simply shouldn't believe every word of an evil lying God. He's clearly trying to cover his own tracks in this story.
How else can you explain this next part.....
And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
[10] And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
[11] And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Is that an all knowing God pretending to not know what happened, who did it, and where they are???
Clearly an act.
(Missed these comments in your second post.)How does that work again? You gotta refresh my heathen ears...they haven't read the story in a while. God shows up as Jesus, reminds us we're all scum, sacrifices a three day weekend before skipping back up to heaven?
1. Hard to see that as a sacrifice. I think my time is precious too...and while giving up three days may be a big deal to me, God is eternal isn't he? He's got all sorts of time.
2. *Almost forgot this* the nature of the sacrifice (temporary and easy) reflects the nature of nature of the salvation, doesn't it? A mere proclamation of faith isn't much to undo a life of evil.
As creatures that exist in the sequence of time, our language is handicapped in explaining the nature of a being outside time. However, an atheist mathematician, Pierre Simon La Place, came to understand that an intelligence outside time would have certain knowledge ... that were there an intelligence sufficiently vast to know the present distribution of all the physical particles of the universe and the magnitude of the forces among them, "nothing would be uncertain for [this intelligence], and the future, like the past, would be present to its eyes."You see how you used "before" in relationship with god creating the universe?
That doesn't really mean anything without a time before the universe.
Or in other words....
If time is indeed dependent upon the universe, there's no such thing as "before the universe".
Sorry, I'm in a weird mental place today.
Yeah, that works too.
The issue isn't perspective, it's about unjustified assumptions.
There is an objective truth, and if we dig deep enough there is a ground floor.
God cannot not exist, because existence is in His nature.
It's literally impossible, so the question isn't does God exist but what God is like.
This doesn't preclude science at all, it just means that if we're truly interested in what is objectively true we have to start at First Principles.
Science can never escape the subjective understanding of the most intelligent human being, or at least not much beyond that.
Reason can't take us to the promised land,
at least not from science, because it begins by settling for the universe as the thing that must be true rather than digging all the way to the thing that is true by definition.
Science settles for physical, but reality is deeper than that.
There is only one objective truth, and it's not the universe.
My issue isn't with science principally, but with the metaphysics of science..
Taken the universe as the foundational brute fact. Physical reality, but not reality proper.
You seem to have misunderstood what I was saying, because it's not whether you agree with a thought but reality as it exists in the abstract. The world of the mental, which is just as real as the physical substance of our bodies but physics must deny as truly real.
If we have to define observor and measurement in a way in which it no longer resembles our conception of these things we lose semantic coherence.
The truth that rests at the bottom of reality. Science promises to get to it, but it can't because science begins with an unjustiified assumption and then refuses to consider it's validity so long as it keeps producing physical facts.
Yeah, I suppose we could categorize truth in all sorts of ways.
So long as science assumes that physical is the foundation, it will never be able to approach objective truth.
God is the ground floor, and God is objective truth.
Sorry, I'm in a weird mental place today.
Yeah, that works too.
The issue isn't perspective, it's about unjustified assumptions. There is an objective truth, and if we dig deep enough there is a ground floor. God cannot not exist, because existence is in His nature. It's literally impossible, so the question isn't does God exist but what God is like. This doesn't preclude science at all, it just means that if we're truly interested in what is objectively true we have to start at First Principles.
Science can never escape the subjective understanding of the most intelligent human being, or at least not much beyond that. Reason can't take us to the promised land, at least not from science, because it begins by settling for the universe as the thing that must be true rather than digging all the way to the thing that is true by definition. Science settles for physical, but reality is deeper than that. There is only one objective truth, and it's not the universe.
My issue isn't with science principally, but with the metaphysics of science. Taken the universe as the foundational brute fact. Physical reality, but not reality proper.
You seem to have misunderstood what I was saying, because it's not whether you agree with a thought but reality as it exists in the abstract. The world of the mental, which is just as real as the physical substance of our bodies but physics must deny as truly real.
If we have to define observor and measurement in a way in which it no longer resembles our conception of these things we lose semantic coherence. Nobody understands what an observor without consciousness is, so how can we say that such a thing is possible? It's somethng that we have no real concept for, so it's not really explanatory. It's just words that are bound to lead to confusion.
God
Within which I move and breath and have my being. That reality is God.
Yep. The necessary truth that exists by its own necessity. God.
