Did Adam make the right choice?

[Revelations won]

Did Adam make the right choice?

Did Adam make the right choice in partaking of the fruit from the tree of knowledge and should we be grateful to him and give due respect and honor our first earthly parents?

2. Did Adam’s choice prohibit anyone from receiving ALL that our Father in heaven has ever promised us pertaining to our eternal destiny?

Kind regards,
RW

[The Tanager]

The issue is how another's ignorance and will is used to trap them into believing things blindly.

How is that the issue with the Genesis story, which we’ve been talking about?

blind belief is a condition built into the fabric of the religion and the garden story is part of that fabric.

Do you have any evidence that blind belief is built into the fabric of the religion?

Where are these bullet points?

If you want to look back through and bullet point the reasons we’ve discussed, go ahead. I don’t see why I should.

What is Christianity about, that my argument can be taken off the table?

Christianity is about rescuing us from our evils, not punishing us for it. Christianity asks for trust in God because of what we know about our limitations and what God offers us through a historical Person named Jesus, not blind faith.

One should not conflate myth with fact.

I agree.

They are observations and some of these observations have been mentioned and re-mentioned. It would be good if you could address the actual observations I have made - perhaps by explaining how the story fits in with nature.

Okay, so unsupported opinions you hold. If you want them to be seriously discussed, you are going to need to show evidence.

As to explaining how Christianity fits with nature, that is a vague ask. It would be good if you could be more specific in what disconnect with nature you see for Christianity.

Break that down for the reader.
Why trust a visible being who claims to have created you?

That is the blind faith part.

No, trust a being you have had conversations with, that intimately created you, that intimately created an equal companion for you, that gave you tons of freedom and space to create and rule along with Him. That isn’t blind faith.

I noticed that in your post you always bring Eve's name into your arguments. Eve is not under question, either in this thread or whenever mentioned in the eventual Christian mythology.

The sin is always referred to as Adam's Sin.

In 2 Cor 11 and 1 Tim 2, Paul says Eve was deceived by the serpent. In the latter it even says Eve became a transgressor, so you are clearly wrong on the Christian “mythology” front. Many have used Adam as a way to refer to both/all humans that way. I followed the storyline itself in bringing Eve into it.

I mentioned observations [you called "claims"] and one observation I made was that such stories [religious mythology] are not related to external events but internal ones, re Jung's Archetypes.

In that - the God is also an Archetype, not to be conflated with any actual Creator God which may actually exist. It is a God-concept which Adam created in his mind.
Eve becomes a kind of feminine side to the masculine Adam - still the same personality, but female.
This come through in that the storyline tells us that - unlike Adam - Eve was created by the God through DNA, rather than from the dust of the Earth, and this means that Eve was not an individual in her own right, made from the dust of the earth, but a female replica of Adam himself, so they were closer to each other than blood siblings...but they were siblings nonetheless.

These are speculative claims about the characters, not what the text tells us or implies.

I will go along with that for the time being. If the story does not address this, then it is further evidence that the story is badly written, if indeed the story was meant to be understood as something more than simply religious mythology.

I see no rational reason to follow you in this claim. The story could be more than religious mythology without addressing that question.

As mythology itself, it begs the question and thus the reader - at least the attentive reader - is forced to "read into the story" in order that the disconnect is addressed.

That is also why - when the reader treats the story as fiction, the reader can read it as a play which is an inner dialog of a human author placing himself in a story of creation to explain why he exists in a world of evil humans.

No, even mythology doesn’t allow the reader to read into the story anything they want; all texts answer specific questions. To use it to answer questions it doesn’t address and then fault the story for how you apply it is irrational. There is no reason to read this story as this “inner dialog” interpretation you are reading into it.

Specific to the rule, focus is then placed upon that which was not to be consumed, providing the temptation.

Not temptation. Rather, experimentation. And that also requires ignorance.

Why experimentation rather than temptation?

For example, we know that there are things we should avoid consuming else they will kill us, because we have observed the death that follows such.

We also know that there are plants which we can consume which, not will not kill us, but can even enlighten us re the internal depths which can be experienced. Some resist such as if somehow this was something "tempting" and social laws have even been created by largely religious instigation, to make the natural somehow sinful.

