What does in God’s image mean? He created Adam & Eve without a moral sense.
Posted on: March 31, 2012 - 4:00pm
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What does in God’s image mean? He created Adam & Eve without a moral sense.
What does in God’s image mean? He created Adam & Eve without a moral sense.
I take, in God’s image, to refer to God’s and our mental image and not the physical. God does not look like us in any way. He and his form is quite alien to us.
Genesis shows that Adam & Eve were created without the moral sense that would make them like Gods. That being the case, they had to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil to be in God’s mental image. That is without a doubt a requirement to the development of a moral sense and is confirmed by God after Adam and Eve disobeyed his command to stay dumb and without a moral sense.
If they were created in God’s image then they would have already had the moral sense that comes from the knowledge of good and evil and would therefore not have been tempted by Satan to eat of the tree of knowledge because they would have had that knowledge already. This would also mean that God was punishing them unjustly.
One must conclude from these biblical facts, that God did not make mankind in his image.
The only other logical alternative is that God does not have a moral sense and that he too, like Adam and Eve, was basically as dumb as a cow.
Could that be why God is shown as doing other immoral things in scriptures?
The two main ones that come to mind is God having his own son murdered for the forgiveness of sin when there was no real need to and the genocide of Noah’s day.
Does being in God's image mean not having a moral sense?
Regards
DL
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The biblical god does NOT have a moral sense, aside from what you mentioned the OT is just full of murder, genocide, insest, rape, slavery all done in the name and sake of god. But first I would have to believe in a god, I do not. I do believe that the humans of the bible were blood thirsty and immoral and just use a god image to justify their greedy bigoted actions.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
+ 1
I am not 100% atheist, more like 95% but we have no argument here.
Your view will and likely has led you to a better moral position than most believers.
Do not change.
Regards
DL
To answer any of your questions you must first show that validity of the god you are mentioning.
You also must validate the source of this god, or bible in this case.
...............I guess. I'd like to think I have better morals then the biblical fairy tale. Why are you only 95% atheist? My position is that "I am NOT dead-sure that there is NO god; BUT!!!!!!!!!: I AM dead-sure that I have never seen any evidence of a god; IN 50+ years of looking [I'm 56]. Which makes me 99.99% atheist; I leave a .01% chance 'just in case'. Why not you?
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
I cannot do what is likely impossible.
I can only use what is and ask those who believe in the myth as real to try to make the inconsistencies fit.
Regards
DL
Personal apotheosis showed that there is more than what we see but as is always the way of such, I cannot prove it.
Nothing supernatural. I do not believe in such but an unseen cosmic consciousness.
I will try to post a longer post but I cannot get this system to accept a paste that I have.
Regards
DL
The Godhead I know in a nutshell.
I was a skeptic till the age of 39.
I then had an apotheosis and later branded myself a Gnostic Christian naturalist.
Gnostic Christian because I exemplify this quote from William Blake.
“Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white.”
This refers to how Gnostics tend to reverse, for moral reasons, what Christians see in the Bible. We tend to recognize the evil ways of O T God where literal Christians will see God’s killing as good. Christians are sheeple where Gnostic Christians are goats.
This perhaps why we see the use of a Jesus scapegoat as immoral, while theists like to make Jesus their beast of burden. An immoral position.
During my apotheosis, something that only lasted 5 or 6 seconds, the only things of note to happen was that my paradigm of reality was confirmed and I was chastised to think more demographically. What I found was what I call a cosmic consciousness. Not a new term but one that is a close but not exact fit.
I recognize that I have no proof. That is always the way with apotheosis.
This is also why I prefer to stick to issues of morality because no one has yet been able to prove that God is real and I have no more proof than they for the cosmic consciousness.
The cosmic consciousness is not a miracle working God. He does not interfere with us save when one of us finds it. Not a common thing from what I can see. It is a part of nature and our next evolutionary step.
I tend to have more in common with atheists who ignore what they see as my delusion because our morals are basically identical. Theist tend not to like me much as I have no respect for literalists and fundamentals and think that most Christians have tribal mentalities and poor morals.
I am rather between a rock and a hard place but this I cannot help.
I am happy to be questioned on what I believe but whether or not God exists is basically irrelevant to this world for all that he does not do, and I prefer to thrash out moral issues that can actually find an end point. The search for God is never ending when you are of the Gnostic persuasion. My apotheosis basically says that I am to discard whatever God I found, God as a set of rules that is, not idol worship, it but instead, raise my bar and seek further.
