Anyone theists here smarter than Caner?

Hambydammit
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Anyone theists here smarter than Caner?

So, Ergun Caner couldn't answer this question. Anybody literalists want to take a crack at it?

(If you don't believe Adam and Eve really happened, I'm not interested in your answer. I only want to hear from people who believe the creation story.)

God created man and woman, and put them in the Garden of Eden. He made them pure and innocent, without the knowledge of good and evil, and with no knowledge of death.

Then, a talking snake told them that they ought to eat this fruit that God had told them not to eat, and they did, and then God punished everybody. Forever.

Here's the thing.... so far, Adam and Eve hadn't noticed that they weren't wearing any clothes, and the only conversations they'd had were with each other, God, and a talking snake. Obviously they didn't know anything, so they either had to believe a talking snake, or this dude who calls himself God. (Of course that doesn't have any real meaning because they didn't know about good or evil or eternity or death)

So, how were they to know which one to believe? On the one hand they got a snake, on the other hand this dude that likes walking in the garden and chatting. They don't know what good and evil are, so they can't know that the snake is anything but a snake. Having no concept of good and evil, and only being given a choice for the first time, they choose an option.

Turns out it's pretty bad.

From then on, womens' vaginas hurt really bad when they give birth, and men have to work. (Oddly, it doesn't mention womens' liberation, but I guess that wasn't important.) Oh... and people all die now. And all the Chinese people are in hell. And the Indians, too, at least until the British were kind enough to take over the country and give them Cricket and herpes and Jesus. (That's Indians like India, by the way. They were the lucky ones. The Christians killed all the American Indians... but that's another topic, isn't it?)

Anyway, I've strayed a bit. I learned from Caner himself...

Ok, the question:

"How could Adam and Eve have sinned if they had no knowledge of good and evil?"

Follow up question:

"If God told them what good and evil was before they ate the fruit, they had knowledge of good and evil before they ate the fruit. What did the fruit do besides let them know they were naked?"

Follow up question:

"If the fruit was just symbolic, and the whole point was for god to give them a choice, why not just give them a choice between strawberry or grape koolaid, and skip the whole damning billions of beings who haven't been born yet because you wanted to taste that nice looking apple!!"

 Anyone?

 

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(Silence) *Grenade

(Silence)

*Grenade explodes*

 

Silence ensues....


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Caner seemed smart to me,

Caner seemed smart to me, it's just that he's riding a very bad argument.  I doubt anyone could do better than he did 1) dodging or 2) ad hoc reinterpretations.

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Yeah, todangst.  I kind of

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.

 

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Question 1: "How could Adam

Question 1: "How could Adam and Eve have sinned if they had no knowledge of good and evil?"

They sinned by directly disobeying God's command to not eat from the tree in the center of the garden. Knowledge of good or evil is not necessary for the sin to take place. For instance: say someone who is unaware of a state's law against murder goes out and murders someone. Does the fact that he was unaware of the law excuse the crime? Obviously not. In the same way the fact that Eve did not know of good and evil does not mean she did not sin against God.

 

Question 2: "If God told them what good and evil was before they ate the fruit, they had knowledge of good and evil before they ate the fruit. What did the fruit do besides let them know they were naked?"

I don't believe they had knowledge of good and evil before disobeying God and eating the fruit. Whether the fruit itself brought about the knowledge or the disobediant act did is open to speculation. As to the nakedness: Adam and Eve realized that they were no longer the perfect creations that God had started with. They were now flawed with sin. That shamed them. They thought that by hiding their nakedness, God might not be able to see that they had disobeyed him.

 

Question 3: "If the fruit was just symbolic, and the whole point was for god to give them a choice, why not just give them a choice between strawberry or grape koolaid, and skip the whole damning billions of beings who haven't been born yet because you wanted to taste that nice looking apple!!"

If the fruit was symbolic, then it still comes down to the fact that Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree he said not to. God could have told them to make grape koolaid, but not strawberry. The snake still would have convinced Eve to try some strawberry koolaid because it tastes better and she'd gain all sorts of knowledge. Point being you can't blame God for Adam and Eve screwing up the system. He gave them an entire garden with all sorts of fruits to eat and clean water to drink. But they were tempted to disobey God and try the one thing they couldn't have.  Yes, unfortuneately man kind has had to pay for that mistake ever since.


