Maybe I'm just being a dick and giving the terrorist too much credit. That was the only thing that really stood out to me in your conversation. Most of what the terrorist was saying was jibberish, and most of what you were saying had been said. Still, it was a pretty critical part of the debate, and I'm sure any ref would've deducted points. It's not like the terrorist could have sunk any lower, so more attention was on you when you made that claim.

 

I would like to demonstrate thanks to this thread that the concept of the fall is actual and true, and that scientific findings reinforce the need to recognize this as a fact, that we are humans that have fallen from our divine nature and need the way of Christ in order to save ourselves.

First, lest start by brushing a picture of our origins. The first mammal appeared some 70 MYA, in the form of a small nervous rat looking creature. After the extinctions of the dinosaurs about 65 MYA these mammals saw an explosion of their numbers since they were now able to occupy niches vacated by the dinosaurs. 55 to 58 MYA ago the first descendant of what would become the human race appears in the form of the first primate Altiatlasisus Koulchi a small creature foraging in the woods with opposable fingers and a bigger brain. From this development 20 MYA the ancient great apes appear and then go extinct because of dramatic climate change. As we can see today only 5 species managed to survive: Orang-utan, gibbon, chimpanzee, gorilla, and yours truly: humans. It’s interesting to note that we were very lucky and could have never existed because of this climate change. The divergence that leads to humans happens 7 MYA, Toumai, Orrorin and all that.... We know the rest: our ancestors decided to leave the forest for the savannah, Australopithecus and the genre homo... It’s interesting to note that there was allot of trial and errors in ‘’making ‘’ the human race, and if small factors had been different humanity would surely have a way difference visage. Also interesting to note is the fact that our ancestors were not this romanticized picture of noble and fearsome hunters, but instead scavengers and hunters of sick and small animals. 

Once all these facts make their appearance one is bound to be brought back to earth with the ideas we entertain about our divine nature. Pressing questions make their appearance: what kind of fall could have caused us then to be visited by Christ? What form would of this fall taken? What makes human history different from that of any other animal? This is where I stand in. I attempt to give a reasonable answer to these questions so as to reconcile the findings of physical anthropology and the idea of the fall as described in the Bible. First of all we need to ask ourselves what kind of fall we are talking about in the Bible. If we try to reconcile the literal account of the fall with scientific findings then this is impossible, however if we attempt to reconcile the idea of the fall with reality then this is possible and moreover it’s supported by socio-cultural facts. The idea of the fall simply put is that we have want for divine supernatural nature, and that this want won’t go away until we return to God and to the supernatural.

 In almost every culture there is an account of a certain fall, all of these accounts share one thing in common, a want for the spiritual world, for God, to overcome our human nature. May it be in the form of a journey or in the case of Christianity in the form of a savior, the cosmology of every culture has a concept of the fall. Gathering from this similarity of all cultural cosmologies we find that humans have discovered indeed that they have fallen away from a sort of spiritual world in different degrees depending from the cosmology in question. So from facts from the real world we do see that humans believe they fell away from their divine nature. This is attested by cultural facts and also by the history of humanity that far from being this glorious history is this rather banal story way far removed from what we could have imagined. Yet, if we were living in the dark constantly, we should have never realized there was light, and yet as all the cultural cosmologies attest, we did realize that there is light, that is, that we have fallen from our divine nature. Some have alighted on this or that aspect, however I firmly believe that Christianity has gathered all of the relevant details concerning this actual fall. The superiority of the supernatural world over the physical word is then immediately apparent. For if the body , made out of matter had this far from glimmering history, the soul who enabled us to understand our divine quest is of God alone, and it is restless until it rests in him. So in conclusion, we can see that there was and is such a thing as the fall, that is, the fall from our divine nature into this dark and gray material world. The mere facts that humans dotted themselves with cosmologies, which all recognize this fall is a fact that points to the reality of the fall. Anyone has simply to read the myths of any belief system to realize that the fall is present, although in different shapes and sizes, and with different meanings ascribed to it, however the basic fact here is the reality of the fall.

The second point I would like to mention in support of the fall is that we as human are not mere material constructs like robots, or machines, rather we are beings who have a very powerful supernatural dimension to our beings, granted this dimension can negated or denied but it is fact that it exists as a fundamental part of ourselves and has been so throughout the ages. One only has to look at the number of believers in a religion or another versus the tiny number of atheists on our planet, not as an appeal to authority, but rather as an empiric fact of the existence of our spiritual nature. Let me give an example, if a thousand birds were in a huge cage, and 5 of these couldn’t fly, we would certainly

 

conclude that the 5 who can’t fly are deficient with regards to their nature, this is the same thing here if we compare believers and unbelievers. Spirituality then has been a part of every culture throughout the ages. So it’s only natural that spiritual beings such as us would have alighted upon the reality of our spiritual fall from the higher and most pure realm of spirits.

 

 

Thirdly, we can ask ourselves a simple question to find out if we indeed have souls, something to be  same must be identical in all things, so we can ask ourselves are we merely biological entities? Or do we also have a soul. Is the self different from the body? For instance, I can imagine myself having a totally different body, I can imagine myself in the body of a lion, of a sheep even having that of a bird. However I can’t imagine my Body having another body. This means that the self is not the body for then they would be identical and they are not. Let’s think of human cloning here, if it was possible to clone an adult human being in just over an hour, a human being that would be identical to the real subject, would these two be the same? Or would they be different beings. I believe they would be completely different in a way and thus would have different souls. If you would die and have yourself cloned right before the moment of your death, would that new identical to you person be you or would the ‘’self’’ the real you be dead and there stands a completely different and new person? Reflect about that.

 

 

jcgadfly wrote:

What does all this have to do with Yahweh's rigged test in Eden?

That idea is a Euro concoction from not understanding the book and what it's about. They interpreted it in line with their own ideas civil discourse. They adapted the book to their way of thinking. The Adamites were free to be whatever they wished. They merely prefered to return to the animal mind and paid the consequences. If I recall correctly there was no means of punishment, but rather the consequences that we see still today.

What do the Adamites have to do with this? They didn't exist till much later and thought they getting naked got them closer to God.

That idea is a Euro concoction from not understanding the book and what it's about.  

Thirdly, we can ask ourselves a simple question to find out if we indeed have souls, something to be  same must be identical in all things, so we can ask ourselves are we merely biological entities? Or do we also have a soul. Is the self different from the body? For instance, I can imagine myself having a totally different body, I can imagine myself in the body of a lion, of a sheep even having that of a bird. However I can’t imagine my Body having another body. This means that the self is not the body for then they would be identical and they are not. Let’s think of human cloning here, if it was possible to clone an adult human being in just over an hour, a human being that would be identical to the real subject, would these two be the same? Or would they be different beings. I believe they would be completely different in a way and thus would have different souls. If you would die and have yourself cloned right before the moment of your death, would that new identical to you person be you or would the ‘’self’’ the real you be dead and there stands a completely different and new person? Reflect about that.

Its a fact that humans are spiritual beings, from our earliest origins we have always had belief in the spiritual, in souls, in spirits, in higher power, atheist are broken humans. They are missing a fundamental part of their nature. It has nothing to do with terminology, look around you: beliefs, faith, with cultural differences yes but spirituality nontheless. You atheists are bereft of spiritual nature, you have commited spiritual suicide. The fall is present for all humans, rather that rise back up you have made the physical world your only reality  and you will perish with it, no different that stones and dust.