Volconvo is a debate forum for the discussion of political, religious, and news-based topics.

samsara15 · Oct 20, 2006, 10:04 am

I myself do not believe in the Christian version of God (if any), and was viewing discussion this purely from a hypothetical standpoint. To me, rather than apathetic, the Christian God seems spiteful and vengeful, since Eve performed within her capabilites as created. If you write a program, and it doesn't work properly, then you don't blame the program, you blame yourself, like one poster said above. At the very least, you fix the code.

PatrickHenry · Oct 20, 2006, 03:06 pm

People are code? I don't think so...

How much code realizes it has gone wrong and seeks new pathways that accomplish the goal?

We all have free will.

JohnMK · Oct 20, 2006, 06:54 pm

That is something we will never agree on . . .

Reasonable people can have reasonably different opinions.

KristenW18 · Nov 12, 2006, 11:20 pm

From the time I was little I was taught that, God made Adam and Eve and they were content in the Garden of Eden. They did not know pain, they were perfectly happy and had everything they needed in this garden. There only restriction was the one tree. They were told never to eat from that tree. Just like a "rebeling teeneager" Eve was fooled into eating from the tree and under "peer pressure" Adam ate from the tree as well, and God reacted as any parent would, he was angry because that was the ONLY thing he asked of them. Their consequence for their disobidience was being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and they began to feel everything God never intended them to feel until they disobeyed him. All she had to do was listen, but she didnt. You live and you learn, and unfortunately she had to live with the fact that she should have just listened and not eaten the forbidden fruit! The fact is we can indeed relate to Eve as the humans we are because we have all been tempted and some of us [most of us] have fallen into temptation. Its the never ending story of parent vs. child except this just happened to be God and the first humans he created.

Her mistake was eating the fuit, but then again, she was only human right?

Technosoul · Nov 13, 2006, 12:38 am

The story of Adam and Eve can have many interpretations to discribe what is otherwise the "secret meaning" for he stories symbolisms.

But morality was the result (assuming the story is somewhat real). The knowledge of both good and evil would mean that we can have a choice between one or the other, and so morality would be the act of making those choices between good and evil, right and wrong, life or death.

So it is a story about the birth of morality. Or the need for man-made codes of morality because we do longer directly do what God would direct us to do.

The Eve story continues because the Bible became the new "source of morality" in the absence of God directly telling us what to do (indwardly as a spirit).

And oddly, the Bible contains the knowledge of what is good and evil and that knowledge is recorded on paper which is made out of tree pulp. Thus, the Bible is the evolved from of the original "tree of knowledge between good and evil". The words are the fruits of that tree.

When the unaware first consume the words of the "tree" ( the Bible), and they find out what is moral or not moral, then they become like the Gods, knowing good from evil, and that inflates the ego and they feel above the less knowledgable, and become judgemental of others whom they feel do not know the difference between right and wrong. They become judgemental like as if they were a God their self.

And so most Christians have re-experienced the story of Adam and Eve personally, having so partaken of the Bible ( tree of knowledge about good and evil).

Likewise this is a coming of age story, as most children obey their parents but then become teenagers and suddenly discover other sources for their collection of truths, facts, or what-have-you. They then start to make moral choices independant of what they were told as a child via mom or dad.

Now if you have a pet dog it will no doubt obey your commands forever and ever, it will not grow up and "go independant" on you if well trained with the right rewards and punishments. It will not beomce "human like" in that respect. If it were not of Eve we would still be like little doggie animals. So I guess if we like our more highly evolved state of mind we should thank Eve for giving us this status.

Otherwise - bow wow.

And so - judge others as you would be judged. You became your own god of morality.

phoenix_fire · Nov 13, 2006, 03:46 am

Most people that I know of who look at the history of Adam and Eve do so in too narrow a fashion. I find that a great many of the misunderstandings about God stem from the inability to think about His context in time. God exists outside of time, and consequently throughout it simultaneously. He didn't turn them loose in the garden, stroke His chin and think "hmm...I wonder what they'll do next". He knew what they would do. Was it cruel, then, to create the circumstances as they were? No. John Milton had a good handle on this concept. Read Paradise Lost sometime. Anyway, the fall was not the end of the story. At the same time, God experiences the Redemption that He planned, and the lives of those who choose to be faithful. He could have decided from the beginning that humans would screw things up too much and just called the whole thing off. He experiences the pain of innumerable betrayals, but taking into consideration all of the bad and good in all of human existence in all of time, He considered people worth it. That is incomprehensible love.