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Brimstone wrote: Question

Brimstone wrote:

Question 1: "How could Adam and Eve have sinned if they had no knowledge of good and evil?"

They sinned by directly disobeying God's command to not eat from the tree in the center of the garden. Knowledge of good or evil is not necessary for the sin to take place. For instance: say someone who is unaware of a state's law against murder goes out and murders someone. Does the fact that he was unaware of the law excuse the crime? Obviously not. In the same way the fact that Eve did not know of good and evil does not mean she did not sin against God.

 

Question 2: "If God told them what good and evil was before they ate the fruit, they had knowledge of good and evil before they ate the fruit. What did the fruit do besides let them know they were naked?"

I don't believe they had knowledge of good and evil before disobeying God and eating the fruit. Whether the fruit itself brought about the knowledge or the disobediant act did is open to speculation. As to the nakedness: Adam and Eve realized that they were no longer the perfect creations that God had started with. They were now flawed with sin. That shamed them. They thought that by hiding their nakedness, God might not be able to see that they had disobeyed him.

 

Question 3: "If the fruit was just symbolic, and the whole point was for god to give them a choice, why not just give them a choice between strawberry or grape koolaid, and skip the whole damning billions of beings who haven't been born yet because you wanted to taste that nice looking apple!!"

If the fruit was symbolic, then it still comes down to the fact that Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree he said not to. God could have told them to make grape koolaid, but not strawberry. The snake still would have convinced Eve to try some strawberry koolaid because it tastes better and she'd gain all sorts of knowledge. Point being you can't blame God for Adam and Eve screwing up the system. He gave them an entire garden with all sorts of fruits to eat and clean water to drink. But they were tempted to disobey God and try the one thing they couldn't have. Yes, unfortuneately man kind has had to pay for that mistake ever since.

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? 

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Nope. No smarter than

Nope.

No smarter than Caner. Sorry.

1. You've missed the whole question. Adam and Eve, if they had no knowledge of good and evil, were like very young children.

Have you considered why parents punish their very young children for disobedience? It is to keep them from dying. If they don't obey when you say, "Don't touch the hot stove" or "Dont get close to that cliff," they may very well die. So, when they disobey you, you punish them in a temporary way, such that they will learn to survive while not being permanently injured.

Have you ever considered why parents need to punish their very young children for disobedience? Curiosity. It's part of our nature. Part of the way your god made us. No matter how much a child loves its parents, it will do something the parents have said not to do. Not because it's evil, but because it's curious.

So, God, in his infinite love, gave Adam and Eve a single choice. Their curiosity got the best of them, and so, as punishment,

He Killed EVERY SINGLE MAN AND WOMAN WHO HAS EVER LIVED!

Something doesn't quite match up there. Don't you see it?

Adam and Eve never got a chance to learn from their mistake. God created man with free will, and then demanded complete perfection from them, AFTER CREATING THEM IMPERFECT! Their first punishment WAS DEATH. This defeats the purpose of punishment, by inflicting the penalty that punishment is designed to prevent.

This is not a good and loving act.

Quote:
Adam and Eve realized that they were no longer the perfect creations that God had started with.

Obviously they were not perfect to begin with. They had the capacity to sin, which made them imperfect in the eyes of god. If god expected perfection, then the capacity for imperfection is an imperfection.

Quote:
Point being you can't blame God for Adam and Eve screwing up the system.

Let's play a game. It's called "The Semantics Game." This is where you say something, then say the complete opposite, and then pretend its ok because you used different words.

Let's begin. You say:

"God is all knowing, and created everything that exists."

Then I'll say:

"God is therefore responsible for everything that exists."

Then you say:

"No, he's not."

Then I say:

"'Responsible' means chargeable with being the author, cause, or occasion of something. Since God is the author, cause, and occasion of the entire universe, he is, by definition, RESPONSIBLE for it."

Then you say:

"No, Adam and Eve were responsible for their own actions."

And then I roll my eyes back in my head and try to bludgeon myself to death with a nerf football.

 

 

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mouse,

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.


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Brimstone

Brimstone wrote:

mouse,

Great questions.

thanks brimstone.

Brimstone wrote:
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.
Adam and Eve had a concept of self? What does that entail in paradise?