My apotheosis also showed me that God has no need for love, adoration or obedience. He has no needs. Man has dominion here on earth and is to be and is the supreme being.
Regards
DL
I think 'monotheism' of the Abrahamic variety could (in part) be a spiritualistic search for a "tabula rasa" of 'pure', humanized virtue.
At the same time, there is classical Mosaic Judaism, where there is no spirituality or afterlife, merely a set of rules to live by. In this context, "God" appears to be nothing more than a faulty concept that allows ordinary people to speak with the absolute authority of a divine, omnipotent being. As Western Law prevents a Church, Synagogue or Mosque to speak or act with the full or partial force of law, Abrahamic religions (particularly Roman Catholicism) find themselves in a dilemma of facing extinction at the hands of "enlightenment".
BTW, when you say you are "95%", what does the remaining "5%" refer to, exactly?
I don't consider myself "100%" in terms of "completely devoted to New Atheism". "New Atheism" implies a LOT of pretentious philosophical nonsense without any obvious utilitarian purpose, and I will probably never see eye-to-eye with some of the "core values" expressed by many of the past and present "New Atheist" hardliners here at RRS. Like everyone's mutual friend cpt. pineapple (inside joke), I don't see the point in "bandwagon" thinking. Believe it or not, most activistic organizations I've read about or seen in action show symptoms of some sort of conformist herd mentality or another... that's latent "Asch Conformity" rearing it's head, IMO. Back when this site just started, "New Atheism" showed many signs (and still does, to a reduced extent) of a herd mentality blindly coat-tailing the opinions of a select few (the late Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, etc.) That's mostly in the past, but today most activists and ideologues (of any cause or ideology) I know of still can't dodge the 'individualism' bullet. Which is to say, they can't think less like a pack animal and more like individuals with little or no social obligation to conform to the opinions of others.
As I just now saw your post clarifying your "5%" remark, I guess my point is for others to expect atheists and even skeptics from all colors, sexes, stripes, ideologies, spiritual and religious persuasions, age groups and cultures. The idea that someone has to conform to a largely irrelevant set of criteria before being 'correctly' labelled a "rational atheist", is particularly out of date. (We dealt with this a few months ago)
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Tribalism, which is basically what you are against is instinctual as we are communal animals.
The problems arise when the environment pits one tribe against another.
We should all consider ourselves as a part of the human tribe without other labels and in that way, many of the wars we have fought might not have happened.
We also want to be individuals and fear what some call a one tribe NWO type of system.
I see us as fragmenting into individuality more and more over time to a point where labels will have no meaning. Somewhat like now if someone calls himself a Christian, it does not really tell you what the hell his beliefs are because Christianity has a fundamental side and a liberal side with a plethora of other Christian cults in between.
Regards
DL
Nope, not really. "Tribalism" isn't as inclusive a definition as you imply. Certainly, it is a part of things like '(instinctual) conformity' and the innate herd mentality found in numerous groups of people the world over, but it is still a largely separate phenomena from that which is likely determined by evolution while in the wild.
I also think you flatter yourself and your ideals when you suggest that "labels" will eventually lose their place in human interaction with religions*. Labels save time that would normally be reserved for intricately and accurately describing people without regards to varying degrees of social context. Stereotypes are a time-saver, too.
At the end of the day, Abrahamism still faces a 'secular tragedy' where intellectual persons in a modern, enlightened world see little or no use for it in their daily lives; they "WANT OUT!" of it and so forth.
*edit; or in describing religions, for that matter.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/17/the_real_differ/
Tribalism and labels are spoken of here and how we are urged to try to curb it while keeping its best parts.
Regards
DL
Thank you for this thread. What an interesting topic.
I would like to revisit your opening remarks and ask:
Can we not hold that Man was created in an image, but not carbon copy of what is deemed to be god?
I fully agree that Adam and Eve could not have committed an act of sin or behaved with evil, of course, since they ate of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, they couldn't have known that what they were doing was wrong. But was there another "moral code" in place at the time? And it was this code that was the image of god. The moral code of god of course shouldn't be confused with a human moral code. Just as we don't look exactly like god, there is no reason to believe man and god operate on the same moral code. But was it different before The Fall? Eve, in the story, committed two acts, and the one she committed before the fruit-eating may have been the real "sin".
It is the divine moral code, its image in her, and her act against it that is what, I believe, the Genesis writer(s) was/were getting at.
Thanks again for liking the topic.