But this text describes it as a temptation, not an experimentation.

I was speaking of Adams ignorance not allowing for him to question the command the God-Concept had made.
The questionable story was that Adam would die.

Even after the deed and expulsion, we are informed that Adam did not die for around 900 years.

Which makes it obvious that death referred to spiritual death (and possibly losing access to immortality).

But what is "correct knowledge" of good and evil? Obviously we are not directly informed, but the inference is that it has something to do with a disconnect between the individual and something called "GOD".

Correct knowledge of good and evil is that which God has. Adam and Eve wanted to redefine good and evil by their own perspective. That’s what the story tells us.

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #91]

What is Christianity about, that my argument can be taken off the table?

Christianity is about rescuing us from our evils, not punishing us for it. Christianity asks for trust in God because of what we know about our limitations and what God offers us through a historical Person named Jesus, not blind faith.

Tell the reader what Christianity tells about reward and punishment and how faith relates to those concepts.

Break that down for the reader.
Why trust a visible being who claims to have created you?

That is the blind faith part.

No, trust a being you have had conversations with, that intimately created you, that intimately created an equal companion for you, that gave you tons of freedom and space to create and rule along with Him. That isn’t blind faith.

We all have our opinions.

The sin is always referred to as Adam's Sin.

In 2 Cor 11 and 1 Tim 2, Paul says Eve was deceived by the serpent. In the latter it even says Eve became a transgressor, so you are clearly wrong on the Christian “mythology” front. Many have used Adam as a way to refer to both/all humans that way. I followed the storyline itself in bringing Eve into it.

Paul is "Christianity" - is that what you are of the opinion?

Christian mythology comes from a variety of authors and even include non-Christian mythology - authored by non-Christians.

My point was that it is Adams Sin which is referenced as the focal - even if in the story, Eve was the first to bite the fruit.

My point also, was that the thread topic isn't asking about Eve at all.

I mentioned observations [you called "claims"] and one observation I made was that such stories [religious mythology] are not related to external events but internal ones, re Jung's Archetypes.

In that - the God is also an Archetype, not to be conflated with any actual Creator God which may actually exist. It is a God-concept which Adam created in his mind.
Eve becomes a kind of feminine side to the masculine Adam - still the same personality, but female.
This come through in that the storyline tells us that - unlike Adam - Eve was created by the God through DNA, rather than from the dust of the Earth, and this means that Eve was not an individual in her own right, made from the dust of the earth, but a female replica of Adam himself, so they were closer to each other than blood siblings...but they were siblings nonetheless.

These are speculative claims about the characters, not what the text tells us or implies.

I speculate that the story is a work of fiction by an author, and if it were to be considered real and true as an historical event, my observations re Eve's relationship with Adam in scientific terms would mean Eve was cloned from Adam.
If we are to believe that the whole human race came from this arrangement, the evidence does not show that human DNA is as closely related as it would be had this been the case.

What the text tells or implies about the characters is speculation in its own right, so complaining that speculation is being speculated upon is deflection.
Why don't you argue against or agree that the observation I made re Adam and Eves biological relationship?

I will go along with that for the time being. If the story does not address this, then it is further evidence that the story is badly written, if indeed the story was meant to be understood as something more than simply religious mythology.

I see no rational reason to follow you in this claim. The story could be more than religious mythology without addressing that question.

The story is clearly religious mythology, unless you have evidence that it is a true account of an actual real event.

I doubt that you do, so there is no reason why anyone should be chastised for having opinions which doubt the validity of said story. There is no logical reason for anyone to ignore points about the story which conflict with what we know about nature.

As mythology itself, it begs the question and thus the reader - at least the attentive reader - is forced to "read into the story" in order that the disconnect is addressed.

No, even mythology doesn’t allow the reader to read into the story anything they want;

I did not argue that, so please don't bring straw into your argument.
I wrote:

That is also why - when the reader treats the story as fiction, the reader can read it as a play which is an inner dialog of a human author placing himself in a story of creation to explain why he exists in a world of evil humans.

