The Almighty Afterthought

[William]

'You shall surely die"

Genesis 2:15...
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Given there were no other options made available on the breaking of this commandment, and with the Christian claim that the biblical God [BG] is the perfect parent-figure;

QFD: Is withholding/not providing other options [such as the possibility of forgiveness through repentance] really to be considered the perfect way to do parenting?

[William]

[Replying to onewithhim in post #9]

If A&E took the fruit, they would be saying that they wanted to run their own lives without Him and decide for themselves what was good or bad.

The point is that nothing was bad. IT WAS ALL GOOD. So there was no 'deciding' to be done until the garden god made a rule which allowed for the possibility of bad to happen, in order to then produce fear and guilt - manipulation device.

There is no getting around that this story presents as a willful experiment the god was performing, and when we add the claim that this garden god was also a "perfect loving parent figure" we can only honestly come to the conclusion, that as a parent, the god was neglectful, abusing his position and withholding information.

Please address those issues which have been laid out already.

[Tcg]

[Replying to Tcg in post #8]

You are using Jesus' use of the word "Father" to support your claim that the god of the garden should be considered a "Father?"

Nope. I am using the common Christian claim that the god of the garden was the same entity that biblical Jesus was referring to as 'The Father'.

Fabulous. Now all you have to do is support your claim that this is a common Christian claim.


Tcg

[William]

[Replying to Tcg in post #12]

You are using Jesus' use of the word "Father" to support your claim that the god of the garden should be considered a "Father?"

Nope. I am using the common Christian claim that the god of the garden was the same entity that biblical Jesus was referring to as 'The Father'.

Fabulous. Now all you have to do is support your claim that this is a common Christian claim.

It is common enough hereabouts. One in which I have seen no debate to the contrary.

QFD: Is withholding/not providing other options [such as the possibility of forgiveness through repentance] really to be considered the perfect way to do parenting?

That is the question. If you want to start a thread to debate what are/are not common Christian Claims, do so.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to onewithhim in post #4]

God was very forthright with Adam and, after untold years of talking with him, strolling in the Garden in the breezy part of the day, and clearly explaining what would happen if Adam took fruit off that one tree.

It is best to stick with what is written. Tammy has already tried to add to what was written, so her investment in the beliefs she has, remain undisturbed. You are also adding things which have no bearing on the idea that YHWH acted like a good human parent would, by making sure the child was not abused through meaningless commands which serve only to glorify the commander through fear and guilt placed into the commanded. [parent/child dynamics]

The fruit was not the poison which caused the death. I won't go into any more detail on that, than I have already argued.

If you want to engage in debate about it, then address those arguments.

Of course it wasn't the fruit itself that was poison. The tree represented God's right to make laws and principles to guide humans in their day-to-day lives. If A&E took the fruit, they would be saying that they wanted to run their own lives without Him and decide for themselves what was good or bad. They turned their backs on God, willfully and deliberately.

.

To William:

Jehovah always acted like the benevolent Father, and if you deny that YOU are adding to what is written.

Jesus called Him Father, and a good Father is what Jehovah has always been. It was He who immediately planned for the salvation of men from sin and death, right after A&E rebelled. How much more loving could that be? Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1,2 at Luke 4:18-21, making the point that Jehovah sent him to bring everything back into alignment with God's purposes for mankind. Truly a loving Father.

.

[William]

[Replying to onewithhim in post #14]

Jehovah always acted like the benevolent Father, and if you deny that YOU are adding to what is written.

Clearly I am not adding anything to what is written. Rather, I pointed out what was written.

Jesus called Him Father, and a good Father is what Jehovah has always been.

Jesus called someone "Father", but that was thousands of years after Adam and we cannot be sure it was Jehovah that Jesus was referring to - his comment to the priesthood of YHWH at that time was that their Father was a liar.

John 8:44
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

Do you see? It is written.

In the beginning. Jesus was not saying that the god of the garden wasn't a parent-figure. Jesus was saying that the god wasn't a great parent-figure.

So before you go trumpeting Jehovah, you need to address that.

Perhaps approach it in the following manner;

Ask yourself why you believe the garden god was acting in the prefect manner of a being who is worthy to be called a parent.

It was He who immediately planned for the salvation of men from sin and death, right after A&E rebelled. How much more loving could that be?