Brimstone wrote:
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.
in this case, how could adam and eve know what death meant in the first place? for all they knew, death could mean a reward from god as much as it could be a punishment. (Further, ideas like reward and punishment, or even obedience and honesty, don't mean anything to beings with the kind of knowledge of adam and eve and two-year olds.

a few asides because i find the creation narrative in genesis to be confusing;

didn't the serpent, a creation of god, commit original sin?

did animals die before original sin? are animals capable of original sin? you can tell an animal for example, not to eat something for fear of punishment, but they may eat it anyways. 

what exactly separated adam and eve of the creation story from the animals god created before eve ate the apple? 

 

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Oh, no! More questions, and

Oh, no!

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

 

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Brimstone, I feel obliged

Brimstone, I feel obliged to answer your post.

Quote:
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.

You are wrong. A child isn't "obliged" to obey his parents through his own self. A child learns that obeying the parents is a good idea mainly on his own, through noticing the consequences of his actions. An human mind is wired to work in a conditional mode: from action results consequence. He learns that his parents do not like it when he sucks his finger by being repeatedly corrected by his parents, either with the sucker or through other means. He learns that his parents do not like him eating poo by... ok, I think I've made my point clear. A child doesn't obey rules on his own, because he doesn't have the notion of the consequence of disobeying them. If he had it (a.k.a. the difference between good and evil), a child could simply be given by the doctor all the indications needed to live a healthy life at birth, and no parents would be therefore needed any further. But it doesn't work that way. A child is originally given a very limited set of rules (like no finger-sucking). Once he breaks them, he is shown the consequence of breaking them (through the process described above), he is corrected, and, when parents consider that he has learned to respect them, he is being exposed to more reality and given a wider set of rules (such as not pooing on oneself, but pooing in the toilet). And the process goes on and on until he is considered to have comprehended enough to be able to survive on his own. Nobody kills the baby after the first mistake. The baby must learn to inhibit himself in some occasions, and that cannot happen unless he is repeatedly exposed to some situations.

Quote:
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.

Once again, I have to disagree with you. They have been told what the consequence is, but they haven't been exposed to this process of learning as described above. They had no way of knowing that the consequence of their action would be dire. What God did was similar to the situation when a child is left unmonitored in the presence of a boiling kettle of water, and he is only being told not to pull it on himself. This would normally be OK if the child has had enough exposure to corrective measures, and has come to learn that disobeying parents is really not a good idea, but Adam and Eve hadn't even had at least ONE exposure. And it happens all around the world that children aren't exposed to enough corrective measures, and, from time to time, a child WILL pull a kettle of boiling water on himself.

Also: since they had no notion of good and bad, they had no idea that not telling the truth is something bad. So when the serpent told them something different from God, they had no way of discerning who should they listen to. Having no way to tell which way to take, Eve took the way that was dictated by her inner desire, which is normal in such a circumstance. If a child (even 15-16 years old) is exposed to two opposite opinions on the same thing, they will choose that which they feel to be correct according to themselves (and a clear example would be yours truly, who is a smoker, with non-smoking parents).

Furthermore: God telling Adam and Eve about death ONCE equals nothing. It's like telling your baby "Don't eat that, it's caca!" First, he will have absolutely no idea what in the world you could mean by that, because he has no idea of what "caca" is. Gradually, they will learn, through almost Pavlovian means, that "caca" is associated with something they really shouldn't touch/grab/eat/play with, so they will come to understand, finally, the term of material "bad".

Quote:
Because they disobeyed him, God gave them the exact punishment he promised.

Yes, he practically killed them. Would you do that to your child the first time he makes a mistake?

Quote:
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.

And what would be the point in redeeming your soul from this sinful body? I kind of like my sinful status: I can smoke, I can have sex, I can make money, I can eat candy, I can... But I hope you've got my point. Why would I need anything else?

 

If you were to ask me what the whole Adam and Evev thing was, I'd have to say that it was simply a fairy-tale for Jewish children to understand that they have to remain Jewish and obey their parents (portrayed by "God&quotEye-wink, who have strived to build them a house to live in and a future to live out (portrayed by God's creation), or else they might be cast out ("the fall&quotEye-wink and who knows what sorts of evil things might happen to them (death, disease, birthing of criminal children, trouble for women who might be taken a prisoner and... well... you get what I mean when God refers to her "painful womb", etc.).

