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So ... it's the classic case of "breaking your leg to sell you a crutch" kind of thing. Arsonists like doing the same thing: they'll start a fire and then a little later they'll run into the house and save the endangered baby. Wow. He's a hero!
It's amazing to me the mental gymnastics that are done in order to defend the indefensible, to rationalize an action that is clearly wrong or immoral - even to the point of painting God as some kind of Mafia soldier who demands protection money to prevent the Mafia soldier himself from breaking your leg and tossing your store. In the end, the Mafia soldier is glorified.
That's because no one is a marriage or parenting expert - kids or not.
I agree ... so Christians should stop trying to tell us what God wants, what he's doing, why he's doing it, and making more speculation than at a "guess the number of M&Ms in this jar" contest. My guess is as good as yours, after all. But that's the beauty of dealing with a god - you can pretty much make up anything and claim it's true or probably true and no one has to prove anything at all.
Yes, God kicked Satan out of Heaven because Satan and his little cadre of angels rebelled.
They, uh, rebelled ... somehow ... despite Heaven being perfect.
I mean ... what did Satan think he was going to get out of it? An even more perfect perfect Heaven? Especially since God ruling over Heaven was part of the perfection therefore Satan wanting to take God's place as ruler of Heaven is ... well ... stupid. Because it was already perfect with God in charge ergo there would be no reason for Satan to rebel and no reason for Satan to want to take over Heaven.
That's the problem with dealing with absolute superlatives. You always end up with everyone trying to square the circle. It makes 0% sense.
Also, there is ZERO evidence that the serpent in the garden was Satan. None at all. Everyone just assumes that the serpent was Satan yet there is a lot of evidence in folklore leading up to Hebrew mythology that shows why the serpent is just a serpent. Of course, that leaves the question of why this particular snake could talk while none of the others could.
But silly me -- to expect the Bible to make sense. Oops, my bad!
Anyway:
No, Eve led Adam astray. Because women are spiritually weak, easily corrupted, and have the power of sexual seduction (sex is at the heart of most things having to do with Christianity). At least that's how men thought of women in that horribly misogynistic, ultra-patriarchal society. The Bible is replete with instances of an innocent, righteous, godly man being brought down by a woman - usually foreign - because, well, women don't have any dangling bits.
There are two strange little oddities about the Adam and Eve myth that I always found interesting.
First, Eve was the first person to eat the forbidden fruit (which was most likely a pomegranate not an apple) and yet God didn't fly off the handle and egregiously and hyperbolically overreact until Adam ate it. Second, if you really pay attention reading that story, you'll notice that God gave Adam the warning about eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and *THEN* created Eve - which means Eve had no idea whatsoever that she wasn't supposed to eat the fruit from that tree.
But that makes sense, you might say. That's why God waited until Adam ate the fruit before bouncing off the walls with psychopathic rage - Eve couldn't be blamed because she didn't know!
Okay, good guess. But no.
For one thing, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that what a woman does or thinks is less valuable in God's eyes than anything you'd find at the very bottom of a garbage dump. You see this all the time. For instance, the 10th commandment says "thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife." But it makes no mention AT ALL of coveting your neighbor's husband - no, it just moves on to other pieces of property like oxen, camels, and other animals that share the same name as a person's backside. It goes on to say "... or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Aha! So it becomes clearer. The wife **belongs** to the husband, but since the husband doesn't belong to the wife, it doesn't matter what the little missus does. She's just a woman, after all. Trust me, there are so many examples of these "little" oversights that make it very plain that women just don't matter.
Another problem - the creation of Eve was an afterthought. Granted, it's difficult to judge time in a book that didn't seem to care about it, but there are some clues. For instance, one of the things Adam had to do before Eve was created was to name all the animals. Well ... assuming Adam did not eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or take any breaks, it would have taken Adam roughly 3 months to name all of them. And that's him rattling off one name after the other without pausing to think of any of the names. However, if this is actually the beginning of creation, it means NO animal has gone extinct yet - which means the 99% of all creatures that have gone extinct by our time would still exist in Adam's time. So, if naming 1% of the animals takes 3 months, naming the other 99% would take ... a little under 25 years.
So, that means Eve wasn't created for another 25 YEARS after Adam. But, we can assume realitically that Adam didn't sit there for 25 years naming animals without even eating a fig or drinking some of that crystal clear Eden water, right? So it's more likely Eve wasn't created until 40 or 50 years after the creation of Adam. Well, that has to be one of the biggest and longest afterthoughts in cosmic history.
Maybe God noticed those fully-formed dangly bits hanging between Adam's naked legs and said to himself, "Well, hmm... I made that thing to fit into *something* but I can't for the life of me remember what ..." Then half a century later, God snaps his fingers and exclaims, "Now I remember! A woman! That, uh, one-eyed snake is supposed to fit into the woman's, uh ... grass!" At which point the whole rib nonsense happens.