If there was another moral code in play and Eve had it, then it would have told her that the right thing to do was eat of the tree of knowledge.
Humans are naturally drawn to knowledge. Seeking it is what we have always done because we recognize that knowledge is good for all moral codes and a moral code cannot exist without it.
Regards
DL
In my opinion, the whole Adam and Eve fable would make the Abrahamic god a very malicious creature. Why put two people in a paradise and then deliberately set them up for ruin ? Why hide knowledge from his creations and then put it in front of them ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
I suppose when I read the Adam and Eve story, I read it as the "sin" not being the eating of the forbidden fruit but the temptation to develop an independent will against God's will. The serpent didn't tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit but tempted Eve to go against divine will and develop her own human will to eat the fruit. It wasn't: "Go on Eve, you want to eat it don't you?" but more like, "Go on Eve, YOU want to eat it, don't YOU?. Forget God's will, what do YOU want to do?". The eating wasn't the sin; the falling away from God's will was the real sin. The sin was 'ego'. And to flesh out that context, let's call it the ego that if we put on Buddhist glasses, we are trying to erase and meditate ourselves out of to reach Enlightenment. (Isn't meditation an attempt to erase ego?) If we say god is love, then god's "will" (the divine moral code... the one in operation before Eve substituted her own will) is love. The only "sin" is to deviate from (to borrow from Nietzsche), the Will to Love. To be enlightened, is to return to God's will, to be ego-less, to be fully in a Will to Love state, satori, - the Garden of Eden again.
Maybe akin to the old question: in a marriage, when does adultery occur? When you actually "eat the fruit", or when you stray from your spouse in your heart and "Will" to search for other fruit?
(In case you're wondering - no, I read Genesis as a moral story, not scholarly history. I'm trying to get into the head(s) of the Genesis writer(s) to understand what they were trying to say to us. As I hope any rationalist would try to do.)
Exactly.
Regards
DL
Scriptures indicate that God gave A & E free will.
You indicate that it was a sin against God for A & E to actually do their will and not God's.
So you are saying that the first time A & E showed that they were autonomous and free agents, God threw his sissy fit all over them and us.
So much for free will. It is only there if we do not dare use it. You show quite a pathetic and immoral God who decided to murder A & E for just being autonomous.
Eve was correct in eating of the tree of knowledge and rejecting God.
It was God's plan from the beginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can be demonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucified from the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucify Jesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damned sin.
If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build into the Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for a problem you do not anticipate?
God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the die was cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.
This then begs the question.
What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when there was absolutely no need to?
Only an insane God. That’s who.
The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.
One of Christianity's highest form of immorality is what they have done to women.
They have denied them equality and subjugated them to men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN8EYIIR3g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dspWh9g3hU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c0RFxXrYzg&feature=related
Regards
DL
the verses about god's image comes from the elohist account of creation, the story of the two trees from the yahwist account. the theological problems arise from the redactors.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
The first question to ask is when did the "made in his image" enter the popular theology and who started it. Perhaps I need to review the material but I do not recall that idea in either the old or new testament.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
You can do whatever you want but do not think the original Socrates would let you off the hook until you provided the new definitions you are using for the words. You are not held to the words used but the definitions of the words used.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Then you have never read the story. So why run off about what you have never read? If you want to talk about the original sin christian interpretation of it that is something else entirely.
But if you want to talk about the story, it clearly says they were banished before they could eat of the tree of life and live forever and become gods like US. You can talk about the story or the Christian mangling of the story. You cannot talk about one and pretend it is the other.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
That is an incredible stretch. If you mean free will in the same sense that an untrained puppy has free will you are correct. If you mean anything more than that you are wrong.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Pardon, can you direct me to where this image thing is to be found?
But as above, if in the image of then Yahweh is also an untrained puppy.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Genesis 1
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
Regards
DL
I fall back on in his image for that.
Scriptures show God choosing to punish or forgive etc.
That indicates he has free will and since A & E showed they were autonomous, named the animals what they wanted, and ate what was forbidden, it appears they had free will. Then again God had a sissy fit when they did so yes, one could argue they did not. I have done so elsewhere.
It is in Christian dogma that we and they can choose to do good or evil.
Regards
DL
i'm sure you got a bible. if not, you got google. if you're being rhetorical, go waste somebody else's time. i have no vested interest in this concept.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Sorry about that. I got distracted by all the abstract talk.
That clearly means the image in the sense described other places in Genesis such as god walks to Sodom to see what is going on. Image clearly means arms, legs, eyes, ears and that sort of thing.