The rest of Moses' books were probably an interpretation of the origins of Jews and legends that were circulating at that time amongst the Jewish people.

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Hambydammit, As far as the

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.


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I still don't understand why

I still don't understand why Christians are so in love with comparing hell to parents punishing children for misbehavior. No parent can (and no fit parent would) punish a child eternally for anything they did - and only the worst possible parent would use torture. You still aren't addressing the fact that if they had no knowledge of good or evil, they had no way of knowing disobedience was bad. By the way, God told them they would immediately die if they ate from the tree - which was a lie - in fact according to the Bible they lived for centuries afterward! Imagine a parent that put out a chocolate cake on a table where a child had access to it, and told him or her not to eat it or "I will kill you." And then allowed some stranger to come into the house and tell them it was OK to eat it. This would be at the very least psychological torture, and such parent should be reported to Child Protective Services.

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Quote: Your view of

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

Quote:
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.

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.

Quote:
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.

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

Quote:
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 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?

Quote:
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.

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.

Quote:
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.

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

Quote:
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.

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".

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Brimstone, I will grant you

Brimstone, I will grant you that I used a limited view of punishment, and I will further grant that there are more complex behaviors that punishment is designed to either prevent or ellicit.

I used the narrow view of punishment preventing death to illustrate that god's punishment WAS death, and so defeats the whole purpose.

Quote:
The key with punishment is that it must be consistent.

Are you being intentionally dense? A thing that happens only once cannot be described as consistent, so why does this have anything to do with anything? God's sentence of death and suffering to all mankind was handed down one time, after one occurrence of disobedience.

Quote:
God created the angels, heavens, the earth, water, sky, land, vegetation, animals, and man. Full stop.

Um... so... everything.

Quote:
To man he gave self awareness, intelligence, emotions, and a wide variety of other gifts.

You mean, he created those traits in man.

Quote:
What man does with the gifts given him is his responsibility, not God's.

God, as the creator of those traits, is responsible for the tendencies of those traits. Don't be dense.

The rest of your post has already been refuted by others, so I'm not going to refute it again.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Hambydammit wrote:Yeah,

Hambydammit wrote:

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.

 

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.

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Hambydammit wrote:

Hambydammit wrote:
Ok, the question:

"How could Adam and Eve have sinned if they had no knowledge of good and evil?"

They didn't have knowledge of good and evil. It wasn't until AFTER they ate of the tree that they knew. (Genesis 3:7). That is when man realized quite a lot.  Their "sin" was doing what God told them they shouldn't (note, that didn't say CAN'T...more on this below).

Hambydammit wrote:
Follow up question:

"If God told them what good and evil was before they ate the fruit, they had knowledge of good and evil before they ate the fruit. What did the fruit do besides let them know they were naked?"

Other way around. Genesis 2:16-17 explains what the tree was...God gave man no such thing inheritanly.  After eating of it, man now had understanding of good and evil.  As the story continues, death is now possible.  I like the explanation that death is because man now has all this conflict within him about good and evil and because of it, the body cannot sustain life for long.

Hambydammit wrote:
Follow up question:

"If the fruit was just symbolic, and the whole point was for god to give them a choice, why not just give them a choice between strawberry or grape koolaid, and skip the whole damning billions of beings who haven't been born yet because you wanted to taste that nice looking apple!!"

The apple was not symbolic at all. In fact it was not even to damn anyone. He didn't even tell Adam that you CAN'T eat the fruit. God's words:

Genesis 2: 16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

He did not say it would damn man. It was Satan that twisted it and said:

Genesis 3:1 "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The answer? He didn't. God didn't make an unreasonable request. He simply told them, don't eat from it if you don't wanna die. He never said you CAN'T eat from it as Satan made Eve assume.

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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Quote: They didn't have

Quote:
They didn't have knowledge of good and evil. It wasn't until AFTER they ate of the tree that they knew.

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.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Razorphreak, your post

Razorphreak, your post demonstrates that you have payd no attention to the topic, not even to the post you were answering.

I doubt anyone will waste time explaining to you what you didn't pay attention to.

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Hambydammit wrote: I'm at a

Hambydammit wrote:
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?