One can and should treat the story as fiction and read it that way.

all texts answer specific questions. To use it to answer questions it doesn’t address and then fault the story for how you apply it is irrational. There is no reason to read this story as this “inner dialog” interpretation you are reading into it.

Of course there is. Jung's Archetypes are worth noting in relation to any religious mythology. What is it that the authors mythology does not address, re my own observations?

Where do you think fictional stories have their beginning, if not within the realms of an authors inner dialog?

Why are you unwilling to contemplate the validity of such observations being made?

Not temptation. Rather, experimentation. And that also requires ignorance.

Why experimentation rather than temptation?

Because that is the nature of nature. Human Consciousness learns through experimentation.

For example, we know that there are things we should avoid consuming else they will kill us, because we have observed the death that follows such.

We also know that there are plants which we can consume which, not will not kill us, but can even enlighten us re the internal depths which can be experienced. Some resist such as if somehow this was something "tempting" and social laws have even been created by largely religious instigation, to make the natural somehow sinful.

But this text describes it as a temptation, not an experimentation.

Which allows for the reader to be able to understand that the author was conflating human curiosity and the will to understand, as being temptation since the author claims in the mythology that the knowledge of good and evil we prohibited by the law of the God-concept that the author was specifically influenced by.

The author further believes that falling for the temptation is the reason why humans beings experience pain and suffering and hardship in eking out a living and surviving, because Adam lost paradise.

That is not how nature shows things to have come from. There is no trace of evidence which tells us humans once enjoyed what religious folk claim that Adam once enjoyed and then lost through temptation.

I was speaking of Adams ignorance not allowing for him to question the command the God-Concept had made.
The questionable story was that Adam would die.

Even after the deed and expulsion, we are informed that Adam did not die for around 900 years.

Which makes it obvious that death referred to spiritual death (and possibly losing access to immortality).

There is no evidence in the storyline that Adam saw any obvious connect with "spirit/immortality" at all. Thus, how do you suppose that Adam was aware that the God in the mythology was warning him of a "Spiritual Death"?

What makes you think that - re the story - when Adam saw that Eve had not died, that he so readily took a bite of the fruit himself, that he was concerned with any "Spiritual Death"?

The implication in the story is that the death spoken about was a physical one. It is not obvious that death referred to "spiritual death", because the author also mentioned the tree of life which Adam was permitted to eat of, thus it can be inferred from that, that it is obvious that Adam living so long after the expulsion, was due to the effects of him having eaten the fruit of life, and - after being prevented from doing so, it took hundreds of years for that effect to wear off, and that this is what the author was implying.

The author makes no mention of anything "spiritual".

But what is "correct knowledge" of good and evil? Obviously we are not directly informed, but the inference is that it has something to do with a disconnect between the individual and something called "GOD".

Correct knowledge of good and evil is that which God has. Adam and Eve wanted to redefine good and evil by their own perspective. That’s what the story tells us.

I suppose that the story "tells us" that, if we want to interpret the story that way.

The author does use the word "correct" in relation to the knowledge of good and evil and if it is the case that the God-concept in question wanted Adam to know good and evil through experience re the will to do so, rather than just be robotic about it and obey a command and live in paradise without really having learned for himself, then we would have an entirely different record of the past than what we do have now.

My argument remains valid that the author was writing from ignorance, trying to explain why humans behaved as they did and why pain and suffering were part of the human experience instead of some easy-existence in some idealism existence, and decided that it must have been because humankind were being punished.

The author also uses the word "cursed" in relation to Eve and the pain of childbirth.

It appears to be an attempt to make a God-concept blameless and blame humans for their harsh situation, and I think that our knowledge of psychology shows us plainly that the author was projecting internal beliefs into the storyline as a reflection of said authors own inner workings, rather than anything of truthful observations of the natural world.