Anything beyond that, which is what distracted me, is fantasy. It says what it says. The gods of Genesis are as they are described in Genesis, walking, talking, seeing very Greek kinds of gods.
The only problem arises when trying to impose the incorporeal spirit idea upon the gods of Genesis.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
They show arbitrary and capricious punishments and rewards. If taken simply as a collection of tales there is no problem. ASSUMING without reason that they are all connected and have to make consistent sense is what makes them intriguing. But as there is no reason for that assumption and no one found a reason for it before theology was invented by Aquinus it now appears to be a difficulty. Gods were fickle. The idea this god was not fickle was invented by the Christians as a sales pitch with their claim it was the "only faithful god" usually translated by the pious as "one true god" although my version matches the original words use.
Actually not original Christian doctrine by which I mean after Paul's the end is nigh crap was ancient history. It was originally ritual and taboo not good and evil. That does not appear until Renaissance times. Yes it was good to follow the rituals and avoid the taboos and evil to do the opposite. But the idea that abstract good and evil as real entities as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was Renaissance. Thus we have religion piggybacking on the Renaissance even though negatively used. If you don't like Buffy consider Dante creating or at least embodying the entire heaven hell mythology of today. It did not exist before then.
Read the literature from before then. Do not look for what you want to find. Look at what it actually says. It may be a precursor of what comes later but it is only what it is at the time it was written.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
That was unintentional. I hope I have clarified sufficiently. I focused on image in moral sense and did not think of image in the physical sense.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
no worries, it happens. i'm sure i've been in the spoke-too-soon category at least as much as you.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
First of all, I am not a theist, and not a Jewish theist nor Christian theist, so I am not going to proffer some sort of defense for the God(s) outlined in the Bible. My approach is simply that I do not believe the writers of the Genesis story were simpleton dopes, and we can dismiss their tales out of hand. I believe they were trying to write a sort of moral cosmology to help them answer the very big questions in life. Im not Hindu either, but if I were to set my mind to reading the texts, I would still try to understand what the writers wanted to get across.
For me, it is a rational exercise to try to get "into the heads" of a writer to simply try to understand what they may have been trying to communicate. That is what an inquiring mind attempts to do. If you're looking for reasons to dismiss inquiry right up front, I can agree: there are some immoral attitudes and behaviours in the stories, so let's move on and read another book. That's fine too. I guess maybe we are in two diiferent worlds here: I want to understand this stuff, you look for a set of reasons to dismiss it.
My study began with the conundrum that Eve could not have committed a sin, BEFORE she knew what sin was. This perplexed me. I studied it more; again, I didn't think the writers were dopes; I wondered why such a "slip up" got through for centuries. I'm not arrogant - I didn't believe I was/am the one and only person who magically discovered a great flaw in the book. So I thought more about it.
The solution I adhere to is that the writers were pointing to the moving away from divine will (will to love) to human will. And that that was the sin, not the fruit-eating. If you want to immediately assume that that means human will is being denied, I would say that that is not necessarily the case. Free human will is always in place, but that "sin" is when free human will is directed to activities which are "not Love". So, if you act in the Spirit of Love your Will coincides with Divine Will to Love. If you will to act in hate or injury to others, the "sin" is your free will to choose to be hurtful. The sin is not what you do, but that you - with completely FREE Will - wanted to do it.
These are just thoughts on the thread topic. I'm not evangelizing or trying to convert anyone. Just thoughts on the topic at hand.
Ok, so what did Eve do that was 'Not love' and for that matter that still ignores the problem of the snake. That thing apparently had fallen before the apple was eaten since it was giving advice and information and was actually telling them the truth that their god had kept from them. Especially given that in the same story God threw them out for fear that they would also eat of the tree of eternal life and thus be his/her/its equal.
Overall, our views are too close for us to argue. Pleased to meet you.
Regards
DL
You have studied well yes. All from the Christian viewpoint of a fall in Eden.
Ignoring that the Jewish view saw an elevation and not a fall.
If you begin wrong then you will of course end wrong.
Regards
DL
Joker
Many good moral questions there on God, in essence, murdering A & E.
Regards
DL
There is no morality in the OT. There is a collection of rituals and taboos, mostly stupid ones, which exhibit no coherence. The apparent coherence comes solely from ignoring most of the rituals and taboos. That is deperation attempting to make sense of nonsense after deciding it has to make sense.
There is no evidence that Genesis existed prior to the 2nd c. BC so any speculation beyond that is fantasy.
