God and the law

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Starboy So god didn't know that Adam and Eve would sin? This took god by complete surprise? Starboy

nope. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, omniscient, all-seeing, all-hearing, and, my personal favorite, all-sufficient.

[Starboy]

Quote by: dthmstr254 nope. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, omniscient, all-seeing, all-hearing, and, my personal favorite, all-sufficient.

So then god created adam and eve so they would sin. After all he is all knowing. He had to know that they would sin even before he created them. So god did it on purpose, or are you trying to say that god could not make an adam and eve that would not sin? That god is not all powerful?

Starboy

[Samildanach]

Also why place the apple tree in the garden?If you don't want people to eat from the tree then simply don't put it in the garden....I mean duh. For an all seeing all knowing God hes seems to be a bit of a moron.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Samildanach Also why place the apple tree in the garden?If you don't want people to eat from the tree then simply don't put it in the garden....I mean duh. For an all seeing all knowing God hes seems to be a bit of a moron.

Good point. If we cared for children the way god cared for adam and eve we would keep dangerous medicines and chemicals on the floor. Place cutlery next to electrical outlets. Provide easy access to swimming pools and so forth. And then when the kid hurt or killed itself we would blame the kid and if it was still alive we would kick it out onto the street. I have no idea why anyone would think that god is all loving and your comment about god being completely insane is more appropriate.

Starboy

[Athena]

Quote by: Starboy Good point. If we cared for children the way god cared for adam and eve we would keep dangerous medicines and chemicals on the floor. Place cutlery next to electrical outlets. Provide easy access to swimming pools and so forth. And then when the kid hurt or killed itself we would blame the kid and if it was still alive we would kick it out onto the street. I have no idea why anyone would think that god is all loving and your comment about god being completely insane is more appropriate. Starboy

Ouch that really hurts. It is the strongest reason for not accepting the biblical God I have come across yet. However, God did not create all these dangers to our lives. We did. In a primitive world it would be poisonous plants and animals and natural bodies of water, and the natural instincts of the species that keeps it alive by protecting the young. Built into our being is a nature to be social and keep each other alive.

However, what if reality is bigger than it appears? What if we have reincarnation, and these problems with our parents are just incidental? What if life is like playing a computer game. It doesn't matter how many times you loose, because you can play again. It is not just our physical being that evolves but also our consciousness. Where is Kuldeep? We need his explanation of consciousness.

[Athena]

Quote by: Ceyaotl B.S. The modern law yes. The basis or root purpose for every law in society you can bet started from a religious origin. You know Thou shalt not etc. Thank God those people that started this country were not non-believers.

This is a really good debate and if you we can increase awareness of philosophy, it will be even better. For goodness sake, the belief that all good laws have a religious origin is to miss the importance of philosophy not only in good government, but also its contribution of religion. Stoicism bridged Helenism with Judism resulting in Christianity. Paul, the man most responsible for creating Christianity as a religion separate from judism, was a Helenistic educated Jew.

However, civilizations had practiced good laws long before this time. China is not Christian and yet with men like Confusius and beliefs such as Buddhism and Toaism, the country enjoyed civilization for longer than Europe or the US. Please, expand your knowledge of the world.

[Flip Jackson]

Recently I have been taking a somewhat different view of the Adam and Eve story. Most people look at it completely literally, but I have wondered if that was the intent. This is no doctrine of any church, but just my ponderings. I have to look through genesis again before I make any kind of set statement, but what if the trees are supposed to represent something else?

And I think God knew Adam and Eve would eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and that was part of the plan. It was necessary for us to get bodies and come to earth. Would you prefer that we just hang around as spirits and watch Adam and Eve live forever in ignorance? It was dongerous to eat the fruit, but it was a transition in the way things work. It is like how we live with our parents until we are ready to learn and grow on our own. If they had stayed in the Garden they wouldn't have progressed much would they?

I think reality is much larger than our understanding. For some religious people, there is a kind of spirit reality that we can't fully understand yet. For scientists there is dark matter and energy that we basically have no understanding of, not too mention the nature of matter at levels smaller than that of quarks. As far as consciousness goes, there are so many questions, like if it is related or connected to our parents' consciuosness in any way, or if it existed before our bodies and will continue afterwards. I don't know about reincarnation. I feel too ignorant of so much to be the second, third, or nth life of some other dude.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Athena Ouch that really hurts. It is the strongest reason for not accepting the biblical God I have come across yet. However, God did not create all these dangers to our lives. We did. In a primitive world it would be poisonous plants and animals and natural bodies of water, and the natural instincts of the species that keeps it alive by protecting the young. Built into our being is a nature to be social and keep each other alive.

