How many think that Adam and Eve were real people? Why not allegorical characters? (preaching, agnostic)
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The gospels have Jesus citing the OT, the validity is another topic I have touched on in other threads. Following your line of reasoning and the genealogy of Jesus, even if this was all 100% true, his blood would still be tainted with original sin regardless of who the father was. As an ex christian, I once held firmly to these beliefs too so it is not a matter of not wanting to believe, it is what is plausible and logical. Sometime folk are too close to the coalface to see the coal.
While the genealogies trace back to Adam, they are not the same and are different, the point here is why try and validate in son of god by such efforts? What the Romans did not know, geneology in Jewish tradition follows back via the mother as only the mother would know if it was her child. This is not mentioned as the patriarch mindset was very much ancient Greek thinking NOT Hebrew tradition. You need to ask a Rabbi this as the christian pastors are mostly unaware of this little slip up.
The RCC made Mary's conception immaculate to somehow overcome this factoid of tainted blood. So then you have to regress all the way via all the mothers to have all kids in the lineage have miracle pregnancies.
Greek mythology, as far as demi gods went (gods mating with humans and resultant offspring) the kids were not as powerful as their god parent and they were mortal, could die and only then became part of the pantheon. The story of Jesus is no different, the same basic tenets applied. I am sure all christians do not believe in the Greek or Norse pantheons, they are fabrications right?
Addressed above. Regardless of the OS lineage, according to the gospels, he was not sinless. He in fact transgressed two laws worthy of death and if Jesus was god incarnate, he should have known this. You only become aware of this when you actually study the bible in detail like I did.
This idea of ancient architecture validating a fictional story is pretty lame. Most works of fiction have surviving architecture and/or ruins. By that premise Sherlock Holmes and Watson were real people because the setting of the story still exists today. Obviously your and my level of evidence are not the same and you have gone off on a tangent right to other aspects like the second coming and a new heaven and new earth.Generations have been born and passed with these expectations and all of them tied current events and tried to make them fit. Do yourself a favour and read the Blue Letter bible and Matthew Henry's commentaries regarding revelation. He lived in the 19th century and compare his notes with the modern musings of the likes of Jack van Impe and Hal Lindsey. They differ vastly as back in the 19th century, the state of Israel did not exist and they made it fit to 19th century happenings.
Let me show you how these charlatans have adapted predictions in the last century.
The state of Israel established in 1948 by a decree of the UN, not a messiah as anticipated in Orthodox Jewish expectations.
Prediction 1988 based on 1948 + lost generation of Daniel = 1988
Prediction 1998 based on 1948 + lost generation of Daniel (now a jubilee generation which suddenly was 50 not 40 years) = 1998
Prediction Y2K - 2000 years from Adam to Noah, 2000 years from Noah to Jesus, 2000 years from Jesus to Y2K = 6000 years, 1000 years millennial reign = 7000 years, 7 being the perfect number of god and the mirror of the 7 days of creation.
Prediction 2007 based on the 6 day war of 1967, a verse in Luke stating when you see Jerusalem surrounded, know that the end is at hand + Daniels lost generation 1967+40 = 2007
I am not sure if they will use Daniel's jubilee alternative again for 2017 but I think that these predictions have run out of dates and credibility.
The biblical generation in the bible has always been 40 years. That should give you a hint of the longevity of folk back then.
The preterist view suggests that this all transpired with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE.
The rapture folk still expect some mark of the beast to be globally implemented. I live in South Africa and even in our so called third world status, we already use biometrics extensively for identification. The RFID chip is 1980s technology. When I had to register the death of my late wife, I had my thumb print scanned and the system validated me within 1 second. We use fingerprint scanners at some places as a means of access control to plants.
So with regards to Revelation putting it all together, sadly you have been led by the nose. You can do a search on my username and look for posts where I calculated the cost to implement a global marking of the populace would be three times the US' gdp and would require an army larger than that of the US to make this happen in a 3.5 to 7 year period. the doomsayers do not illustrate global constraints and have you lapping this twaddle up based on your local perceptions of what the rest of the world is like.
Jesus stated that THIS generation shall not pass till the second coming of the son of man happens. That generation died a very long time ago and he did not even come back for them.
How can there be so many interpretations from the very same book you folk claim to be inerrant?
Great post!
It is religion and in religion everything goes-------the sky is the limit. And it is fun to discuss religion when someone takes it seriously.
I have often said this: If the entire bible is allegoric nothing changes. It is possible to be a Christian in Thomas Jefferson style. It is possible to follow the teachings of The Sermon on the Mount and exclude all the mythology and magic.
However, I think many 21st century people are stuck in the mythology that was so popular 4000 years ago. I guess evolution never happened.