[Adonai Yahweh]

Adam made the wrong choice by partaking in eating the fruit from the tree of Knowledge of good and evil because as a result mankind became sinful . Genesis 1:27 -28 " So God created man in his own image , in the image and likeness of God he created him ; male and female . God blessed them : God to them be fruitful , multiply , fill the earth and subdue it . Rule over the fish in the sea , the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on earth " This shows the dominion and authority mankind received from God , Adam was created in the image and likeness of God meaning he was created perfectly , sinless and with the spirit of God . As a result of fall he lost his dominion and authority ,he was cursed . Adam was given responsibility over Eve and the garden he was the leader and he failed in his leadership because he ate of the fruit when he directly received instruction from God not to do so . Romans 5:12-14 explains that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin . We were never meant to experience death or all the horrible things of the world but because Adam sinned instead of our nature being that of God ,our nature is now a nature of sin . Sin corrupts our spirit therefore it became difficult for mankind for be sinless and mankind was no condemned to die . For many died because of the trespass of one man however if you continue to verse 16 to 21 we saved , made righteous through the Lord Jesus Christ

[The Tanager]

Tell the reader what Christianity tells about reward and punishment and how faith relates to those concepts.

I don’t think Christianity is about reward and punishment. It’s not: do the things God wants, avoid the things God doesn’t like and you’ll get rewarded with heaven; do the opposite and you’ll get punished with hell. It’s not: be good enough and God will reward you with a relationship with Him.

It’s come into relationship with Him, based on who God is, not what you’ve done or haven’t done. Once in relationship, He’ll work with us to do good things in and through us. The moral goodness is a result of the relationship; not vice versa. That relationship comes through faith/trust in God, not our own trying to be good enough for a reward or earn a relationship.

No, trust a being you have had conversations with, that intimately created you, that intimately created an equal companion for you, that gave you tons of freedom and space to create and rule along with Him. That isn’t blind faith.

We all have our opinions.

And some opinions are wrong. If someone thinks the above is rightly called blind faith, then they are objectively wrong because of the very definition of what “blind faith” means.

Paul is "Christianity" - is that what you are of the opinion?

Christian mythology comes from a variety of authors and even include non-Christian mythology - authored by non-Christians.

My point was that it is Adams Sin which is referenced as the focal - even if in the story, Eve was the first to bite the fruit.

No, I do not think Paul is Christianity. Paul is certainly a part of what you call “Christian mythology,” though, and you said the sin is always referred to as Adam’s Sin. It clearly isn’t. Not in Genesis and not in every Christian writing.

My point also, was that the thread topic isn't asking about Eve at all.

And my point is that either it is (1) a shorthand way to refer to the sin of Adam and Eve or (2) wrongly focuses on just Adam, when Eve was clearly an equal part.

What the text tells or implies about the characters is speculation in its own right, so complaining that speculation is being speculated upon is deflection.
Why don't you argue against or agree that the observation I made re Adam and Eves biological relationship?

No, there is a difference between understanding the text and speculating beyond what the text addresses. I was referring to specific parts of your speculations that have no grounding in the text itself such as the God in the story not being the actual creator God; that it was just a concept in Adam’s mind, that Eve and Adam are each one side of one person having this concept, etc.

If this is a historical literal description of Adam and Eve’s birth (I’m not convinced it is) then, sure, call it a cloning.

it doesn’t make any statement on how they might have fallen (or not fallen) without the serpent. You are reading into the story what the story doesn’t address.

I will go along with that for the time being. If the story does not address this, then it is further evidence that the story is badly written, if indeed the story was meant to be understood as something more than simply religious mythology.

I see no rational reason to follow you in this claim. The story could be more than religious mythology without addressing that question.

The story is clearly religious mythology, unless you have evidence that it is a true account of an actual real event.

I doubt that you do, so there is no reason why anyone should be chastised for having opinions which doubt the validity of said story. There is no logical reason for anyone to ignore points about the story which conflict with what we know about nature.

How many times have I said that I doubt this is a historically literal story? So, why think I would be chastising you about doubting the historically literal nature of this story? That doesn’t make any sense.

No, my point was that the story’s failure to address what would have happened without the serpent is not a rational reason to think the story is nothing more than religious mythology.

That is also why - when the reader treats the story as fiction, the reader can read it as a play which is an inner dialog of a human author placing himself in a story of creation to explain why he exists in a world of evil humans.

One can and should treat the story as fiction and read it that way.