But it just goes to show you how meaningless women were in the Bible. So meaningless, in fact, that God couldn't have cared less if Eve ate the forbidden fruit. She could've eaten that tree bare and God would've done nothing. It only mattered when Adam sunk his teeth into that delicious pomegranate - at which point God went absolutely postal (as if he didn't see this all coming in the first place).
So yeah, it was all Eve's fault. I'm sure the story was written that way so we could blame sin and evil on women - because for thousands of years afterwards, women were considered 2nd class citizens in nearly every culture and religion around the world - and even today women are still fighting for full equality. All thanks to religion. Women? We should all thank religion for 3,000 years of prejudice, sexism, and misogyny. Ready, girls? On the count of three ...
Or, maybe we can put off thanking religion for another 50 years and call it ... an afterthought.
Well, the Bible seems to tell explicitly in Genesis2:5-7,15 what God's motive was for the mankind He created. It was to cultivate and maintain the world God has created. Thus, It sounds like man was just another creature God had made exist as part of His creation; and that mankind didn't cause the creation of the world, but rather, the creation of the world caused the creation of man. In many minds, the world would cease to exist if mankind were to go extinct. Wrong, because the world existed long before man was created. And bear in mind that Earth is not the only world in existence. God created many worlds inhabited by visible and invisible beings. If humanity were the only world God had created for the purpose of worshiping and glorifying God, this, our world would no longer have a reason to still exist. We, as mere humans, are wise enough to not put all our eggs in one basket, let alone God.
But although it turned out to seem that the world was created with mankind in God's mind, His original plan for mankind, had he not sinned, remains buried outside the Bible in the depth of God's wisdom. For, the true Divine motivation and dynamic behind the creation of a human world remains uncertain. Nevertheless, In Genesis1:26-29 it is said that God created mankind to "His image" and "His likeness." As to what that is supposed to mean is an open question. But Since God is immortal, was mankind at any period of time during his existence immortal? Well, In genesis2:15, God said to man that he will die if he eats the forbidden fruit, and he did. And he died that same day, not physically, but spiritually before he even earned it, for he had sinned against God. He was only promised spiritual eternal life if he proved himself worthy of it, but he failed at the first trial. But was man ever physically immortal before he disobeyed to God?
Well, In Genesis1:29 God gave to man every fruits, seeds, living animals, fishes and birds as food. That means he had to eat, like we do today, to maintain his body and remain physically fit, healthy and alive. Otherwise, why would he need to eat if he's already immortal? All the living animals that man was given for food had to be killed by man for him to eat. This is to say that physical death existed already for every living thing that was alive including mankind. But it wasn't until man (Adam and Eve) left the garden of Eden to go wander in the vast land that he started experiencing hunger, pain, and illnesses and physical and emotional stresses. So it looks like all those guidelines, and rules, and arrangements God was setting up with all He had made exist was for the survival of the post-Eden man who, he already knew was going to sin.
But, had man not sinned, I feel, mankind would remain spiritually immortal. And Lucifer, the Devil would not cease trying to corrupt mankind for as long the world stand until he probably would succeed one day. And Unless God put a stop to it, for how long would man be able to resist and defeat Lucifer's tricky temptations? And since God did make mankind fruitful so that he could procreate, people would still cease to be physically, but mankind would live happily forever without talk of an "End of the world". There would be today no such notions as salvation, religious belief, multiple religions, etc. Till to day, this world would be a peaceful world without wars, diseases, pains, famines, sorrows, natural disasters, suffering, crimes, corruptions, oppression, injustice, and iniquities. People would live much longer and die physically happily with no regret or fear. For, it is not the physical death, but rather the spiritual death that God sent His son to abort for mankind. Eternal life cannot be imposed on any being, but rather proposed and if accepted under certain conditions, granted. Peace to all, May God bless you all.
I believe that if Adam had resisted the serpent's temptation and killed the serpent, then he and his posterity would have been confirmed in righteousness forever.
I believe that if Adam had resisted the serpent's temptation and killed the serpent, then he and his posterity would have been confirmed in righteousness forever.
Well, not as simple as you may think.Yes, Adam could have resisted the Serpent, and that's probably why the Serpent approached Eve instead who might have been easier to deceive. But that didn't make Adam any wiser than Eve, for he ended up eating the forbidden fruit too when Eve offered it to him after she had eaten it herself seduced by Satan (Genesis 3:1-6). But it did not matter to Satan, who He gets to deceive first. His objective was simply to bring mankind to sin against God and spoil God's plan for mankind. His act was motivated by rebellion against God and by jealousy for mankind. By doing so, Satan caused mankind to miss eternal life. But even after man had sinned, he could still live eternally by also eating the fruit from the "Tree of Eternal Life", had God not protected it. (Genesis 3:22-24). So God had to remove them from the Garden and appointed an Archangel to guard the tree. Had man also eaten from that tree, he would live forever spiritually in calamity. But God, by justice and mercy, still offers mankind a second chance to earn that "Eternal life" they missed from Eden through Jesus. Just like God said to Adam after he had sinned that he will henceforth earn his bread in the sweat of his face (Genesis3:9), he will have to earn this Eternal life" through faith, repentance, sacrifice, obedience, and abstinence from things of pleasure in life.