For those who do believe in a literal Adam and Eve, do you think they are in heaven now? How did they get "saved". Just wonderin'.
New American Standard Bible
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
It is religion and in religion everything goes-------the sky is the limit. And it is fun to discuss religion when someone takes it seriously.
I have often said this: If the entire bible is allegoric nothing changes. It is possible to be a Christian in Thomas Jefferson style. It is possible to follow the teachings of The Sermon on the Mount and exclude all the mythology and magic.
However, I think many 21st century people are stuck in the mythology that was so popular 4000 years ago. I guess evolution never happened.
TY. I did so much research trying to find the truth if it existed and left no stone unturned. I share this now so that others may take courage to see that questioning is not verboten and hopefully can dismiss the issues that hold them in cognitive dissonance (not an insult btw)
Other than the judgemental types, I think most adherents make up what works for them. You really cannot take it at face value and make it work in the real world or we would still be stoning disobedient children to death.
When you remove the smoke and mirrors, whatever folk are is b/c they are what they are naturally. I hold to the view that most folk are inherently good, no one brings up their kids to be donkey's.
You may see religion as non invasive but sadly it is. I am sure that if folk kept it to themselves, there would be no counter arguments.
Africa is now becoming homophobic and thanks in part to the USA and their evangelical outreaches and more and more folk gaining access to the internet via mobiles. This runs contrary to tradition as in my life, I have only seen the native folk being tolerant of gays. The gaining of equality in SA was partly due to this tradition. One country north and you have a catholic dictator that goes out of his way to attack these folk. His one son was gay and died of AIDS. Look at Nigeria and how they and other African countries are now introducing anti gay laws while the US is moving in the other direction. 20 years ago, this was not an issue at all. Promiscuity is par for the course amongst them which is why AIDS is so rampant be they heterosexual or homosexual.
They tell us AIDS jumped from chimps to humans due to some blood rituals and the spread of the disease requires a scapegoat. I would love to bring some of these self righteous Americans to one of our government hospitals to see the outpatients and the many who come there to die from this disease, go look at the morgue register and see how many die each day and see if they do not retract their hate. When my wife died, within 22 hours after she died, there were another 27 deaths (all blacks) in the same hospital on the register when I went to claim her corpse for burial. There were another three corpses on trolleys awaiting processing. My guess, based on various observations, the majority were probably AIDS related.
We have a modern constitution only some 20+ years old that protects the freedoms of everyone regardless of colour, creed, or sexual orientation. It is not perfect but it exists as a cornerstone to a pluralistic society.
For those who do believe in a literal Adam and Eve, do you think they are in heaven now? How did they get "saved". Just wonderin'.
The aspect of OS really is not linked to A&E but more emphasised with Cain. If you look at the story and think like the ancients did, they would have noticed that other critters did not have to till the lands or do that much work to survive. Man however had to till the fields, harvest and gather. Even lions after a kill would eat and laze around soaking up the sun. It really did not seem fair now did it.
Right in the creation days, the scene is set up with the sentence, "there was no one to till the soil yet. Why the need to till the soil? These folk would have observed as seasons passed, that birds migrated but they had no idea why. It is recorded there that god causes the birds to pass over the sky, this was not describing flight. I am sure that they put two and two together and worked out flapping of wings made flight happen.
After the fall, which has to happen for the story to progress, they are booted from eden where all was available just for the picking. Now poor old Adam has to work his butt off to feed his family.
Back to Cain, in Genesis 2 or 3 the story goes on where god talks with Cain and warns him of sin, there was no discourse like this with A&E. Cain then goes on to commit the 1st capital crime by killing Abel, some put it down to and accident as how would he know a blow to the head would kill his brother?
The whole Genesis creation story is framed within the context of a culture that was already agricultural. There was no god dictating this to a dude named moses. That is pure myth and speculation.
So we can derive that the punishment for eating the fruit was getting their butts booted from the garden. The mere fact that god interacts with Cain suggests that there was no lingering grudge. That comes later with the tower of Babel and the flood.
Even the flood story is set up in the creation where it suggests that up until the flood, a mist came out of the ground and waters from the deep.
We should have all learned the basics of the water cycle in junior school. Once there was a sun, an atmosphere, seas, there would have been a water cycle meaning that rain was always there. Perhaps in the sandpit of the ME, rain is infrequent so the idea with all the stories pertaining to wells, it goes with the territory so to speak.
Underground water as we now understand it is a direct result of rain and seepage of surrounding bodies of water. I mean go dig a hole in your garden. Past the dry crust, the soil is damp and the deeper you go, due to gravity, it becomes more moist to the point where the hole then fills with water at a certain depth.
The ancients could not explain why the water was there at the bottom of the wells.