The truth that rests at the bottom of reality. Science promises to get to it, but it can't because science begins with an unjustiified assumption and then refuses to consider it's validity so long as it keeps producing physical facts. But all you'll ever get are physical facts until science gives up the idea that physical reality is the substrate. Science isn't approaching the truth, because it can never go deeper than it's opening assumption.
Yeah, I suppose we could categorize truth in all sorts of ways.
So long as science assumes that physical is the foundation, it will never be able to approach objective truth. God is the ground floor, and God is objective truth. Science is just the latest tower of Babel man has built in an attempt to get at Him. We're fast approaching the point where science will declare that man has no mind, and cut off its own legs. God is dead, man shortly followed.
....................................................... yes. "Our faith," assuming we're talking Christianity here, of course.
It's those "vice versa" issues that most annoy me......................that is, when I see them manifested cavalierly among "everyone else" without much of anything in the way of deep thought on the matter.
Then again, I don't expect everyone to be able to study Philosophy (i.e. ETHICS and other stuff) and achieve a significant degree of understanding and familiarity with the various substantive issues involved.
However, I do expect people to realize that my main axiom is true ................... "no one human knows everything," even where ETHICS is the main focus.
But by golly, I keep running into so many, many people who seem to eschew that axiom and claim that where morality and ethics is concerned, they somehow do indeed know, and they do so on what seem to me to be from such paltry epistemological grounds, too (those grounds referring often to some amorphous phenomenon called "common sense.")
Tsk, tsk!
If you don't know that what "God believes" or "Jesus believes" is good, then it's time to learn how this is the case, maybe?
I mean, for my part, I like to imagine you as a good person, Ana, on his way to eternal life in Christ, full of actual moral wisdom by which to alight upon a public forum and doll out what is much needed among the patrons.
Before disobeying, Adam and Eve were in friendship with God and, in their innocence, nakedness was not shameful. At the moment of disobeying, they lost innocence and, being ashamed of their sin, also became aware of their nakedness. And they hid.
God's command was clear, "‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.’” The snake tempts their pride and lies saying, “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know* good and evil.”
The story tells us that the sin of pride goes before the Fall.
They knew that God forbade touching or eating the fruit from that tree, and they understood His command.
On willfully disobeying God, they came to know evil.
Shame and guilt are not synonyms; a sense of shame (they hid) precedes the sense of guilt (awareness of one's evil act).
Parents, at least this parent, understand a somewhat similar process in their children.
Still looking for your own backyard resurrection?
Seems a bit muddled to me. There is no evil in understanding morality, right?
The evil is in knowing and willfully disobeying. For that evil act, we ought to seek atonement.
The simplicity of the story makes clear that they disobeyed, and they were culpable for their disobedience. Judging horrific sin in others would be more complicated
? The story does not indicate any misunderstanding of the command.
Again, they understood. Good behavior subsists in keeping the commandment, bad behavior, in not keeping the commandment.
It's a story. The instruction is sub-text.
- God is the authority.
- Mankind is subject to that authority.
- The commands are not punishments but rules to experience a good life, a life well-lived.
- If we disobey, the negative effects we experience are in this life.
No, they were not ignorant as they understood the command, ie., the moral or good behavior prescribed (or proscribed, if you wish to see it that way),
Well..............you did say "our faith," so I was sort of hoping you'd claim the possessive pronoun you actually wrote without the pejorative insinuation.I hadn't asked in awhile but I was pretty sure you're Christian
A lot MORE than is typically done. ..............but I get it. It's human nature for most people to think they DON'T need to thoroughly assess their justifications for holding the particular ethical position (among many that they're often not even aware of)..............than they do.Well how much thought need go into everyone else's opinion?
I think this conclusion of yours is a Fallacy of Composition, arguing incorrectly some smaller aspect or sample of a whole and then inferring that it applies to the whole. I wouldn't assume, though.I tend to think it's this position we make the majority our moral judgements from....less out of deep consideration, but more out of a byproducti of desire to be seen as good and fear of being judged by the group.
You think this because.................................................of your already chosen position of philosophy. You sound like a pragmatist, so it's no wonder that you'll cite someone like myself as having somehow complicated what you think is rather obvious and/or simple. Needless to say, I have problems with pragmatism, mainly because its praxis works off of principles that are too narrow and superficial to really qualify anything in a robust and meaningful way for what some people, like myself, care most about, which isn't "looking good in the eyes of the world."I think philosophy has unintentionally complicated an issue that inherently is difficult to approach because of it's relationship with emotions and judgement.