Technosoul · Nov 14, 2006, 10:46 pm

I would agree that historical mythology about Adam and Eve cannot be reduced to simple one-liners as the story has massive potentials for interpretation and insight. The final story as related in the bible has filtered down through through the ages and simular such stories can be located in many other cultures not directly influenced by the Bible.

The story can motivate many ideas that can give life here a sense of purpose and that our historical momentum is somehow organized due to that purpose.

The theory of the Big Bang and evolution might explain "how" but it cannot explain "why should it happen" with any sense of satisfaction for a world of humans where "finding purose in life" is paramount.

I find the Big Bang ideas a little boring but found the concepts of evolution exciting and interesting and useful for explaining some of the processes happening in the world ( aka - cause and effect, and so forth). I also find the Adam and Eve story exciting and interesting and often find new slants of perception in my personal review of the story. Feeling I must "make a choice" between one or other for the sake of belief or faith, is not on my agenda.

As you might have noticed I allready presented one of my Adam and Eve theories above in this message thread, which is not one of those "in narrow fashion" overviews which simulated some portest from one poster.

(I have come to bring fire on the earth -- Luke the firebug .... yipes - call the fire department).

Fonceai · Nov 14, 2006, 11:14 pm

What about the less popular part of the story about the first woman God created for Adam, Lillith. And how Lillith was basically a scheming pain in the ass and God booted her and made Eve instead.

Along the lines of that story, the serpent that seduced Eve wasn't Lucifer, it was Lillith.

phoenix_fire · Nov 14, 2006, 11:18 pm

I've heard that story, but it's not at all canonical.

Fonceai · Nov 15, 2006, 12:03 am

Ah, I see. I wondered about that.

Mia · Nov 15, 2006, 04:11 am

Quote:

Quote by: phoenix_fire

The Adam and Eve thing is so misconstrued. "Eating the fruit" is not code for having sex. The serpent tried to convince Eve that God was deceiving her. It tried to tell her that she could have power and equality with God and that He was just tricking her into not taking advantage of it just to keep humans below Him. Eve's sin was believing this. It was her failure to trust God, her covetousness of things that God had not provided, and her pride and arrogance to want to compete with God that condemned her. It was her choice and she made a bad one.

She was meant to make the choice - how can you say it was wrong?

phoenix_fire · Nov 15, 2006, 08:36 am

Quote:

Quote by: Mia

She was meant to make the choice - how can you say it was wrong?

Just because she DID make the choice, doesn't mean she was programmed to. God punished them for their choice. God does not punish things that are not wrong. Therefore, it was wrong. It was wrong for the reasons I cited in the post you quoted. It was wrong simply because if God says you shouldn't do something, then you shouldn't do it. Adam and Eve knew that what they did was wrong. They even tried to hide from God when He came to them. How on earth can you get in any way that the sin was not wrong?

Fonceai · Nov 15, 2006, 09:01 am

But I don't think they knew it was wrong until AFTER they ate the fruit.

I picture it as Adam taking the bite, swallowng, then saying, "Ohhhh shit, that was bad."

phoenix_fire · Nov 15, 2006, 09:59 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Fonceai

But I don't think they knew it was wrong until AFTER they ate the fruit.

I picture it as Adam taking the bite, swallowng, then saying, "Ohhhh shit, that was bad."

God told them beforehand they weren't supposed to do it. Eve even told the serpent that God said they weren't supposed to do it.

Mia · Nov 15, 2006, 10:13 pm

Quote:

Quote by: phoenix_fire

Just because she DID make the choice, doesn't mean she was programmed to. God punished them for their choice. God does not punish things that are not wrong. Therefore, it was wrong. It was wrong for the reasons I cited in the post you quoted. It was wrong simply because if God says you shouldn't do something, then you shouldn't do it. Adam and Eve knew that what they did was wrong. They even tried to hide from God when He came to them. How on earth can you get in any way that the sin was not wrong?

Well, how can God's plan be wrong? He planned for Eve to make that choice. Are you saying he meant for them to live in Eden forever and that Eve's human will overcame God's plan?

**Jack** · Nov 15, 2006, 10:26 pm

Yup, it appears either the humans or the devil outfoxed the big guy in that story. He should have known...oh wait, he had to, didn't he?

phoenix_fire · Nov 15, 2006, 11:09 pm

Quote:

Quote by: Mia

Well, how can God's plan be wrong? He planned for Eve to make that choice. Are you saying he meant for them to live in Eden forever and that Eve's human will overcame God's plan?

You weren't paying attention. He knew they'd do it. He knew how awful humans could be. He still considered us worth saving. He was already an infinite number of steps ahead of the game.

**Jack** · Nov 16, 2006, 12:30 am

Quote:

He knew how awful humans could be.

Because he made us that way!?!?! It's this kind of illogic that makes my eyes cross when I read it. He knew, but he didn't know he knew, but he knew he didn't know he knew he didn't know... Arrggggg.

phoenix_fire · Nov 16, 2006, 12:54 am

Quote:

Quote by: Isherwood

Because he made us that way!?!?! It's this kind of illogic that makes my eyes cross when I read it. He knew, but he didn't know he knew, but he knew he didn't know he knew he didn't know... Arrggggg.

Not exactly. He made us self-determining: capable of a range of behaviors and decisions. God doesn't make people bad. People make people bad.

**Jack** · Nov 16, 2006, 01:23 am

Quote:

People make people bad.

This makes people equal to god, then.

Oct 20, 2006, 10:04 am	#21 (permalink) (top)
samsara15 I'm the camel Location: Maryland Posts: 657	I myself do not believe in the Christian version of God (if any), and was viewing discussion this purely from a hypothetical standpoint. To me, rather than apathetic, the Christian God seems spiteful and vengeful, since Eve performed within her capabilites as created. If you write a program, and it doesn't work properly, then you don't blame the program, you blame yourself, like one poster said above. At the very least, you fix the code. Economic Left/Right -8.88 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian –6.97

Oct 20, 2006, 03:06 pm	#22 (permalink) (top)
PatrickHenry 9/11: Inside Job Location: Hawai'i, Big Island Posts: 10,455	People are code? I don't think so... How much code realizes it has gone wrong and seeks new pathways that accomplish the goal? We all have free will. "Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense." -- John Adams

Nov 13, 2006, 03:46 am	#26 (permalink) (top)
phoenix_fire Paladin Location: Narnia Posts: 4,277	Most people that I know of who look at the history of Adam and Eve do so in too narrow a fashion. I find that a great many of the misunderstandings about God stem from the inability to think about His context in time. God exists outside of time, and consequently throughout it simultaneously. He didn't turn them loose in the garden, stroke His chin and think "hmm...I wonder what they'll do next". He knew what they would do. Was it cruel, then, to create the circumstances as they were? No. John Milton had a good handle on this concept. Read Paradise Lost sometime. Anyway, the fall was not the end of the story. At the same time, God experiences the Redemption that He planned, and the lives of those who choose to be faithful. He could have decided from the beginning that humans would screw things up too much and just called the whole thing off. He experiences the pain of innumerable betrayals, but taking into consideration all of the bad and good in all of human existence in all of time, He considered people worth it. That is incomprehensible love. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. -- Song 8:6

Nov 14, 2006, 11:18 pm	#29 (permalink) (top)
phoenix_fire Paladin Location: Narnia Posts: 4,277	I've heard that story, but it's not at all canonical. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. -- Song 8:6

Nov 15, 2006, 10:26 pm	#36 (permalink) (top)
Jack formerly Isherwood Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 14,209	Yup, it appears either the humans or the devil outfoxed the big guy in that story. He should have known...oh wait, he had to, didn't he? The Forum Rules Radical Atheist Heathen Queer Let's agree to respect each others views, no matter how wrong yours may be. (Ashleigh Brilliant)

Oct 20, 2006, 06:54 pm	#23 (permalink) (top)
JohnMK Laissez-Faire Location: Seattle Posts: 539	That is something we will never agree on . . . Reasonable people can have reasonably different opinions.

Nov 12, 2006, 11:20 pm	#24 (permalink) (top)
KristenW18 [Kristen] =o) Posts: 4	From the time I was little I was taught that, God made Adam and Eve and they were content in the Garden of Eden. They did not know pain, they were perfectly happy and had everything they needed in this garden. There only restriction was the one tree. They were told never to eat from that tree. Just like a "rebeling teeneager" Eve was fooled into eating from the tree and under "peer pressure" Adam ate from the tree as well, and God reacted as any parent would, he was angry because that was the ONLY thing he asked of them. Their consequence for their disobidience was being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and they began to feel everything God never intended them to feel until they disobeyed him. All she had to do was listen, but she didnt. You live and you learn, and unfortunately she had to live with the fact that she should have just listened and not eaten the forbidden fruit! The fact is we can indeed relate to Eve as the humans we are because we have all been tempted and some of us [most of us] have fallen into temptation. Its the never ending story of parent vs. child except this just happened to be God and the first humans he created. Her mistake was eating the fuit, but then again, she was only human right?