Now you also said that Adam could have killed the Serpent. First of all, the serpent did not come to Adam, but to Eve. Secondly, if it came to Adam and he killed it, there were many serpents around, Satan could use another one each time. Thirdly, Satan was an evil spirit (Lucifer) talking through a serpent because as the Bible says in Genesis 3:1, the serpent was the most intelligent of all the field animals. And bear in mind that either Eve or Adam couldn't have probably seen the serpent, but only heard a voice talking to them. Satan can make himself visible or invisible. Now, let's say they saw the serpent, this shows how really innocent they were then, because which one of us today would see a serpent or anything talking to us and remain to listen? We would either pass out, start screaming, or took off as fast and as far as our legs can take us. Lol.
Now one question to pose is: in case Adam didn't eat the fruit when Eve had already eaten it and sinned, what then would be God's new plan for humanity? For, the Divine principle of marriage is to love and cherish each other in good and bad days; in sickness and in health; in richer and poorer until death do them part. Adam seems to have complied with this principle by scarifying his happy life for his wife who had sinned against God. But the rule also says " until death do them part". And Eve can be considered to have died spiritually the day she disobeyed To God. Well, this is a topic for another day. Peace to all. May God bless you all.
So ... it's the classic case of "breaking your leg to sell you a crutch" kind of thing. Arsonists like doing the same thing: they'll start a fire and then a little later they'll run into the house and save the endangered baby. Wow. He's a hero!
It's amazing to me the mental gymnastics that are done in order to defend the indefensible, to rationalize an action that is clearly wrong or immoral - even to the point of painting God as some kind of Mafia soldier who demands protection money to prevent the Mafia soldier himself from breaking your leg and tossing your store. In the end, the Mafia soldier is glorified.
That's because no one is a marriage or parenting expert - kids or not.
I agree ... so Christians should stop trying to tell us what God wants, what he's doing, why he's doing it, and making more speculation than at a "guess the number of M&Ms in this jar" contest. My guess is as good as yours, after all. But that's the beauty of dealing with a god - you can pretty much make up anything and claim it's true or probably true and no one has to prove anything at all.
Yes, God kicked Satan out of Heaven because Satan and his little cadre of angels rebelled.
They, uh, rebelled ... somehow ... despite Heaven being perfect.
I mean ... what did Satan think he was going to get out of it? An even more perfect perfect Heaven? Especially since God ruling over Heaven was part of the perfection therefore Satan wanting to take God's place as ruler of Heaven is ... well ... stupid. Because it was already perfect with God in charge ergo there would be no reason for Satan to rebel and no reason for Satan to want to take over Heaven.
That's the problem with dealing with absolute superlatives. You always end up with everyone trying to square the circle. It makes 0% sense.
Also, there is ZERO evidence that the serpent in the garden was Satan. None at all. Everyone just assumes that the serpent was Satan yet there is a lot of evidence in folklore leading up to Hebrew mythology that shows why the serpent is just a serpent. Of course, that leaves the question of why this particular snake could talk while none of the others could.
But silly me -- to expect the Bible to make sense. Oops, my bad!
Anyway:
No, Eve led Adam astray. Because women are spiritually weak, easily corrupted, and have the power of sexual seduction (sex is at the heart of most things having to do with Christianity). At least that's how men thought of women in that horribly misogynistic, ultra-patriarchal society. The Bible is replete with instances of an innocent, righteous, godly man being brought down by a woman - usually foreign - because, well, women don't have any dangling bits.
There are two strange little oddities about the Adam and Eve myth that I always found interesting.
First, Eve was the first person to eat the forbidden fruit (which was most likely a pomegranate not an apple) and yet God didn't fly off the handle and egregiously and hyperbolically overreact until Adam ate it. Second, if you really pay attention reading that story, you'll notice that God gave Adam the warning about eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and *THEN* created Eve - which means Eve had no idea whatsoever that she wasn't supposed to eat the fruit from that tree.
But that makes sense, you might say. That's why God waited until Adam ate the fruit before bouncing off the walls with psychopathic rage - Eve couldn't be blamed because she didn't know!
Okay, good guess. But no.
For one thing, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that what a woman does or thinks is less valuable in God's eyes than anything you'd find at the very bottom of a garbage dump. You see this all the time. For instance, the 10th commandment says "thou shalt not covet they neighbor's wife." But it makes no mention AT ALL of coveting your neighbor's husband - no, it just moves on to other pieces of property like oxen, camels, and other animals that share the same name as a person's backside. It goes on to say "... or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Aha! So it becomes clearer. The wife **belongs** to the husband, but since the husband doesn't belong to the wife, it doesn't matter what the little missus does. She's just a woman, after all. Trust me, there are so many examples of these "little" oversights that make it very plain that women just don't matter.
Another problem - the creation of Eve was an afterthought. Granted, it's difficult to judge time in a book that didn't seem to care about it, but there are some clues. For instance, one of the things Adam had to do before Eve was created was to name all the animals. Well ... assuming Adam did not eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or take any breaks, it would have taken Adam roughly 3 months to name all of them. And that's him rattling off one name after the other without pausing to think of any of the names. However, if this is actually the beginning of creation, it means NO animal has gone extinct yet - which means the 99% of all creatures that have gone extinct by our time would still exist in Adam's time. So, if naming 1% of the animals takes 3 months, naming the other 99% would take ... a little under 25 years.
So, that means Eve wasn't created for another 25 YEARS after Adam. But, we can assume realitically that Adam didn't sit there for 25 years naming animals without even eating a fig or drinking some of that crystal clear Eden water, right? So it's more likely Eve wasn't created until 40 or 50 years after the creation of Adam. Well, that has to be one of the biggest and longest afterthoughts in cosmic history.
Maybe God noticed those fully-formed dangly bits hanging between Adam's naked legs and said to himself, "Well, hmm... I made that thing to fit into *something* but I can't for the life of me remember what ..." Then half a century later, God snaps his fingers and exclaims, "Now I remember! A woman! That, uh, one-eyed snake is supposed to fit into the woman's, uh ... grass!" At which point the whole rib nonsense happens.
But it just goes to show you how meaningless women were in the Bible. So meaningless, in fact, that God couldn't have cared less if Eve ate the forbidden fruit. She could've eaten that tree bare and God would've done nothing. It only mattered when Adam sunk his teeth into that delicious pomegranate - at which point God went absolutely postal (as if he didn't see this all coming in the first place).
So yeah, it was all Eve's fault. I'm sure the story was written that way so we could blame sin and evil on women - because for thousands of years afterwards, women were considered 2nd class citizens in nearly every culture and religion around the world - and even today women are still fighting for full equality. All thanks to religion. Women? We should all thank religion for 3,000 years of prejudice, sexism, and misogyny. Ready, girls? On the count of three ...
Or, maybe we can put off thanking religion for another 50 years and call it ... an afterthought.
A classic Shirina destruction of the idea that God has planned everything despite expressly giving us Dominion by His Sovereign Will. It is just preposterous for the many reasons Shirina parodies and utterly demolishes. It deserves a bump. God is NOT driving this earthly existence, we are!
A classic Shirina destruction of the idea that God has planned everything despite expressly giving us Dominion by His Sovereign Will. It is just preposterous for the many reasons Shirina parodies and utterly demolishes. It deserves a bump. God is NOT driving this earthly existence, we are!
In just one simple paragraph, could you tell me what you mean by what I bolded?
In just one simple paragraph, could you tell me what you mean by what I bolded?
Thank you
Okay. It means that when we were given Dominion here on earth, it was not meaningless. God does NOT control what happens here. We either try to do so or not, but God is NOT controlling us or anything else that happens here. God IS influencing and trying to guide us to the extent we are receptive and amenable to it, but WE ARE IT!
Our task is to overcome whatever we face and endure to the end. Anything good that gets done is up to us. Anything evil that can be stopped is up to us. God abides with us as our Comforter and guide, NOT our Fairy Godmother or Genie or Santa Claus or punishing wrathful War God.
Okay. It means that when we were given Dominion here on earth, it was not meaningless. God does NOT control what happens here. We either try to do so or not, but God is NOT controlling us or anything else that happens here. God IS influencing and trying to guide us to the extent we are receptive and amenable to it, but WE ARE IT!
Our task is to overcome whatever we face and endure to the end. Anything good that gets done is up to us. Anything evil that can be stopped is up to us. God abides with us as our Comforter and guide, NOT our Fairy Godmother or Genie or Santa Claus or punishing wrathful War God.
Not too different from what many Buddhists would say.
Not too different from what many Buddhists would say.
Well, I did start out as a Buddhist Atheist and I am convinced that Jesus is the Maitreya that has arisen just as predicted by Buddha some 500 years before the birth of Jesus.
Well, I did start out as a Buddhist Atheist and I am convinced that Jesus is the Maitreya that has arisen just as predicted by Buddha some 500 years before the birth of Jesus.
I don't know how one can reconcile Buddhism (no god) and any version of 'god-ism'.
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