I think we need to firmly make a distinction between "mankind as it is" and humanity as Jesus intends for it to be.Mankind has slaughtered each other over moral issues. We've stripped cultures of traditions over moral issues.
Jesus isn't good in your estimation???? Really?The mere possibility of no objective good or factual good makes such actions....hard to accept.
Yes, and this is why the Christian Church, as it's suppose to be, advocates for moral education.Rather uncommon isn't it?
That's a loaded question, Ana. The ethical position that YOU think is prescriptive is the one that you will judge Him by, which leaves you open to being questioned about your own position. Unless, of course, you have some extra power by which to squelch anyone's attempts to scrutinize your own choice of ethics, of whatever sort they may be.Shall I judge him by his deeds or words?
I'll tell you a story....you won't like it...and I'll deliberately cut it off before it continues past the point of being boring.
Let's consider your great great great great ancestor. So many generations before you we cannot be certain he had any sophisticated vocal language. He made tools, he hunted, he loved, he fought, he procreated, he lived. Perhaps he had words....perhaps grunts and crude drawings were his limitations. His group, as were most, was small.
Since we come with some variety....perhaps it was him or a friend of his who got lost one day. Weather, disorientated, ill...or in search of water or food. He wandered far afield and was lost. He doesn't quit easily though....finally sees a campfire in the distance.....but pauses. It's the most horrifying and dangerous thing he's ever seen. An unknown group.
He is undoubtedly in need. Thirst and hunger and help to return home are his problems and they are not simple. If he has a language, he certainly doesn't share it with these hominids.
So how does he decide what to do? He's concealed for now....but he must flee or make contact. He watches and waits. He judges their behavior.
He judges how alike or unlike their behavior is to his own group. If similarly alike...perhaps he hatches a plan and gathers a gift he would find impressive. Perhaps he humbles himself and falls to his knees. Before he ever knows the word mercy he understood it and his need for it in that moment. Before he ever had a word for compassion he certainly would have felt it if he received it. If he saw they were dangerously different....or if they chased him off....he knew wrath and it's evil....without a word spoken between them of motive.
Obviously, once he either joins the new group or returns to the old....he must describe them. Perhaps a good people....perhaps a bad people....but certainly he would know by then. The words would come eventually....and later after much refinements and sophistication virtues would be described more carefully as well as evil....but morality was then as it is now, serving the same purpose, and negotiated by circumstances and individuals.
I would say it's inter-subjectively non-real and negotiated for the benefit of the group. Where disagreement lies within an individual and the group....he must guard his view carefully, trying to convince others only when prudent, or not at all. These are judgements of behavior, and they kept us alive long before we began to consider truth or logic. They cannot simply be abandoned now that we are more capable of reason....and should we do so....I think we'd no longer be human in the most meaningful sense of the word.
In the first instance, the knowledge of evil and the loss of innocence are simultaneous but not the same.The loss of innocence and acquisition of knowledge of good and evil are the same?
No, as I explained, doing so the snake was only being clever rather than truthful.Odd the snake spoke the truth....isn't it?
Sinful pride, as opposed to the virtue of humility, is an excessive love of one’s own perceived excellence that excludes or pushes God to the margins.It does seem rather proud. For a lone god....#1 doesn't seem possible but it's the worst one. If no other gods exist, we can skip on past #1.
As for 2...a simulacra is unpleasant to him. An image of a God. Yet...are we not made in the image of god? #1 is impossible without other gods... #2 is something God did himself......
#3. Keep his name holy. I don't know his name, yet, if I were commanded to do this...the simplest way would be to lie, and give a different name. That way none could misuse it.
In all cases...they seem rather proud commandments. Less about the risk of becoming profane ourselves but more about the risk of embarrassing him.
Whose knowledge -- the dog, your wife or you?My wife could, for example, tell me to walk the dog. I see no evil or good in it. Yet if one exists....it seems that to judge me according to it requires it's knowledge.
Focused on themselves? Adam named all the animals in the garden. If the garden is all one knows then gasping in awe would never occur to one.Note they didn't gasp in awe of the abundance of good all around them....but were focused on themselves.
Pride.
I still have to wonder though....what sort of sin lies in knowing good and evil?
Sound a bit like Satre with a novel twist.I'm choosing hell. Surely, my friends and loved ones will want my help there.
? We start off being the most selfish beings on the planet. "To heck with Mom's need for sleep, I'm hungry!"Ever noticed how on a playground....two little children who are friends will have each other's back....even if one knows the other acted immorally towards another?