There are different kinds of fiction. So, treating it as fiction doesn’t mean one can make it mean whatever they want, including that it is an inner dialog of a human author placing himself in a story of creation to explain why he exists in a world of evil humans. There is no evidence from the text that this should be one’s interpretation.

Because that is the nature of nature. Human Consciousness learns through experimentation.

Human consciousness is also tempted towards various things. And the text speaks of temptation not experimentation. To then read the text through the lens of experimentation is to take it out of context.

Which allows for the reader to be able to understand that the author was conflating human curiosity and the will to understand, as being temptation since the author claims in the mythology that the knowledge of good and evil we prohibited by the law of the God-concept that the author was specifically influenced by.

No, the temptation isn’t about just being curious and wanting to understand; it’s about distrusting God and deciding for oneself what is good and evil to do. That is the context provided by the author. It continues throughout the Pentateuch (and later authors) as ties are brought back towards humans doing what is good in their own sight and bad things resulting from this.

The author further believes that falling for the temptation is the reason why humans beings experience pain and suffering and hardship in eking out a living and surviving, because Adam lost paradise.

We can say the author believes certain pains and sufferings come from these choices, yes.

That is not how nature shows things to have come from. There is no trace of evidence which tells us humans once enjoyed what religious folk claim that Adam once enjoyed and then lost through temptation.

What kind of evidence would have been left?

There is no evidence in the storyline that Adam saw any obvious connect with "spirit/immortality" at all. Thus, how do you suppose that Adam was aware that the God in the mythology was warning him of a "Spiritual Death"?

What makes you think that - re the story - when Adam saw that Eve had not died, that he so readily took a bite of the fruit himself, that he was concerned with any "Spiritual Death"?

The implication in the story is that the death spoken about was a physical one. It is not obvious that death referred to "spiritual death", because the author also mentioned the tree of life which Adam was permitted to eat of, thus it can be inferred from that, that it is obvious that Adam living so long after the expulsion, was due to the effects of him having eaten the fruit of life, and - after being prevented from doing so, it took hundreds of years for that effect to wear off, and that this is what the author was implying.

The author makes no mention of anything "spiritual".

It would be really silly for the author to mean “immediate death” and then immediately show that this isn’t true. It would mean the author saying that God was obviously wrong. That’s not the picture of God in any other part of the author’s writing. What does happen is a break in the relationship between God and humans (they can’t be in the garden where God walks), between human relationships, and between humans and their environment. They also lose access to the Tree of Life that is in the garden. The author doesn’t say “Adam saw that Eve didn’t die and, therefore, took and ate also.” To think the author meant immediate physical death is to uncharitably think the author an idiot.

Many of Adam’s descendants, who did not eat of the Tree of Life, also live long lives, so that couldn’t be what the author is implying. The whole of the Pentateuch concerns our spiritual life, our relationship with God and others; it’s full of mentions about things ‘spiritual’.

It appears to be an attempt to make a God-concept blameless and blame humans for their harsh situation, and I think that our knowledge of psychology shows us plainly that the author was projecting internal beliefs into the storyline as a reflection of said authors own inner workings, rather than anything of truthful observations of the natural world.

So, you think there is evidence that humans don’t have any blame for the bad things in the world?

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #94]

I don’t think Christianity is about reward and punishment. It’s not: do the things God wants, avoid the things God doesn’t like and you’ll get rewarded with heaven; do the opposite and you’ll get punished with hell. It’s not: be good enough and God will reward you with a relationship with Him.

It’s come into relationship with Him, based on who God is, not what you’ve done or haven’t done. Once in relationship, He’ll work with us to do good things in and through us. The moral goodness is a result of the relationship; not vice versa. That relationship comes through faith/trust in God, not our own trying to be good enough for a reward or earn a relationship.

Overall, the above appears to be something you should argue with those calling themselves Christians and who believe and tell others, that which you say - Christianity is not about.

No, trust a being you have had conversations with, that intimately created you, that intimately created an equal companion for you, that gave you tons of freedom and space to create and rule along with Him. That isn’t blind faith.

We all have our opinions.