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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Quote: God didn't tell them

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

 

NIV: 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

NAS: but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it (A)you will surely die."

Amplified: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and blessing and calamity you shall not eat,

KJV: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:

NSV: 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat

NIV(UK): 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

NIRV: 17 But you must not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So, kiddo. What do you think? Did god tell them not to eat of the tree?

Don't get all sparky on me and say that the word shall is your way out. Remember, it's the same word as in the um... 10 Commandments. Funny word... commandment... Thou shalt...

So will you just admit you're wrong?

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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2 major problems: 1. How

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.

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Hambydammit, Does it say

Hambydammit,

Does it say YOU   CANNOT   EAT  FROM  THAT  TREE?  Verse 16 states "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely".  It did not say "except" at any point. What it states in 17 is cause and effect; I paraphrase... if you eat of it, and I'm telling you now you don't wanna do that, this is what's going to happen.   If I told you "do not walk in front of a bus for if you do, you are going to die"  and not "don't walk in front of a bus", I'm sure you'll see the difference between an order and a cause and effect statement.

I know what you are saying however you are coming from the wrong angle.  You are assuming that God gave an order to Adam.  He did not.  That is why Satan asks in 3:1, "did he really tell you that you can't eat from any tree?"  He twists what God told Adam into what sounds more like an order and it never was.

Matt, one question, did they die, even if centuries later?  If so, how was it a lie? 

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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Notice the emphasis on the

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?

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Quote: 2. GOD

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

Well, as crazy as this may sound, I haven't thought of the snake being the truthful one before.

 

Razorphreak, there have been several posts before you that simply stated WHY God's actions were wrong. We know what is stated in the Bible, trust me. And it simply doesn't make any sense with an all-loving, omniscient God.

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razor, Dude. Seriously,

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.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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But now for the real

But now for the real question:  "Anyone theists here" with better grammar skills than Hambydammit?


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jmm,

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.}

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Rigor_OMortis

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

Well, as crazy as this may sound, I haven't thought of the snake being the truthful one before.

He never said when...only they will.  Sorry that's two you've gotten wrong.  The ACTUAL quote has been posted several times, I didn't say "you will surely die RIGHT NOW".

Rigor_OMortis wrote:
Razorphreak, there have been several posts before you that simply stated WHY God's actions were wrong. We know what is stated in the Bible, trust me. And it simply doesn't make any sense with an all-loving, omniscient God.

rigor, ummm....I don't ever remember saying God's actions were wrong.  What I DO remember saying is how the interpretation of God's actions were wrong by you guys on this thread.  I know it may not make sense to you or others on this forum, and I know hamby hates me, but this is what the word says.  I know you want to make it say something it doesn't but I don't know how else to put it. 

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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Hi all.  As there's three

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.


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Hambydammit

Hambydammit wrote:

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.}

 

I was kidding.  My bad.


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Feel free to point out my

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


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razorphreak

razorphreak wrote:
Hambydammit wrote:
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?

how would adam and eve know what death is, much less whether it is good or evil?

why would adam and eve believe anything god would say anyways? since they didn't have a concept of good and evil, wasn't god just there, along with everything else?

 what could death mean to adam and eve?

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Brimstone wrote:

Brimstone wrote:

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.

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.

Ethics and aesthetics are one
-Wittgenstein


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Do you remember Caners free

Do you remember Caners free will argument?  God put told Adam and Eve where the tree was so that they would truly have free will, without them knowing where the tree was they wouldn't have had free will because all of the choices wouldn't have been easily laid out for them.  Remember that argument?

 After the show Kelly joked about how if you have a kid, you should make sure they have free will.  To do so you need to show your infant where all the poisonous chemicals in the house are.  In fact you should lay out cocaine and show them how to snort it as well.  You should do this when they're too young to understand the consequences (like Adam and Eve didn't).  You should even lay all the poisonous chemicals out in the open so that they have free will... might as well put a knife out as well.  Afterall, you do want your kids to have free will, right? 


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First, jmm, we're cool. I

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:

Quote:
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?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?

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.

Quote:
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.

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

Quote:
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.

So, they had knowledge of good and evil.

Quote:
You're using the wrong definition of "when".

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.

Quote:
"for when you eat from the tree you will surely die."