We start off with loyalty to our friends as our highest good....even when they do evil to a stranger.
Yet it would seem God would prefer we be honest, and brave, and sacrifice that evil friend to a group that may be entirely indifferent to us.
Our fallen nature, yes. But that is not our created nature, only its aberration.I wonder if it really is. If our nature is sinful...it's no wonder our leaders lie to us, for we hate honesty. If we are proud....then it brings us envy to see someone with the virtues we lack. We love to watch them fall to the judgement of the group. We enjoy learning their sins which they hid from us and pretended to not have. It comes as a sort of catharsis.....a reassurance of what we really are.....in spite our constant denial.
If your wife created you and provided every good thing for you then you ought to walk that dog.Consider the dog example. I can obey or disobey....but as for being judged evil....that's another matter.
Do you not sense a need to obtain forgiveness from others as well if your act transgressed their rights?And what removes the shame and feelings of guilt but forgiveness?
If sin is the nature of mankind it certainly makes sense that your salvation lies in forgiveness.
As an atheist...I have no choice but to forgive myself. Typically this is done every day, right upon waking. If however, I'm particularly evil....I try to forgive myself immediately upon moral transgression.
We can leave out the beasts since morality can only apply to creatures that have both reason and free will.Well understanding morality was the consequence of the fruit.
It appears God intended us to hold the morals of all his other animals. However you prefer to state it....the law of the jungle.
We only had a chance to choose better once the fruit was eaten.
The fallible reason of man allows for right reasoning and wrong reasoning. Right reason cannot conflict with correct moral judgments. And we always choose the apparent good, we cannot do otherwise. But the apparent good is not aways the real good.Then it wasn't knowledge of good and evil gained by eating the fruit. Perhaps it was rationality. This conflicts with moral judgements all the time.
In fact, the struggle between these two can convince us to do evil in place of good...can't it?
Maturity changes one's perspective.I'm just saying....there's a difference in the reading of the passage if you do it the first time around 19-20. You probably heard it so young you don't recall the first time.
Well, for starters, I don't think the garden story is a "sticky wicket".If you think that's a sticky wicket....imagine the problem with Cain and Abel. God plays favorites and you see that he considers blood to be a proper sacrifice. It's in Abel's sacrifice. It's in Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. It's in Jesus's sacrifice of himself. I don't know why the plate gets passed around for cash when God clearly wants blood.
After all, what is Cain's curse for sacrificing (I mean murdering of course) his brother? He's marked in some way that all fear to murder him? He need not be afraid of murder ever again? Then he has a big family?
A person who is all alone, for instance, in an isolated sheep camp can feel fear, anger, and make mistakes because of impatience or a combination of those sins, perhaps abusing or misusing a horse in the grip of that sinful state or take the anger and despair out by kicking the dog, not being a good shephard.less out of deep consideration, but more out of a byproducti of desire to be seen as good and fear of being judged by the group.
Then he has a big family?
If God wanted blood then why did He mark Cain to protect him from being the victim of his own evil act? Answer: God loves Cain.
Odd the snake spoke the truth....isn't it?
(It appears you double posted a response, right? I'll respond to what looks new in the second reply.)
The serpent, a liar -- as do most liars -- threads a bit of truth (knowledge of good and evil) in the lie to make the lie more believable.
Where in the story do you come to conclude that, "... we are indeed filled with sin and love lying and dislike honesty ... We simply shouldn't believe every word of an evil lying God. He's clearly trying to cover his own tracks in this story"?
"Is that an all knowing God pretending to not know what happened, who did it, and where they are???" No, we call that a kind of exchange a Socratic questioning.
Perhaps,
"
It is wrong to say Cain's offering was rejected because there was no blood shed. That would be very unfair given that he was a vegetable farmer.
The reason why it was rejected is given in Hebrews 11: 4, "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks." NKJV.
Cain didn't have faith and was merely going through motions.
Furthermore, the LORD Jesus Christ expanded the definition of murder. He said being angry without a cause constitutes murder.
What He's saying is that the thought of sin grows into committing the ac of that sin if you do not root it out at the thought level. See how this is consistent with God's warning to Cain.
"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
Genesis 4:7 NKJV
A person who is all alone, for instance, in an isolated sheep camp can feel fear, anger, and make mistakes because of impatience or a combination of those sins, perhaps abusing or misusing a horse
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?