In an agricultural society, irrigation is laborious and expensive be it in manpower or irrigation techniques. The idea that tilling of fields did not have rains in a society that used primitive techniques is ludicrous. I have seen here in Africa that type of agriculture where the women folk carry water from the well or local stream to water their crops in times of drought. It is damn hard work. To this day the birds simply harvest berries or seeds w/o having to (knowingly) sow anything to the formation of a shrub or a tree. Some seeds as we know pass undigested and then next season they spring forth. The bible talks of this w/o actually understanding how it happened.
I am sure that if a place like Eden were real, it would have been the Serengeti and not some desert strip somewhere in the ME. There are benefits of having grown up in Africa, I have seen more species of wild animals than the average American, walked barefoot in the wild as a kid, seen the Victoria Waterfalls first hand and so on.
It really does not mater how you evaluate this tale, at no time does it hold up to scientific scrutiny, even at a junior school level.
Quote:
New American Standard Bible
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
IMO Jesus is a myth like all the other demi gods of yore and no one is coming back with a golden ship to rescue the faithful. Once humans have wiped each other out perhaps the humble cockroach will be the next species to rule the planet
However, I think many 21st century people are stuck in the mythology that was so popular 4000 years ago. I guess evolution never happened.
Julian, I think some people simply want to believe in an Absolute Truth.
Two of our seemingly very intelligent posters, one devout Muslim and the other an Orthodox Jew, were both raised semi-religious, then tried being Atheists, but finally became very fundamentalist believers of their own faith.
Of course, being an Atheist, this kind of behavior puzzles me, but I guess some people just feel more comfortable believing in a fundamentalist version of their religion. There is no reason for us to belittle their beliefs.
Yeah, as you suggest, both of them are totally opposed to evolution.
I am an Atheist and I believe in evolution. I believe my direct ancestors were non-human.
At one point in history, I believe a non-human female gave birth to a human, who may have been male or female. It is fine with me to give that human the name Adam or Eve.
I believe that human mated with non-humans and fortunately had human offspring. Eventually that led to you and me.
There are two BIG problems with what you wrote above:
1. you clearly don't understand how evolution works....otherwise you wouldn't say: "at one point in history, a non-human gave birth to a human..."
2. 'it's fine with me to give that human the name adam and eve' is "Playing with words"....because 'adam and eve' has an entirely different meaning to the religious folks, and by you just 'giving the name adam and eve' to that human (refer to point 1 above btw), doesn't mean you and the religious folks have found a common ground....it is far from it.
Julian, I think some people simply want to believe in an Absolute Truth.
Two of our seemingly very intelligent posters, one devout Muslim and the other an Orthodox Jew, were both raised semi-religious, then tried being Atheists, but finally became very fundamentalist believers of their own faith.
Of course, being an Atheist, this kind of behavior puzzles me, but I guess some people just feel more comfortable believing in a fundamentalist version of their religion. There is no reason for us to belittle their beliefs.
Yeah, as you suggest, both of them are totally opposed to evolution.
I agree 100%.
I always said that religion is just religion. And in religion there is magic and fantasy. The more ancient the religion the greater the fantasy. I always said no religion is better than others. What is really different are the members of the religion.
In some religions folks continue to use their brains and handle the allegory quite well. The religion become a tradition to enhance the human condition.
OTOH, other members of religion are compelled to believe everything to the letter and have the enormous capacity to rationalize highly illogical situations. Every point must be believed because they cannot function with holes in the religious story.
For me there are many holes in religion and that is what makes it fun. At the end the holes in the story are the essence of religion because religion does not require logic--------religion is magical!. But, paradoxically, many look for logic in religions.
Religion is part of the human condition that yearns for the supernatural. It almost always appeals to the concept of immortality in the after life which is a powerful aphrodisiac.
I see nothing wrong with religion as I am a Roman Catholic. Bit, for me religion is just an embellishment to the human condition and a connection to the past and others in our lifetime. I particularly like Catholicism because of the ability to be rational and intelligent despite the magic of the religion.
Of of the fathers of the Big Bang theory was Jesuit Priest George Lemaître who proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe.
Religion is fun if we accept it for what it is.
Anyone that takes religion seriously ends up an fundamentalist or a militant atheist. It is ALL or NOTHING for these folks.
you clearly don't understand how evolution works....otherwise you wouldn't say: "at one point in history, a non-human gave birth to a human..."
Yeah, I think that is exactly what happened.
All of us creatures have different genetic codes. Those creatures within a well-defined group of genetic codes are considered to be human. You and I are within that group.
Years ago, there were no creatures within that group. In other words there were no humans.
However, there were some creatures whose genetic codes were very close to being human. They mated and when their genetic codes merged and mutations occurred, a creature was created with a genetic code that was within the human range.
The two parents had no idea they had created a human because he (or she) was very much like the parents.
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