And some opinions are wrong. If someone thinks the above is rightly called blind faith, then they are objectively wrong because of the very definition of what “blind faith” means.

We have not presented any definition as to what blind faith is.

I have presented an argument that blind faith - re this story - involves Adam believing that the being created him and the story does not have Adam questioning the validity of the claim the God-Entity made.
What the story does imply is that Adam had doubts about said being, and those doubts were worked on by the Serpent, specifically through the clone Eve.

No, I do not think Paul is Christianity. Paul is certainly a part of what you call “Christian mythology,” though, and you said the sin is always referred to as Adam’s Sin. It clearly isn’t. Not in Genesis and not in every Christian writing.

Ah yes - the controversy of Christian writing in that it veers this way and that way and tributaries result.
I am specifically referring to and focused upon Adams sin, as per the thread title and for the purpose of staying in that river rather than meandering off on the stream of including the cloned aspect of Adam.

My point also, was that the thread topic isn't asking about Eve at all.

And my point is that either it is (1) a shorthand way to refer to the sin of Adam and Eve or (2) wrongly focuses on just Adam, when Eve was clearly an equal part.

It doesn't matter. Eve - as has been shown in my earlier arguments, is an aspect of Adam, cloned by the God-Entity - something you have yet to address and are unlikely to want to address if you keep to the path you are currently wanting to go down.

Effectively, it is all Adam. Just as the mythology of Adams sin became inherited by all of humankind, according to the main religions which believe and present the mythology to being true/non-fiction.

What the text tells or implies about the characters is speculation in its own right, so complaining that speculation is being speculated upon is deflection.
Why don't you argue against or agree that the observation I made re Adam and Eves biological relationship?

No, there is a difference between understanding the text and speculating beyond what the text addresses. I was referring to specific parts of your speculations that have no grounding in the text itself such as the God in the story not being the actual creator God; that it was just a concept in Adam’s mind, that Eve and Adam are each one side of one person having this concept, etc.

There has been no evidence that the God-concept in the Garden is the same entity as the Creator of the universe. It is inferred to be the case, but there is no evidence that this is the truth of the matter.

If this is a historical literal description of Adam and Eve’s birth (I’m not convinced it is) then, sure, call it a cloning.

It is my observation presently, that where you stand on the matter is "undecided" and that perhaps parts of the story you believe are literal and other parts, fiction.
What is one to make of that?

"Sure - call it "cloning" IF the story is taken literally" [?] What would you call it, IF the story was taken figuratively?
And.
How would that help your argument?

How many times have I said that I doubt this is a historically literal story?
So, why think I would be chastising you about doubting the historically literal nature of this story? That doesn’t make any sense.

Why would you think I have been counting? As pointed out, while one can refer to the story as being figurative, when one also argues as if the story is historically literal, this doesn't help establish your case, that the reader can be sure from what position you are arguing.

No, my point was that the story’s failure to address what would have happened without the serpent is not a rational reason to think the story is nothing more than religious mythology.

Well then, please explain to the reader exactly what your position IS on the nature of the story. This would help establish a reasonable platform from which to argue. Otherwise the impression is that you jump from one to the other, depending upon your own particular beliefs and opinions, which you appear to be uncertain about as a result of said reactions.

There are different kinds of fiction. So, treating it as fiction doesn’t mean one can make it mean whatever they want, including that it is an inner dialog of a human author placing himself in a story of creation to explain why he exists in a world of evil humans. There is no evidence from the text that this should be one’s interpretation.

The evidence is in the very text itself.
This is especially true of fictional material.
Instead of accepting that The Creator placed Spirits into physical forms in an environment where pain and suffering were a natural aspect of the overall setting, the author - and the religious mythologies built on this particular mythology, and who sell their particular stories to the world - creates an "explanation" as to WHY we exist in said world.
The explanation itself cannot easily be accepted as historical fact by you, even that many other Christians believe that it is.
Why do you have a problem with my seeing the story as the author explaining why pain suffering and death are somehow "unnatural" when nature itself clearly show us that these things are indeed - quite natural?

Because that is the nature of nature. Human Consciousness learns through experimentation.