If that is the case the books of the Septuagint can be considered as intended as entertainment. Several places Josephus should have mentioned them as authoritative such as Against Apion Bk 2 he writes as though he never heard of them. He also wrote that Judeans have only 22 sacred books but names none of them.
You could have saved yourself from the effort by actually reading the stories. They were thrown out before they could eat from the Tree of Life and become gods like the gods who created them. That is what it says, period.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
There is a morality in the OT. Just because you disagree with that morality doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
As far as examining what the writers had to say, I am not interested in the current theory about when a book was written.
Enough with the silly "you haven't read the stories". I have read them. Where am I talking about the Tree of Life? What does the expulsion before eating of the Tree of Life have to do with the things I am saying?
Can you explain that notion of elevation rather than a fall please?
I think the story presents willing against god's will as the sin. And god's will is love. The serpent is a metaphor for the temptation to stray from the will to love. That beings with free will now have knowledge of good and evil means they can do more than stray from will to love but now they can will to do evil, with free will. That they were expelled before eating of the Tree of Life is the writers' way of suggesting that humans who can will evil really don't live eternally, and it then follows that the will to do evil is not an eternal state. Evil is not eternal (ergo no hell by the way). The only beings who could possibly live in eternity are beings who have the Will only to love, in other words, have a Will coincident with God's will.
Morality requires a common set of principles. The OT is nothing but arbitrary and capricious requirements and prohibitions. But if you believe there is morality in not mixing linen and wool in the same garment then you demonstrate you have no concept of morality. There are well over 200 more examples of idiot things along the lines of linen and wool, like kosher food, that you are so primitive as to think food preparation is a matter of morality does nothing but cause people to be embarrassed for you.
To your mind as a philosophy major who has just completed his first year, how does WHAT they say relate to WHEN it was written?
The expulsion from Eden is to prevent them from eating the tree of life and becoming gods. That is what says. But you rambled on about sin and eating the fruit of the other tree which is unrelated to the reason for expulsion.
Therefore you never read the Eden expulsion story. QED
They will teach you what QED means in your sophomore year.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Rising above animals and one step away from being gods sounds like a promotion to me.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
For in that day you will surely die.
They didn't die. The gods of Eden were liars. That should be obvious.
The writers wrote what they wrote, period. Simple declarative sentences are not open to interpretation.
Original sin was one of the many inventions to salvage the Christus Cult after it was clear Jesus was not coming back and therefore Jesus and Paul and all the rest were lying crackpots. There is no mention of it in days when the crackpots ruled.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Ok, well for one thing I thought you saw the story as being somewhat literal, especially as you also seem to be an ID advocate, but ok, I could be wrong. Now part of the problem with this argument is that again Eves decision only seems bad because it broke the rule, the problem is that the rule itself seems odd. Especially given that God seems less disappointed in his response than afraid, IE 'Oh no, I might have rivals if they get to the other tree, out out out!!' The other problem is that arguably the snake offered her true information, since she did become as God, in fact God even said as much in Genesis. Also, if this argument was going to be used to explain morality it would seem to be a really weird way of doing it as the apparent lesson you got from it seems...labored. The other problem I have is that frankly why would a deity not wish for followers to have knowledge of good and evil? If the goal was that they be unable to do evil that seems...odd. Since apparently they felt shame at nudity once they had eaten the fruit so apparently nudity is wrong but it only mattered once they understood it. It creates a rather jumbled setup for any kind of coherent moral teaching.
Joker.
That is what happens when Christianity usurps the Jewish God without the Jewish understanding of that God.
Jews see Eden as man's elevation and not a fall at all.
Gnostics basically agree that knowledge is good.
Regards
DL
I forget, do the gnostics also believe that the creator deity is an evil entity or am I just misremembering what I've heard?
There are many schools of thought but generally no.
We believe in a God withion each of us.
If we are to question the perfection of nature, since it produced you and I, we must conclude that things are the best they can be here and now.
When this was written, most thought it to just be a cynical view of life but I think it is quite true and irrefutable, based on the anthropic principle.
What do you think?
Candide
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPClzIsYxvA
Regards
DL
Perhaps that is because there is no rule. It says clearly eat and die. Very like, don't drink bleach. They chose to take the risk. That is not breaking a rule.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
which jews?
http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/doubtingexodus.htm
http://www.mrrena.com/misc/judaism2.php
I know of only a few Jews who think otherwise.
Regards
DL