My comparison was the hazard that god created in eden. What god did was no different then leaving a fork next to an electrical outlet, telling the kid not to put the fork into the outlet and then disowning the kid when it did it. That was my point. If god was as good as most human parents it would not have knowingly placed a hazard in front of innocents and then simply said, 'don't do that' and then expected them to not do it. Certainly god created humans it should know at least as much about humans as the average human does. But the kicker is that except for the most thoughtless and irresponsible parents, no parent would blame the child and then kick it out of the house. That is just nuts. God is an ignoramus when it comes to people. Not all knowing at all and a nut case to boot!

Starboy

[Starboy]

Quote by: Flip Jackson And I think God knew Adam and Eve would eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and that was part of the plan. It was necessary for us to get bodies and come to earth. Would you prefer that we just hang around as spirits and watch Adam and Eve live forever in ignorance? It was dongerous to eat the fruit, but it was a transition in the way things work. It is like how we live with our parents until we are ready to learn and grow on our own. If they had stayed in the Garden they wouldn't have progressed much would they?

I agree. The Genesis account has a metaphorical meaning. The literal meaning is just too stupid to contemplate. There are several versions of the genesis account. In many of them there are two trees that mankind is not supposed to eat from. One is the tree of knowledge, the tree we have all heard about, the other is the tree of everlasting life. The lesson is that we made a choice that we would pay for dearly and we chose knowledge over living forever. That is a mythological statement about us. I of course would have munched on an apple from both trees. There is also mythology that says that if we did eat of both trees then we would have become gods. And because of this god had to expel us from Eden before we did. It is a jealous god after all.

Starboy

[Athena]

Quote by: Flip Jackson Recently I have been taking a somewhat different view of the Adam and Eve story. Most people look at it completely literally, but I have wondered if that was the intent. This is no doctrine of any church, but just my ponderings. I have to look through genesis again before I make any kind of set statement, but what if the trees are supposed to represent something else? And I think God knew Adam and Eve would eat of the fruit of the tree of life, and that was part of the plan. It was necessary for us to get bodies and come to earth. Would you prefer that we just hang around as spirits and watch Adam and Eve live forever in ignorance? It was dongerous to eat the fruit, but it was a transition in the way things work. It is like how we live with our parents until we are ready to learn and grow on our own. If they had stayed in the Garden they wouldn't have progressed much would they? I think reality is much larger than our understanding. For some religious people, there is a kind of spirit reality that we can't fully understand yet. For scientists there is dark matter and energy that we basically have no understanding of, not too mention the nature of matter at levels smaller than that of quarks. As far as consciousness goes, there are so many questions, like if it is related or connected to our parents' consciuosness in any way, or if it existed before our bodies and will continue afterwards. I don't know about reincarnation. I feel too ignorant of so much to be the second, third, or nth life of some other dude.

I think the only people in the world who literally translate the bible is Protestants. First The Christians steal the God of Abaham to be their own God, and add their own Helenisized world view to Hebrew writings and call it a bible. Then Protestants steal the religion form Catholics and put their own twist to the religion. A lot of their own twist to the religion. And in the Arab world Mohammed rewrites the religion to suit Arabs, and then Islam is divided as Christians divided, and today Christian Americans are all snarled up with the split in Islam in Iraq. And I think it is very clear, the God of Araham is exclusively the God of Jews. Only when this religion was Helenized did Christians intrepret this God to be everyone's God, and then the religion returns to being exclusive- only if your understand the true God (that is believe as I do) are you fit for this God.

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Starboy So then god created adam and eve so they would sin. After all he is all knowing. He had to know that they would sin even before he created them. So god did it on purpose, or are you trying to say that god could not make an adam and eve that would not sin? That god is not all powerful? Starboy

no, He could have made humans unable to sin, but then that would take away our free will. He made us, knowing we would sin, and had already planned a way to restore the love relationship between God and man. that plan was the death and ressurection of His only begotten son Jesus Christ, who lived a sinless life, and then became sin for us, so that we might be set free.