Human consciousness is also tempted towards various things. And the text speaks of temptation not experimentation. To then read the text through the lens of experimentation is to take it out of context.

And yet you struggle to agree with me that the text is a conjured thing from a mind which does not accept the nature of nature and sets about trying to convince the reader that all humans [and every biological thing] suffer and die due to having lost something, because of one human not resisting temptation, and so experimentation - which is the nature of nature - becomes "sinfulness" which would not have been the case if both the object [nature] and the command [do not eat of this specifically named fruit] had not been injected into said story.

The context is itself superimposing itself over the nature of nature, BY the author.

In that light, anything which is forbidden, is superimposing itself against nature.

Which allows for the reader to be able to understand that the author was conflating human curiosity and the will to understand, as being temptation since the author claims in the mythology that the knowledge of good and evil we prohibited by the law of the God-concept that the author was specifically influenced by.

No, the temptation isn’t about just being curious and wanting to understand; it’s about distrusting God and deciding for oneself what is good and evil to do.

Distrusting something claimed to being the Creator of Nature. The claim has never been established as a true one.
Further to that, the established religions [due to the claim being believed as true] are claiming that humans should trust the particular God-concept as being true, and that the trust has to be believed on faith.
Faith without evidence, because there is no evidence said establishments can provide.

That is the context provided by the author. It continues throughout the Pentateuch (and later authors) as ties are brought back towards humans doing what is good in their own sight and bad things resulting from this.

That is the nature of nature and how humans learn. Adding the confusion of condemnation through the idea that nature is the way in which The Creator punishes, clearly isn't and never has been helpful to the process of learning the nature of Nature, when ideas of good and bad produce products of misleading beliefs.

Nature itself clearly has no good or bad except that which humans assign to it. Your argument that humans do so "in their own sight" only underlines how this has worked against humanity and the nature of nature, through the stories humans told, and other humans believed in.
This is why I asked you if you had questioned said stories, including the God-concept you appear to believe in.

This is also why I mentioned the lack of a visible God humans can go to, who can give them guidance et al. Religions just have stories, and those stories created images and what is there available to us that we can question the validity of said stories to show that they are not merely - as you put it - something humans created as "good in their own sight"?

If one is going to use such argument, one has to been seen to be showing WHY such stories are not simply products of authors expressing what is "good in their own sight".

Building mythologies atop of mythologies doesn't get us any closer to answering that question.

The author further believes that falling for the temptation is the reason why humans beings experience pain and suffering and hardship in eking out a living and surviving, because Adam lost paradise.

We can say the author believes certain pains and sufferings come from these choices, yes.

That is not how nature shows things to have come from. There is no trace of evidence which tells us humans once enjoyed what religious folk claim that Adam once enjoyed and then lost through temptation.

What kind of evidence would have been left?

More to the point, if the stories were true, why would such evidence have been wiped away and humans then expected to believe by faith?

So we are having to rely on the evidence that nature provides, and there is no evidence to support that everything was paradise and there was no such thing as pain and suffering and death in nature "once upon a time".

It would be really silly for the author to mean “immediate death” and then immediately show that this isn’t true. It would mean the author saying that God was obviously wrong.

Who is arguing that the story is sensible?

The inference is there as the author wrote the Garden-God told Adam that "in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" - NOT "900 years after you eat from it, you will eventually die."

What is NOT sensible, is to argue that the words attributed, were inferring something other than immediate death.

That’s not the picture of God in any other part of the author’s writing.

To be clear, the image the author presents of the God-being, isn't at all clearly defined. We cannot ascertain whether the God was a voice Adam heard, or an actual entity Adam saw...until the author writes about what the God did after Adam had succumbed to the temptation.

Given the fictional nature of the story, and the fact that there is no visible God-Being clearly to be seen by humanity, only adds to the argument that the author has created this figure as part of the authors own inner imagery processes and does so according to the authors own lack of ability to accept the nature of nature and blame humans for their predicament as being punishment for disobeying said imaged God-concept "in the beginning" [or very near to].

What does happen is a break in the relationship between God and humans (they can’t be in the garden where God walks), between human relationships, and between humans and their environment.