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.

Quote:
The main problem with your argument is that is flies in the face of free will.

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!"

Quote:
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.

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

Quote:
Furthermore, how could God make us do something he wouldn't want us to do?

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.

Quote:
The serpent is understood to be either Satan in disguise or a snake possessed by Satan.

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

 

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Quote: Mortis said (quite

Quote:
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.

So adults are radically different, you say. In what way exactly? Do adults instantly grasp new concepts, without being forced to go through that "learn, do, err, accept correction and do it all over again" phase?

If we are to take it this way, it would mean that I, as an adult, would have no difficulty in grasping the intricacies of the new concept called "Sweedish language" (sorry for all Sweedes on the forum, really no offense intended) and should be able to speak at an acceptable rate from my first attempt.

It is quite obvious that this does not occur, though.

Your mistake is to consider Adam and Eve as having the same adulthood as present day humans, which was not the case, as present day adults are already taught: obeying orders, generally bad and generally good things, manners, etc., concepts that Adam and Eve had never before even had contact with.

Quote:
Also, because they were adults, not children, they should not need to be told a thousand times not to eat from the tree.

Indeed, they should have probably been told significantly less times, but still more than once.

For you to grasp what I mean: if you know someone who uses swear words a lot, try ordering him to give it up. You'll notice that he does swear from time to time, even though he looks more controlled than before.

Quote:
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.

Pardon the misunderstanding: we didn't say that death came along with good&evil. It actually came because of God's will, but more as a side effect than as related.

Adam and Eve were immortal. If God gave them brains, arises the question of whether or not they had the concept of death in mind. The answer should be a certain no, because Adam and Eve were supposed to be immortal. If you're immortal (a.k.a. no possible way of dying), and the whole world around you shares that, the concept of death is meaningless.

God told Adam and Eve that they would die. To them, death has suddely started to mean the end of that accursed time we're forced to spend out of the Garden of Eden, and then a return. Because that's what basically happened: they were initially together with God. Then they were on Earth. They died, and they weere with God again. So basically, apart from everything, I don't see any reason why Adam and Eve would consider dying a bad thing. It changed practically nothing in their original status-quo.

Quote:
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.

So as I could say, quod erat demonstrandum for the above.

Quote:
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". 

This doesn't bode well with what any normal human being would understand from "When you arrive, you will surely find Mr. Xovich waiting for you", a phrase with quite a lot of similarity to the biblical quote.

This, however, is too insignificant to be worth wasting time on. I'm sure what Matt only wanted was to raise the spirits a bit through a bit of fun.

Quote:
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.

That makes my fault too for not understanding. This part of the argument is then sacked.

Quote:
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.

I find this argument has been used so widely, that I've even wondered when will the time come for you to place it in.

Simple logical problem (so PLEASE DO YOUR BEST AND ANSWER):

Man faced with choice A or choice B. God knows, through omniscience, that man will make choice A. Can man make choice B?

(this, if it isn't obvious enough, is an oversimplification of the omniscience vs. free will problem)

Quote:
Furthermore, how could God make us do something he wouldn't want us to do?  He would be contradicting himself.

Well, that's a very good and sensible question, I'll have to admit, and a conclusion to match it. I'm going to add it to my list of condition that God's omnipotence must subject to.

Quote:
Besides, if God did interfere by stopping man from sinning, then people would just bitch that God is too hands-on

IF, and ONLY IF they were aware of God's interference. The fact that I had to ask you the free will vs. omniscience problem represents a q.e.d. for this.

Quote:
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.

Mea culpa. The law terms that we use here are radically different from what you use in the USA. Though I did find the term of of "criminal non-support" that would fit here (but this is only intended as a joke).

To explain: obstruction of justice, here, also means: refusing to testify or to declare (if you have been indicated as a witness), and accomplice to murder also means, here, a person who had the knowledge and certainty of a crime that is about to be committed, but did nothing to alert authorities or the person targeted by the crime. To accomplice to murder, we distinguish an exception: that situation in which the life of the person in question would be also threatened through intervention. Exception which, of course, doesn't apply.

But anyway, this is a minor problem as well.

