JehovahsWitness wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 1:44 amOf course option #3 involves entertaining the notion that you don't know
everything about bible language and would have to reject the anti-biblist's cherished baby namely
literal take on scripture
I can admit that I might be wrong about what the Bible means, but I can only address what it says. If it really says something else due to a translation issue or the stories being metaphorical then it's on those who know what it really means to explain it cogently and consistently. If you can then I'm all for going with your interpretation and addressing that instead.
JehovahsWitness wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 1:44 amwhich renders it illogical and has Adam and Eve puzzled as to whether they should eat their own excrement or put rocks in it and beat each other to death with it.
Some of that conflates common sense and a conscience. But you also have a point about why they didn't kill each other, though the literalist position would basically be, because they were stupid and nobody told them they could, so that position wouldn't be totally inconsistent, though it's not a position I hold.
I admit I don't know on this one. I don't know what sort of consciences they had and what sort of consciences they didn't yet have. Frankly, given the nudity example, I put eating poop roughly in that category, being horribly disgusting but not, strictly speaking, doing anything wrong in the sense that wrong = hurting somebody directly. If all that was added by the apple were things that go beyond
don't hurt others I find that consistent as well.
2timothy316 wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 11:53 pmEve repeated verbatim what was good and what was bad.
So can I. But this is because I was told, not because I have a conscience. I don't. I have to agree with TCG here. Anyone can be told what is right and wrong and vomit it back up like spolit milk. The question is, if two people tell you different things about good and evil, and one is lying to you, do you know the difference? That's KG&E, at least, to me.
William wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 12:37 amIn part it is. Once again Christian Thinking forces the issue. We have [as always] 2 main 'camps' with Christianity whereby one camp {1} accepts that A&E had no prior understanding of G&E and the other {2}, [expressed by JW & The Tanager] is that A&E did indeed have some semblance of understanding of G&E - enough as it were - to warrant being judged by the biblical God as 'guilty'.
I'd like to present another alternative. Adam and Eve might not have known about disobedience being wrong, but their banishment was less a punishment for guilt and more of just a... "You can't be here anymore." Think of the times when we know that both options are wrong. Choose A, evil. Choose B, evil. No third option. Well, we're liable for whichever we choose because we know it's evil. Adam and Eve before the mysterious fruit, maybe not. So they're free to select A and be guiltless, therefore they can live in the Garden in perpetual paradise.
William wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 12:37 amExactly. What [exactly] did the fruit
do in relation to KGE?
If the nudity example is emblematic, and the only things it added to the "evil pile" were things that don't have to do with hurting anyone directly, that's at least consistent, but IMO it ruins the story. It's not adding KG&E at all; it's adding dogma - things that someone has decided arbitrarily to be evil without any basis in the humane treatment of others.
Don't be naked might as well be
don't stand in a bucket of water on one leg playing a kazoo.
Many of us don't have that sort of knowledge now. I don't see nudity as wrong... it's just uncomfortable. But if I attack the guy who really wants to have his naughty bits flopping in the breeze, even by calling the police on him,
I see that action as wrong on my part, so I'm going to let him pass. Without looking if possible.
Tcg wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 2:05 amWho has ever suggested that A & E would be confused about eating "their own excrement or put rocks in it and beat each other to death with it?"
I think he's guilty of a very little conflation here but I can understand the reason. And part of it is that I brought it up. I suggested that the only reason Adam and Eve didn't break each other open and eat the stuff inside is that nobody told them their bodies were made out of meat.
The slight equivocation on JW's part here is that Good = good
for. But that's not really equivocating anything too badly since all that requires
not to be an equivocation is that you assume these two people are working as a team.
In other words, if I care what's
good for me, I don't eat my own filth. But also, if I care what's good for me I don't eat my own babies or my mate. Animals for the most part are in on these basic laws, and they seem to act in ways that are morally good as long as they follow them.
There is, however, a difference between this basic morality and true morality: True morality requires that we care about people who are not related to us, and are not in the same group as us. This has no relevance to a discussion about Adam and Eve, however. So in the only way it's different, it doesn't matter much, if at all.