Even if that were the case, he waited thousands of years of human suffering before making that available.

As I have argued, a good [loving] parent would have made the offer available immediately. There was no such offer, because love was not in him.

Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1,2 at Luke 4:18-21, making the point that Jehovah sent him to bring everything back into alignment with God's purposes for mankind. Truly a loving Father.

Or, that is an addition placed there by the Roman Christian Priesthood to make it seem that way.




The priests unto YHWH are to be trusted - why




Why do people knock on doors wanting folk to believe in this stuff?

When it is more likely [given the evidence] that Satan was not just inside the slippery Serpent, but was also playing the part of the biblical god YHWH

YHWH murdered Adam by withholding what Adam needed to survive. Just so Adam would surely die.

[tam]

Peace to you all,

[Replying to tam in post #164]

No.

The command was clear and the consequence for breaking the command is also clear.

"You Shall Surely Die."

Indeed.

Eat and you will die.

Not... "eat and I will cause you to die." Not... "eat and I will kill you." Not... "eat and I will make sure you die."

Eat and you will die.

Cause and effect.

Clutching at straw there Tam.

Nope. Not at all. It is exactly what is written. Eat and you will die. Plain and simple.

Fact is whatever BG kept from Adam is indicative of deception.

Effectively the action of evicting Adam from the garden so he didn't have access to the fruit of life, was what caused Adam to die.

Nope. Eating from the TOKGB is what caused death to enter into him.

Evicting Adam from the Garden so that he could not eat from the Tree of Life (and live forever), is a consequence imposed upon Adam who had just proven that he could not be trusted IN the Garden or WITH the gift of eternal life that comes from the Tree of Life.

That is what killed Adam. That is how it was made sure Adam would die.

Death had entered into Adam (and Eve) from them having eaten of the TOKGB. That could have been countered if they had eaten from the Tree of Life, but because of what Adam did (the disloyalty he showed in eating instead of remaining faithful to God; his throwing his wife under the bus and even blaming God for putting 'the woman' there with him, his lack of love for anyone other than perhaps himself), he could no longer be trusted with eternal life, what he would do with that eternal life. Not at that time, at least.

As inconvenient as that may be for you, "it is written"

It is not inconvenient for me, though I suspect it might be inconvenient for you and the theology you accept, if God in the Garden of Eden did in fact act from love and is indeed the God and Father of Christ.

The bible also does not say "Disobey me and I will make sure you die."

Well now I beg to differ since it is written Adam was commanded by BG not to eat or he would surely die.
It is written Tam. Adam ate what he was told not to, and Adam had to die and indeed, having no access to the fruit of life, surely did die.

That the bible didn't say that in the words you say, doesn't change the facts at all.

The fact that you can acknowledge that the bible doesn't state those words should be a hint to you that perhaps you are incorrect, despite 'begging to differ'. That is actually you who is adding to what is written.

Search "Disobey"
fail to obey (rules, a command, or someone in authority).

No one claimed Adam did not disobey.

But say a child was told by a parent not to jump off a cliff or they will die. The child jumps off the cliff and dies. Sure, the child disobeyed (and had they obeyed they would not have died), but their actual death came from jumping off the cliff.

Nor is that the God that Christ shows us

Well now - it is true that Biblical Jesus [BJ] did not actually refer to the Hebrew God by name, so to tell us he was talking about the same entity as the one he called hi "Father" and they sure do appear to be different entities, but we will just have to stick to the story Christians tell us about that.

“If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’" John 8:54

Christ does acknowledge that His Father is [YHWH]. He also quotes various passages in the OT, including passages that refer to Him (the Messiah) and that do name His Father as [YHWH].

"[YHWH] says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” Psalm 110:1 <- Christ acknowledges this passage as being about Him (in Matt 22 and Mark 12).


He also claimed the Temple (the God of which temple is the God of Israel) was His Father's house.

If only the biblical God [BG] had informed Adam that if he did eat of the fruit, he could still be forgiven if he sincerely repented, but nope.

This reasoning doesn't make sense to me.

If someone is sincerely repentant, they don't have to be told to sincerely repent. Forgiven or not, sincere repentance will come out in some form. And remember that God sees the HEART. Regardless, if you have done wrong to someone, you repent. The person who was wronged then has the option to forgive or not to forgive (though humans are to forgive, if we wish to be forgiven for our own wrongs/sins). But you don't attach a price to your repentance.

All Adam was told was that he would surely die, and BG made sure that would happen.

All Adam was told was that he would surely die, and he did die.

Where Christ was at the time, is anyone's guess, but he wasn't in the picture when BG was dealing with Adam as far as the garden story goes. Maybe if he had of been, he could have reminded BG to let Adam know about the repentance/forgiveness clause.

Christ is the Tree of Life.

I am calling this the "Almighty Afterthought" since the writer wrote it that way...

The Almighty Afterthought:
Genesis 3:22
“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:”

“Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”

Clearly the intention to kick Adam out of the garden and away from access to the fruit which would render the prophesy null and also show the Serpent lied [Genesis 3:4
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die] was pre-thought as the only way in which it would be assured that Adam did indeed, die.

I don't know what you are trying to say in that last sentence.

It means that because the Serpent told the Woman that she would not 'surely die' if she ate the fruit, if Adam had of had access to eating the fruit of life, disobeying BG, then the Serpent would have been shown to have told the truth.

Because BG had to be seen to be the one telling the truth, Adam had to be expelled from the garden so he couldn't eat said fruit, thus he surely died as BG had predicted, and the Serpent then, was shown to have lied.

The serpent (Satan) did lie.

Adam and Eve could not be like God, knowing good/life and bad/death... and yet live.

They would die.

What was irresponsible was that Adam was not informed of all possible outcomes - such as the [supposed] option of being repentant and gaining forgiveness.

See above, regarding repentance.

All Adam knew was that he would die. He wasn't even informed that his death would NOT be immediate, [he was told it would happen 'in that day' - implying death would come quickly] so even in that, because Eve suffered no obvious ill effects from the forbidden fruit [she did not die then and there and appeared to be enjoying its tastiness] this emboldened him to take a bite himself.

The actual phrase is 'dying you will die'.

That being said, the fact that Adam let Eve go first (as a sort of guinea pig) just shows where Adam was at in regard to having love for his wife and others. Should such a person then be given eternal life so that they can continue to show that lack of regard for others for all eternity?

The responsibility for making sure none of the subsequent thousands of years of human misery didn't happen, was NOT Adams.

The earth and all life in it (including his own offspring) was the responsibility of Adam. He had been given the charge of these things.

The responsibility to ensure Adam was fully informed was NOT Adams.

Adam was fully informed. Eat and you will die.

That Adam "could not be trusted" was NOT Adams doing.

Ahhhh... yeah it is. If a person proves to be untrustworthy, it is because they have broken the trust given to them. As Adam did.

Anything else is an excuse (which is basically what Adam offered up when he blamed his wife and then also blamed God for putting the woman there with him).

The BG was the one who didn't trust Adam. Why else would he set up the test in the first place, and leave Adam only with the idea that if Adam disobeyed, then Adam would surely die?

Who says it was a test? And even if it had been, how does that take away from the unfaithfulness that Adam showed. How does that make Adam not responsible for his actions?



Peace again to you all,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[William]

[Replying to tam in post #16]

if God in the Garden of Eden did in fact act from love and is indeed the God and Father of Christ.

Given the written evidence Tam, clearly there should be no debating an 'if'. Clearly there was no love in that entity [the garden god].

Post #15 has more evidence on that, which is not possible to rebut.

[William]

[Replying to tam in post #16]

The fact that you can acknowledge that the bible doesn't state those words should be a hint to you that perhaps you are incorrect, despite 'begging to differ'.

While I acknowledged that those exact words were not used Tam, I also pointed out that the context of the actual story shows clearly that the whole thing was about showing "Disobey me and I will make sure you die." was what the garden god was about.
He is a murderer.

But say a child was told by a parent not to jump off a cliff or they will die. The child jumps off the cliff and dies. Sure, the child disobeyed (and had they obeyed they would not have died), but their actual death came from jumping off the cliff.

Since it has been established that the forbidden fruit was in fact GOOD, you analogy of the cliff is bad. The fruit wasn't a cliff they jumped off.

But say a child was told by a parent that they could eat every bit of the fruit salad except for the apple in said salad, because if they ate any apple, the would be killed, but only found out after the fact that it was the parent who did the killing. And that the killing was slow and torturous.

Would you adore such a parent as a great example of being a dad?

Apparently - yes - you have no problem with it. That's okay. Each to their own.

If only the biblical God [BG] had informed Adam that if he did eat of the fruit, he could still be forgiven if he sincerely repented, but nope.
This reasoning doesn't make sense to me.

If someone is sincerely repentant, they don't have to be told to sincerely repent. Forgiven or not, sincere repentance will come out in some form.

It has to be an option on the table first. One can think about it then.

There was no such option. Thus there could be no accompanying thought processes regarding it.

Regardless, if you have done wrong to someone, you repent.

Not if the option isn't available. The natural tendency would be to lie. It is a survival mechanism.

That is also how come the god has lasted so long. He wants to survive as the god of the planet and cannot do so if folk do not accept him and believe in him. So he lies.

That is why Jesus called him a liar from 'the beginning' - "In The Beginning" the god already lied and thus neglected his parental responsibilities. He said "you shall surely die" but didn't add "because I shall surely make sure you do." He lied that the fruit would do the killing by implying that the fruit was 'bad'.

Christ is the Tree of Life.

Assuming so [we now enter mysticism] Christ being the means by which one is forgiven - Adam as representative of humans - was prevented by the garden god from partaking of forgiveness immediately ... for thousands of years humans have suffered because of this most unloving act.

Sometime in that thousands of years, an almighty afterthought occurred which made no difference as it was too little too late.

And all for what? To be worshipped by humans as being 'loving perfect parent-gods'?

The actual phrase is 'dying you will die'.

The actual phrase should be "I will make sure that you die" because that was exactly what happened, given what was written.

Should such a person then be given eternal life so that they can continue to show that lack of regard for others for all eternity?

Should a god-person with eternal life continue to show that lack of regard for others for all eternity?

The earth and all life in it (including his own offspring) was the responsibility of Adam. He had been given the charge of these things.

So he should have been able to eat of all the fruit since that was what he was given charge over.

But clearly not everything was included in the all, so the condition was created for guilt and fear to preoccupy his existence, even before the act was carried out.

That Adam "could not be trusted" was NOT Adams doing.

Ahhhh... yeah it is. If a person proves to be untrustworthy, it is because they have broken the trust given to them. As Adam did.

You misunderstand. Clearly the garden god did not trust Adam before Adam proved to be untrustworthy. The god found Adam to be untrustworthy and thus set up a way in which to prove it was the case. That is why the god implied the fruit was bad, when it actually was good.

Anything else is an excuse (which is basically what Adam offered up when he blamed his wife and then also blamed God for putting the woman there with him).

What excuse to you argue on the gods behalf? That he had the right to distrust his own creation? Because why? Because Adam was made in the gods own image, and thus couldn't be trusted.

Who says it was a test? And even if it had been, how does that take away from the unfaithfulness that Adam showed. How does that make Adam not responsible for his actions?

Who even says the garden god was not responsible for the garden gods own actions?

Why does he create something he is not able to trust without testing it first and seeing for himself he was right not to trust it?

He could have just not made the stupid rule in the first place, and let all the good fruit be eaten.

So we enter into having to ask ourselves what the motives of the god were in relation to human beings.

Maybe it had something to do with "if you want humans to do something, then tell them not to do it and it will get done."

Maybe without that, human beings couldn't have evolved sufficiently to do the science necessary to understand their real place in the scheme of things re the reason they were created.

[see more on that Post #9 China. America. AI. Automation. thread]

Peace to you all

[tam]

[Replying to tam in post #16]

if God in the Garden of Eden did in fact act from love and is indeed the God and Father of Christ.

Given the written evidence Tam, clearly there should be no debating an 'if'. Clearly there was no love in that entity [the garden god].

Post #15 has more evidence on that, which is not possible to rebut.

Please William. The idea that Christ did not refer to the God of the Jews, the God of Israel, also written as [YHWH], as His Father... this has already been rebutted.

Clearly your post (15 or otherwise) can be rebutted.

[William]

[Replying to tam in post #19]

Clearly your post (15 or otherwise) can be rebutted.

Then do so Tam. Take care not to avoid my arguments while doing so.