Quote:
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 how a talking snake, in the context you have just put forward, wouldn't scare the leaves off Eve. But I believe it has to do with the conditions in which Adam and Eve were living. Near eternal bliss, immortality, almost complete freedom... it's hard to imagine how anything would scare any of them. What could possibly happen to them? Would they die or something?

So this is a discussion that must have a psychologic substrate thick enough for me to NOT want to go into.

 

It seems that now the only argument was simply wether God is a good parent or not. Consider the free will part as off-topic.

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Well

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.


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mouse wrote: how would adam

mouse wrote:
how would adam and eve know what death is, much less whether it is good or evil?

Ummm..cause God told them.... 

mouse wrote:
why would adam and eve believe anything god would say anyways? since they didn't have a concept of good and evil, wasn't god just there, along with everything else?

Different time different scene.  Adam and Eve and God had a very "face to face" relationship.  It was not until the "fall of man" when that relationship disappeared.   The fact that they were deceived was not God's doing.  

mouse wrote:
what could death mean to adam and eve?

Same as it does to us.  The end of life.

I've gotta ask sapient and others, what is your definition of free will?

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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Quote: I'm pretty sure that

Quote:
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.

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At the question of "what

At the question of "what could death mean to adam and eve?", razorphreak gave the following answer:

Quote:
Same as it does to us.  The end of life.
 

I repeat myself:

"God told Adam and Eve that they would die. To them, death has suddely started to mean the end of that accursed time we're forced to spend out of the Garden of Eden, and then a return. Because that's what basically happened: they were initially together with God. Then they were on Earth. They died, and they weere with God again. So basically, apart from everything, I don't see any reason why Adam and Eve would consider dying a bad thing. It changed practically nothing in their original status-quo."

Quote:
Different time different scene.  Adam and Eve and God had a very "face to face" relationship.  It was not until the "fall of man" when that relationship disappeared.   The fact that they were deceived was not God's doing.

OK, I'm lost here. The original question posted by mouse was: "why would adam and eve believe anything god would say anyways? since they didn't have a concept of good and evil, wasn't god just there, along with everything else?"

How exactly does what you just said answer that?

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After reading the last few

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.

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Hambydammit wrote:

rumplestiltskin!


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Rigor_OMortis wrote: I

Rigor_OMortis wrote:
I don't see any reason why Adam and Eve would consider dying a bad thing. It changed practically nothing in their original status-quo."

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... 

Rigor_OMortis wrote:
The original question posted by mouse was: "why would adam and eve believe anything god would say anyways? since they didn't have a concept of good and evil, wasn't god just there, along with everything else?"

How exactly does what you just said answer that?

 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.

 

Vastet wrote:
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.

 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.

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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  Vastet wrote: After

 

Vastet wrote:
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.

You're right.  The warning should have been "Don't eat those apples and don't go talking to any snakes or you'll be really sorry." 

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razorphreak wrote: Because

razorphreak wrote:
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.

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Quote: It did in the sense

Quote:
It did in the sense that now we must seek God's wisdom and gifts when before, they were there in front of us.

This has no connection to death. It is actually death that breaks this status of sinning vessels for the spirit, and gets us right into God's wisdom. I can't understand even now why any theist would consider death a bad thing.

Quote:
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.

I see your point now.

Two questions remain, though: why am I punished for Adam and Eve's mistake? Why do women still feel pain when giving birth (well, some, at least), why are there still diseases, etc. ? And where did all those sould go before the promise?

Quote:
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.

So you see, razorphreak, this is why most atheists question God. Considering this, considering the Old Testament and his orders there, there is absolutely no way in which anyone would convince me that the Christian God is an all-loving one.

And it is this "God's love" that the original argument of Adam and Eve came from.

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Rigor_OMortis wrote: This

Rigor_OMortis wrote:
This has no connection to death. It is actually death that breaks this status of sinning vessels for the spirit, and gets us right into God's wisdom. I can't understand even now why any theist would consider death a bad thing.

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.

Rigor_OMortis wrote:
why am I punished for Adam and Eve's mistake? Why do women still feel pain when giving birth (well, some, at least), why are there still diseases, etc. ? And where did all those sould go before the promise?

...

So you see, razorphreak, this is why most atheists question God. Considering this, considering the Old Testament and his orders there, there is absolutely no way in which anyone would convince me that the Christian God is an all-loving one.

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.

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire