(Silence)

*Grenade explodes*

Silence ensues....

Yeah, todangst.  I kind of got that impression.  Label me guilty of libel, heheh.  I just hadn't really thought about how absurd this story was in some time, and i was climbing two walls at once listening to a supposedly educated individual trying to justify this story as somehow plausible, and more importantly, good.

adam and eve, pre-tree of knowledge have no more knowledge of what a tree of "good and evil" might mean than a two year old. if a two year old accidently caused the death of someone, he would not be punished. why? because, he is not responsible for his act, although his parents would be responsible because they allowed for the circumstances for this accident to happen in the first place. 

can you tell me if adam and eve's knowledge was different from a two-year old? do you think their punishment/banishment was fair? what did their being adults mean anyways, if they didn't know anything? 

mouse,

Great questions. I'll try to answer your first and last question as best as they lead into the second. You asked: "can you tell me if adam and eve's knowledge was different from a two-year old?" and "what did their being adults mean anyways, if they didn't know anything?"

It says in Genesis that Adam named all the animals, was able to recognize that only a woman was a suitable companion for him, and he and Eve talked with God on a regular basis. This would indicate that they were intelligent and free willed while living in the garden. In this aspect they were superior to a two year old who hasn't yet learned what animals are (can maybe tell you what one or two are) and is only beginning to grasp the concept of the self.

I do agree with you that in regard to the knowledge between good and evil, Adam and Eve were like infants. They simply did not know the difference. What they did know and could understand is that God told them not to eat from that one tree. God told them that the consequences of doing so would be death. Though a two year old doesn't understand good and evil, he/she is still obligated to obey his/her parents. In the same way, though Adam and Eve didn't understand good and evil, they were still obligated to obey God.

Your second question was, "do you think their punishment/banishment was fair?"

Yes. Like I stated above, God told Adam what the consequences of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would be: death. And we know that Eve knew because she told the snake the same thing when she was being tempted. Because they disobeyed him, God gave them the exact punishment he promised. The banishment came because God could not allow mankind in his current state to eat from the other tree in the center of Eden: The Tree of Life. I do not know the reason for this, but I have a guess. If man were permitted to live forever in his current, sinful form, he could never be fully redeemed to God. The soul would be trapped in a sinful body for the rest of time, forever seperated from God. God did not want that. By allowing man's body to die, his soul has the possibility to rejoin God.

Oh, no!

More questions, and brimstone hasn't addressed my post yet.

Hambydammit,

As far as the knowledge of young children goes and how it applies to Adam and Eve, see my response to mouse.

Your view of parental punishment is a tad narrow.  Parents don't punish children just so they won't die, they do it (one hopes) so their children learn how they are supposed to live.  I remember two punishments very distinctly as a child.  The first was because I lied to my mother and the second was because I ran out into the street and almost got hit by a car.  In both cases I knew that I was not allowed to do what I'd done because my parents had told me not to.  I didn't know why they were wrong, just that I was told they were.  One punishment taught how to be a better person.  The other taught me to be more mindful of my surroundings.

The key with punishment is that it must be consistent.  If a parent tells their child, "If you misbehave, then I will punish you like this." and doesn't follow through, then the only lesson learned by the child is that they can get away with anything.   God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would die.  They ate from it anyway (showing no remorse for doing so) and so God kept his word.  He had to.

 Curiosity is a great thing.  It leads us to knowledge of our world and the people and creatures that inhabit it.  Thanks to curiosity we know more about our world then many would have ever thought possible.  And God did instill us with a sense of curiosity.  It's a gift.  However, curiosity must be tempered with a sense of self control or it can prove lethal.  One who decided to find out if gasoline is flammable while standing in a large puddle of it probably won't live to regret his timing.  If Adam and Eve had wanted to learn more about good and evil, they should have gone to God and asked him about it (it is my understanding that it was the disobedience that caused man's fall, not the gaining of knowledge).  That way they could have satisfied their curiosity while not disobeying God.

 You said that because God made man with the capacity to disobey (free will) that man was made imperfectly.  By that logic you're saying that just because someone can do something, they will.  I disagree.  Just because someone has the ability to do something, does not mean they will.  I could go out, get a gun, and shoot someone just to watch them die.  Now I'm not saying I would, but I have the ability to do so.  Does that mean I should be locked up and charged with murder?  No.  It is the action that puts one in the slammer.  Similarly, Man became imperfect (sinful) only after the act of disobedience.

So why give man free will?  Because I don't think God wanted puppets for followers.  He wanted man to follow him because they wanted to, not because they didn't have a choice not to.

 As to your little Semantics Game rant, I don't ever remember saying God created everything that exists.  All knowing, sure, but not the creator of everything on the planet.  God created the angels, heavens, the earth, water, sky, land, vegetation, animals, and man.  Full stop.  To man he gave self awareness, intelligence, emotions, and a wide variety of other gifts.  What man does with the gifts given him is his responsibility, not God's.

A group of scientists in the Manhattan Project invented the atomic bomb.  Alexander Bell invented the telephone.  Patricia Billings invented a fire proof and indestructible building material called Geobond.  Samuel Colt gave birth to the colt revolver.  These inventions are examples of things that have made life better for many or snuffed out thousands of lives in a heart beat.  My point is these things were created by man, not God.  For God to be responsible for everything that happens on earth, he would have to remove free will and be in control of the actions of every person on the plant.

I completely agree with this point. Which is why I have given the above reply showing you that you yourself don't.

Couldn't he have chosen a punishment that's a bit... hmm... milder ? Such as giving them a intestinal worms for 10 years? Frankly, just about anything would be milder than dooming them and all the rest of their children that would follow.

Refer to my post above on how a RESPONSIBLE, LOVING parent copes with the curiosity of his child.

So that means that Adam could have killed and eaten Eve, and he would still be sinless in the face of God? Hmm... nice conclusion you have there, dude...

The fact that you decide not to do something doesn't mean that you don't have the possibility to do it. I do not consider you lesser for that, because I have no idea whether or not you will use that capacity. But God KNEW that they will... he's supposed to be omniscient, remember?

OK, so man decided NOT to follow him. Why couldn't God just let man alone, and not punish him with death or eternal torture for using a feature that he was purposedly given to use? After all, if the man has free will, he should be free to accept or reject God and do whatever he pleases. God specifically doesn't let humans free will when they die: they have to choose either Heaven, or Hell. Either following Him, or being punished for the rest of their miserable eternities... which makes God look more like a tyrant than like an all-loving God.

Well, your list quite about sums up all there is within the Universe. And I'll explain why in the next post:

So it is the invention of man. Man that has lived throughout time within God's creation. Man that has adapted to think about the limitations imposed and the conditions that they are subject to within God's creation. Man has therefore developed models of thinking on what they could do within God's creation. Man has passed such knowledge down generations, continuously improving it with more observation of what man can and cannot do within God's creation. At a certain point, one man, let's say, Edison, figured out he could improve that knowledge of GOD'S CREATION, so by using GOD'S CREATION in a certain way, he could harness the power of electricity that has been discovered by his predecessors through analysing and applying the knowledge their ancestors have gained THROUGH GOD'S CREATION and create a light bulb. And so he passed on the knowledge of how to use GOD'S CREATION and reshape it to create light bulbs. Thus giving birth to more knowledge about GOD'S CREATION.

Now, you're going to say, the Manhattanists couldn't be responsible how the Americans used their atomic bombs during the second world war. Which is right, because the Manhattanists didn't know that their creation would be used for something more than alongside with the knowledge of God's creation that Edison has passed down.

God, however, is omniscient. God knew. And yet he did nothing. That would make him, by most laws, either "obstructor of justice" or "accomplice to committing crime".

It used to never fail to amaze me how otherwise brilliant people could miss the flogic(patent pending[patent also pending on "flawgic"]) they use to justify their beliefs. After 20 odd years of watching it happen however, it's become common place for me.