Nov 13, 2006, 12:38 am	#25 (permalink) (top)
Technosoul Volcanic Erupter Posts: 8,936	The story of Adam and Eve can have many interpretations to discribe what is otherwise the "secret meaning" for he stories symbolisms. But morality was the result (assuming the story is somewhat real). The knowledge of both good and evil would mean that we can have a choice between one or the other, and so morality would be the act of making those choices between good and evil, right and wrong, life or death. So it is a story about the birth of morality. Or the need for man-made codes of morality because we do longer directly do what God would direct us to do. The Eve story continues because the Bible became the new "source of morality" in the absence of God directly telling us what to do (indwardly as a spirit). And oddly, the Bible contains the knowledge of what is good and evil and that knowledge is recorded on paper which is made out of tree pulp. Thus, the Bible is the evolved from of the original "tree of knowledge between good and evil". The words are the fruits of that tree. When the unaware first consume the words of the "tree" ( the Bible), and they find out what is moral or not moral, then they become like the Gods, knowing good from evil, and that inflates the ego and they feel above the less knowledgable, and become judgemental of others whom they feel do not know the difference between right and wrong. They become judgemental like as if they were a God their self. And so most Christians have re-experienced the story of Adam and Eve personally, having so partaken of the Bible ( tree of knowledge about good and evil). Likewise this is a coming of age story, as most children obey their parents but then become teenagers and suddenly discover other sources for their collection of truths, facts, or what-have-you. They then start to make moral choices independant of what they were told as a child via mom or dad. Now if you have a pet dog it will no doubt obey your commands forever and ever, it will not grow up and "go independant" on you if well trained with the right rewards and punishments. It will not beomce "human like" in that respect. If it were not of Eve we would still be like little doggie animals. So I guess if we like our more highly evolved state of mind we should thank Eve for giving us this status. Otherwise - bow wow. And so - judge others as you would be judged. You became your own god of morality.

Nov 14, 2006, 10:46 pm	#27 (permalink) (top)
Technosoul Volcanic Erupter Posts: 8,936	I would agree that historical mythology about Adam and Eve cannot be reduced to simple one-liners as the story has massive potentials for interpretation and insight. The final story as related in the bible has filtered down through through the ages and simular such stories can be located in many other cultures not directly influenced by the Bible. The story can motivate many ideas that can give life here a sense of purpose and that our historical momentum is somehow organized due to that purpose. The theory of the Big Bang and evolution might explain "how" but it cannot explain "why should it happen" with any sense of satisfaction for a world of humans where "finding purose in life" is paramount. I find the Big Bang ideas a little boring but found the concepts of evolution exciting and interesting and useful for explaining some of the processes happening in the world ( aka - cause and effect, and so forth). I also find the Adam and Eve story exciting and interesting and often find new slants of perception in my personal review of the story. Feeling I must "make a choice" between one or other for the sake of belief or faith, is not on my agenda. As you might have noticed I allready presented one of my Adam and Eve theories above in this message thread, which is not one of those "in narrow fashion" overviews which simulated some portest from one poster. (I have come to bring fire on the earth -- Luke the firebug .... yipes - call the fire department).

Nov 14, 2006, 11:14 pm	#28 (permalink) (top)
Fonceai BANNED Location: New York Posts: 4,217	What about the less popular part of the story about the first woman God created for Adam, Lillith. And how Lillith was basically a scheming pain in the ass and God booted her and made Eve instead. Along the lines of that story, the serpent that seduced Eve wasn't Lucifer, it was Lillith.

Nov 15, 2006, 12:03 am	#30 (permalink) (top)
Fonceai BANNED Location: New York Posts: 4,217	Ah, I see. I wondered about that.

Nov 15, 2006, 09:01 am	#33 (permalink) (top)
Fonceai BANNED Location: New York Posts: 4,217	But I don't think they knew it was wrong until AFTER they ate the fruit. I picture it as Adam taking the bite, swallowng, then saying, "Ohhhh shit, that was bad."