[Starboy]

Quote by: dthmstr254 no, He could have made humans unable to sin, but then that would take away our free will. He made us, knowing we would sin, and had already planned a way to restore the love relationship between God and man. that plan was the death and ressurection of His only begotten son Jesus Christ, who lived a sinless life, and then became sin for us, so that we might be set free.

So you are saying that god is not all powerful. He can't make a human that can't sin and have free will.

Starboy

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Starboy So you are saying that god is not all powerful. He can't make a human that can't sin and have free will. Starboy

sin is a product of our own making. we CHOSE to sin. therefore we CHOSE to forsake God.

[Starboy]

Quote by: dthmstr254 sin is a product of our own making. we CHOSE to sin. therefore we CHOSE to forsake God.

So what? That was not the questions or the point. Why do you have to be such a weasel dthmstr254? You are a very good example of how supernatural religion makes its adherents dishonest. If you had an honest bone in your body you would answer based on what you actually know. You would have said, "I don't know". Instead your silly superstition has forced you to pretend to know something about the unknowable and defend the indefensable.

Starboy

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Starboy So what? That was not the questions or the point. Why do you have to be such a weasel dthmstr254? You are a very good example of how supernatural religion makes its adherents dishonest. If you had an honest bone in your body you would answer based on what you actually know. You would have said, "I don't know". Instead your silly superstition has forced you to pretend to know something about the unknowable and defend the indefensable. Starboy

i DO know this to be a fact. if you read Genesis, you would actually understand how i know. God created humans that could both sin and live pure. humans chose to sin, even though it was just as easy to eat of the other trees, Eve and then Adam decided that they would eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. it would have been just as easy to eat of the other trees, right? you have the ability to choose either to lie or to tell the truth, right? that is the same principle that i am using here, they had the ability to not sin, but they CHOSE to sin.

[Athena]

Quote by: dthmstr254 i DO know this to be a fact. if you read Genesis, you would actually understand how i know. God created humans that could both sin and live pure. humans chose to sin, even though it was just as easy to eat of the other trees, Eve and then Adam decided that they would eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. it would have been just as easy to eat of the other trees, right? you have the ability to choose either to lie or to tell the truth, right? that is the same principle that i am using here, they had the ability to not sin, but they CHOSE to sin.

Are you insisting on reading the story of Adam and Eve literally? Okay, what happened to Eden? God didn't destroy it. God put cherubs at the gate to prevent Adam and Eve from returning and eating form the Tree of Life, which we learn later is knowledge, not literally a tree. Whatever, where is Eden and the cherubs?

[Athena]

Quote by: dthmstr254 sin is a product of our own making. we CHOSE to sin. therefore we CHOSE to forsake God.

Bible says though shalt not kill. Okay, soldiers kill are they sinning? Is it only Christians soldiers who are not sinning? How about the Muslims killing to defend their understanding of God, are they also free of sin?

Really what is a sin? Please be more exacting. Do all animals sins or just humans? What is it about humans that would therefore make what they do a sin?

[Lilith]

Knowledge from the Tree of Good and Evil. Seek and ye shall find. Have we found it yet?

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Athena Bible says though shalt not kill. Okay, soldiers kill are they sinning? Is it only Christians soldiers who are not sinning? How about the Muslims killing to defend their understanding of God, are they also free of sin? Really what is a sin? Please be more exacting. Do all animals sins or just humans? What is it about humans that would therefore make what they do a sin?

for one, Allah is NOT the same as God. if you are killing in selfdefense, defense of a friend, or as part of capital punishment, then there MIGHT be no punishment.
sin is anything that a sentient and free-willed being does in disaccordance with God's law. since we are the only free-willed beings on earth, we are the only ones included in this.

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Athena Are you insisting on reading the story of Adam and Eve literally? Okay, what happened to Eden? God didn't destroy it. God put cherubs at the gate to prevent Adam and Eve from returning and eating form the Tree of Life, which we learn later is knowledge, not literally a tree. Whatever, where is Eden and the cherubs?

the Garden of Eden was destroyed with the rest of the world in the flood. the Tree of Life was transplanted to Heaven, evidently, because it is mentioned again in Revelations.