I'm at a loss for how to respond to this other than to point out that you can say a duck is a cat, but it still floats on water and quacks.

Knowledge is knowledge. A "sin" is something god said not to do. God told them not to eat the tree. They knew they were not supposed to eat it. Notice the word? "Knew" = "knowledge."

I'm not going to deal with the rest of your answers because you can't answer the first one.

See this is what I love about you guys.  Even if the point is made, you'll dismiss it becuase of what I can only call lack of understanding.

God didn't tell them not to eat of the tree; he told them the consequences of eating from the tree.  That's it.

 Now I'm sorry if you don't like the answer but this one is pretty simple.  It's written that way in the bible. 

Rigor_OMortis, the FIRST POST asked those questions...I answered them.  What's not to understand?  Is it my fault the thread went off topic and started talking about hell?

2 major problems:

1. How would they know dying was a bad thing - or even what it was since neither of them would ever have witnessed death?

2. GOD LIED!!!!!!!!!! He said WHEN they ate it they would die, yet they lived several more centuries. The snake was the truthful one.

Notice the emphasis on the word "when." And if they weren't going to die anyway, what was the purpose of the other tree - the one that would cause whoever ate from it to live forever?

razor,

Dude.

Seriously, you're beyond hope.   I suppose the Ten Commandments are not telling us to do anything either.  It's the same Flying Spaghetti Monster Damned word, in the same Zeus-damned context!  Oh, wait, the Ten Commandments came after the garden of Eden, so now "shall not" means "don't do it", where before it didn't, because if it did, then there would be an internal contradiction, and there can't be because there isn't, so that's not what it means.

I'm not discussing this with you any more.  You've been proven wrong.  Repeatedly.  Your refusal to admit it doesn't change the fact, just like your refusal to admit that the story is flawed doesn't change the fact that it is.

jmm,

Now you're just starting to annoy me.

You've been nice up until now, so I'll warn you nicely. It's not going to get you very far on this board to start this kind of thing. Would you like me to go back and point out all of your typos and grammatical errors?

Does a grammatical error mean I'm stupid? Is that what you're trying to say?

Or, were you just saying that because you can't think of anything to say to my arguments, and you're feeling feisty?

Consider this warning one. We have rules against personal attacks here.

 {edit: I've gone back and realized I was not debating you in this thread.  I've also let my original text stay because I'm willing to admit when I make mistakes.  I'm still annoyed with you for that personal attack, and we still do have rules against non-constructive language designed as a personal insult.}

Hi all.  As there's three of you to respond to, I'll try to respond to everything, but I may miss a few.  I apologize in advance for its length, but I'm trying to be concise.

 Many of you question the fairness of God's punishment on Adam and Eve.  Mortis said (quite correctly) that you have to tell a child several times things they are not to do.  His argument is that God only ever told them once and that is simply not enough.  I disagree for one main reason: Adam and Eve were not children.  True, they did not have knowledge of good and evil at the time of the fall, but they were still adults.  They knew what an order was.  They understood the concept of consequences.  If they could not understand what an order was (do NOT eat from that tree) then God would have known that and not given them that order.  God is not in the habit of giving orders to man that he cannot understand or obey.  Also, because they were adults, not children, they should not need to be told a thousand times not to eat from the tree.

That leads us to the consequence itself: death.  Most of you argue that this punishment was too harsh and unfair because they could not understand the concept of death.  Says who?  Just because you don't understand good and evil does not mean you can't grasp death.  To say that understanding death can only come with the knowledge of good and evil is to say that death is either good or evil.  Death is neither good nor evil, it is simply ceasing to live.  Man fears death, true, but this still doesn't make it evil.  Man fears death because we don't know for sure what happens after.  Furthermore, from Eve's conversation with the snake (Satan), we learn she does understand death:

 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

 4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

I italicized the main part of my argument.  Satan does not say, "But what is death?",  he says "You will not surely die."  If Eve did not understand death, Satan would have jumped all over that.  Instead he tells her God had lied to her about dying.

Adam and Eve knew that if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they were disobeying God.  They understood that th consequence of doing so was death.

Your other argument was that death was too harsh a consequence.  Our sinful nature keeps us apart from God.  It prevents us from being with him the way he created us to be.  In a previous post I argued that while death was the consequence, it is also a blessing in disguise.  Death allows our soul to escape from the sinful body.  If we make ourselves right with God before this death occurs, we can re-join God in heaven.  In this way, we can escape the eternal punishment of hell that MattShizzle is so concerned about. 

 Also, Matt, God said that they would die if they ate from the tree, but he didn't say it would be immediate.  The exact words in the NIV translation I have say, "for when you eat from the tree you will surely die."  You're using the wrong definition of "when".  According to dictionary.com, there are 5 different meanings for "when"  if used as an conjunction like it is in this passage.   Some of these uses pertain to immediate time.  Others describe "when" as "at any time", "after which", or "in the event that".  If the passage said, "In the event that you eat from the tree, you will surely die.", then we see that death would follow eating from the tree.   It doesn't say today or tomorrow, just that it was sure to happen.  So God did not lie to Adam and Eve.

 Mortis, you and I had a miscommunication that was my fault.   You said "The fact that you decide not to do something doesn't mean that you don't have the possibility to do it. I do not consider you lesser for that, because I have no idea whether or not you will use that capacity. But God KNEW that they will... he's supposed to be omniscient, remember?"  In the post you were commenting on, I was actually arguing the same point, but I think my words were misunderstood.  I apologize for not being clearer.  I agree with what you said there.  

This discussion revolved around whether man should be held accountable for what he does.  Both Mortis and Hamby argue that man should not be held responsible for their actions because an all knowing God knew then that Adam and Eve would sin against him, that man today does sinful actions, but doesn't take steps to stop them/us.  Not only do you two argue that man is not responsible for what he does, but that God is responsible for every evil and un-godly action committed on earth because he made man.  The main problem with your argument is that is flies in the face of free will.  If God were to stop us from doing things he didn't want us to do, then free will would be nothing more than an illusion.  Furthermore, how could God make us do something he wouldn't want us to do?  He would be contradicting himself.  (Besides, if God did interfere by stopping man from sinning, then people would just bitch that God is too hands-on.)  Because man has free will, he is responsible for what he does on this earth. 

Mortis, you said that because God does not interfere, this makes him either an accomplice or an obstructer of justice to everything that happens.  According to Law.com's legal dictionary, an accomplice is someone who actively aids another person in the commission of a crime is guilty of doing the same crime as the other person.  God does not aid people in sinning.  Quite the opposite, he does not want them to do so.  Obstruction of Justice is defined as an attempt to interfere with the administration of the courts, the judicial system or law enforcement officers, including threatening witnesses, improper conversations with jurors, hiding evidence or interfering with an arrest. Such activity is a crime.  God does nothing of the sort.  God is the one who judges man when he dies on the way he lived his life.  Even if all your accusations weren't legally wrong, the laws of man do not apply to God.  He is the one who gave us laws, not the other way around.

Mouse, I think I answered your main question above.  As to your asides:  The serpent is understood to be either Satan in disguise or a snake possessed by Satan.  The mere fact that a snake is taking should clue us into the fact that it is not a normal snake.  Satan used the snake (or its form) so he could talk to Eve without scaring her off.

I have no idea if animals died before original sin.  In the long run it's unimportant.  The reason being so is that man was the the only earthly creation of God given a soul.  This is a tad off topic for this thread and I don't want to stray away from it.

Feel free to point out my spelling and grammatical errors, though.  I don't think you're going to find many. 

hi brimstone,

so why did god allow the serpent into his kingdom? why weren't there any other angels disguised as animals to help out adam and eve?

also, didn't satan being a creature of god with free will, who committed the first sin (did satan commit the first sin, or were their demons before him?) and propogated sin in others dishonesty (the second sin) commit original sin, for which the rest of us now suffer? adam and eve's sin must be like 3rd or 4th. it seems like adam and eve's sin were dependant on the actual true, first 'original sin' committed by satan.

First, jmm, we're cool. I left the full body of my text because I didn't want to be accused of covering up something I said, and I put the edit in so hopefully you'd see that I read that thinking you were the theist I'd been debating, and that was your only response to my points.

Anyway, I believe you didn't mean harm. Apology accepted. Thank you.

Now, on with the rebuttals:

You're missing the whole point. "Too harsh" has nothing to do with my objection. Parents discipline their children early in life in large part to prevent them from dying. God's punishment IS DEATH. This is analogous to telling your child (any age!) not to do drugs, because they might die if they do. Then, when you find a bag of weed in their room, you kill them. Didn't really help them learn not to do drugs, did it?

Likewise, Adam and Eve didn't learn anything helpful to their survival by being punished. True, they learned that it's a really bad idea to do anything god said not to, cause he throws a mighty big tantrum. However, since they were immediately kicked out of the garden, they never had a chance to go near the tree again.

More to the point, Adam and Eve didn't NEED to know anything about survival before they sinned because they were in the garden. God's punishment for disobeying an arbitrary command was to put them in a situation where they would need lots of survival skills that god had not given them. Again, this is akin to a parent telling their child not to go into the street because they might get hit by a car. The child goes into the street, so the parent punishes the child by leaving it alone in the middle of downtown Detroit, only checking on it every week or so.

Word games, word games. Their physical age is not the issue. Their mental age is. Can't squirm away from the question that easily!

So, they had knowledge of good and evil.

heheh. Why is it I'm remembering one particular sensational kangaroo court and the definition of "is?"

In the sentence, "when" is taking the form of a conjunction. Let's see what we get.

at what time you eat from the tree you will surely die.

at the time or in the event that you eat from the tree you will surely die.

at any time; whenever you eat from the tree you will surely die.

upon or after which; and then you eat from the tree you will surely die.

while on the contrary; considering that; whereas: you eat from the tree you will surely die.

It's clearly not usage 4 or 5. They don't make sense when you plug them in, so it's 1, 2, or 3.

I'll grant you that you can argue that god doesn't include the word "immediately," so we can't assume he means it. Fine. It doesn't change the facts that 1) the statement is vague and potentially misleading. It can EASILY be interpreted to mean immediate death. 2) God still punished an arbitrary act of disobedience with death, whenever the sentence was carried out.

Also, I think you can see from my illustration that you're wrong about it having anything to do with the word "when."

Your critical thinking skills need some tuning up.

No, it doesn't. My argument is that free will cannot exist while an omniscient creator exists. Can't fly in the face of something that doesn't exist. You have yet to successfully rebut the statement that free will and an omniscient creator are mutually exclusive. You will never rebut it because they ARE, in fact, mutually exclusive, BY DEFINITION, Mister "Definition of When!"

Again, if all of our actions are known with certainty, free will is already an illusion.

You've actually got this correct, you're just not thinking it through to its conclusion. God could not make us do something he wouldn't want.

1God made us, knowing everything we would ever do.

2God made us because he wanted to. (This is a necessary truth, since he is all powerful)

3Therefore, god wants us to do everything we do.

So, um... why'd god punish the snake?

I'm pretty sure that [url=http://copticorthodoxy.blogspot.com]this guy[/url] could whip 99.9% of atheists in written debate. Obviously I disagree with him, otherwise I wouldn't be an atheist, but I have to admit that most of the time he is very good at defending his beliefs. Ok, I also have to admit that 99.9% of atheists aren't anywhere near as good at debating, or as rational, as they think they are. Another guy who could whip 99.9% of atheists is this guy, though he would probably enter into a debate more because he enjoys debating, than because he actually holds to this or that Christian belief (and he is self-professed neo-platonist, evolutionist, etc., so over half the arguments atheists use would be irrelevant when debating him... it'd be a fun one though.)

PS--don't know why I can't get the first url code to work.

Well, frankly, I'm not impressed. I do have more examples of theist and atheist people at least as capable as the one in the first link. And no, they don't trash out atheists in such great percentages.

After reading the last few posts I want to throw my own question in here. Why didn't god tell them about satan? Why didn't god tell them that someone might try and tell them to do the wrong thing? He's interfering with free will by not informing them of what dangers they may face if he doesn't.

It did in the sense that now we must seek God's wisdom and gifts when before, they were there in front of us.  I think maybe I've got the explaination better below... 

 When you were growing up with your parents, like them or not, you knew who they were.  As a child, you trusted they would tell you the truth and you were cared for with food, love, and what you needed to live (house, clothes, etc).  The same comparison can be related to Adam and Eve.  They had everything because God simply gave it to them.  They had no reason NOT to mistrust God just as a child has no reason to mistrust his/her parents.  When they "realized" all things by eating the fruit, God's punishment was now they would have to work to live and God's gift would no longer just be there.  Before Jesus, the concept of salvation was something that had to be acheived and hence death did not bring a return to God.  That's why until the time of Abraham there was no promise, there was no guarantee, it was a in or out deal and you remember one of the best examples of not only God's mercy but wrath was Sodom and Gomorrah.

 Because I believe that God does in fact posses the trait of all knowing, it boggles my mind that God would not know ahead of time what was going to happen and yet still let it happen.  I'm not going to give any foolish kind of answer trying to explain it as I would because first I'm not God so I have no idea why God did what he did. I don't want to go off topic too much however my belief is that God understood what would happen and in that sense, Jesus was part of the plan (note: what is states below about death and life, do not think it in the sense of physical but spiritual death):

1 Corinthians 15:21-23 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

I appreciate your honesty.

Exactly my point and the point I've been trying to make on a different thread. The bible even has a few verses on that very thing, I love the one that Paul uses Philippians 1:21-23.

We are no longer punished by the mistake of Adam and Eve. Jesus is the answer to all of that, which is one of the reasons why he stated he fulfilled the law and why I posted before, gave us life from death.

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

God is not the source of any evil that is on this earth. The book of Job is a beautiful example of how it is not God that brings about temptation to a person. When I hear people saying how can a good God allow such things, my question is how do we know they were bad?

Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Evil, that is true evil, rarely shows itself to be the Hitler or Stalin's of the world.  Even the nonsense of the blasphamy challenge is not "evil".  The one's however that make me wonder however are those like the Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite that are the real "whoa". 

What makes us the judge of good or evil to begin with? If I lose my job or if my family is lost to a drunk driver, should I say that is evil? Was the killing of the first born in Egypt evil? Was the holocaust evil? Could it be said that I would lose my job now for a better one tomorrow? Could the family I had lost now be with God and so that I could also make use of that for the good of advocating the removal of drunk driving from one person that would have saved lives? Could it not be said that if God did not kill the first born (who's fate could be heaven anyway) then slavery and social justice would have never been understood? If the holocaust had not happened, would they have ever returned to Israel? Are those things considered evil? I know I am not able to completely understand what it is that God does on a daily basis nor what the result will be based on the decision I get to make on even the smallest decisions (like if I should go out on my motorcycle when there are clouds or should I stay at home if there is ice on the roads). But it all goes back to who are we to say what is evil and what is not. If you turn someone in who committed the crime, would this person not hate you? Was it done in that person's best interest however? Is it not possible now with that choice ahead of them they could turn their lives around and end up thanking you for doing what you did?

It kind of leads me into one of the problems I see with modern society, especially today. Generation "Me" if you will thinks nothing of consequences or possible effects of any action. So many today think so little of the future or how to achieve it, why you see so many get rich quick schemes, and why you see when the failures come, they seem to set records (Enron, WorldComm, etc). Without any notion of the world around them or the things that are bigger than themselves, well, what kind of life is that really...

OK I don't mean to rant or ramble, but I hope you get my point.