Which implies that they were not on earth to begin with, but were placed on earth where no god walks.

They also lose access to the Tree of Life that is in the garden. The author doesn’t say “Adam saw that Eve didn’t die and, therefore, took and ate also.” To think the author meant immediate physical death is to uncharitably think the author an idiot.

Questioning the story-telling abilities of the author is not saying that the author is a idiot. The author is simply not great at telling stories.
We can clearly see the implied intent of the authors own thinking, in that Adam allowed for his wife to be the guinea pig and only took a bite himself once it was clear that no harm had befallen Eve.

Clearly the context shows that Adam was unsure and doubted the Garden-God and the doubt would have been validated when it was seen by Adam [who the author says was with Eve at the time] that Eve did not die - thus the Serpent would have been seen to be telling the truth "you shall surely NOT die" and the author does not infer any more doubt on Adams part , having Adam reach for the fruit offered by Eve, and eat of it - without any further reservations.

Who would accuse me of "reading into the story" that which the story clearly describes?

Perhaps it is a matter of truth that it is you fail to read the story as it is written and presented?

Many of Adam’s descendants, who did not eat of the Tree of Life, also live long lives, so that couldn’t be what the author is implying.

When the nature of Nature is taken into account, we have evidence that such coding is passed down through genetics, so no - the mythology is clearly pointing to some bad writing, rather than anything else.

The whole of the Pentateuch concerns our spiritual life, our relationship with God and others; it’s full of mentions about things ‘spiritual’.

I see no evidence accompanies your statement, so for now will regard that as your opinion.
Re that, my observation was specific to the Garden story and the authors apparent lack of mentioning anything "spiritual", as you interpret it. "Spiritual death" is off the table unless you can show the reader otherwise.
The Pentateuch is likely mythology based upon the Garden story and has the stories short-comings somewhat covered, but in that, only represents those authors filling in the gaps and fixing up the inaccuracies so as to keep the story alive.

It appears to be an attempt to make a God-concept blameless and blame humans for their harsh situation, and I think that our knowledge of psychology shows us plainly that the author was projecting internal beliefs into the storyline as a reflection of said authors own inner workings, rather than anything of truthful observations of the natural world.

So, you think there is evidence that humans don’t have any blame for the bad things in the world?

What "bad things in the world" re the nature of the natural world, are you referring to?

Perhaps we can examine those and see if they are simply a case of examples of humans doing what is good in their own sight and bad things resulting from this.

[The Tanager]

I don’t think Christianity is about reward and punishment. It’s not: do the things God wants, avoid the things God doesn’t like and you’ll get rewarded with heaven; do the opposite and you’ll get punished with hell. It’s not: be good enough and God will reward you with a relationship with Him.

It’s come into relationship with Him, based on who God is, not what you’ve done or haven’t done. Once in relationship, He’ll work with us to do good things in and through us. The moral goodness is a result of the relationship; not vice versa. That relationship comes through faith/trust in God, not our own trying to be good enough for a reward or earn a relationship.

Overall, the above appears to be something you should argue with those calling themselves Christians and who believe and tell others, that which you say - Christianity is not about.

While I gladly talk with other Christians about this, you brought this up as though their view of Christianity is the right one, so either back it up or change your position on it.

We have not presented any definition as to what blind faith is.

I have presented an argument that blind faith - re this story - involves Adam believing that the being created him and the story does not have Adam questioning the validity of the claim the God-Entity made.
What the story does imply is that Adam had doubts about said being, and those doubts were worked on by the Serpent, specifically through the clone Eve.

Use any basic, accepted definition of blind faith you want. Genesis doesn’t present Adam (or Eve) as having blind faith. Different desires, uncertainties, doubts, sure, but not blind faith.

Ah yes - the controversy of Christian writing in that it veers this way and that way and tributaries result.
I am specifically referring to and focused upon Adams sin, as per the thread title and for the purpose of staying in that river rather than meandering off on the stream of including the cloned aspect of Adam.

Paul specifically refers to Eve’s sin as well. I gave you the clear verses. Other Christian writings don’t only focus on Adam either. You are clearly wrong here.

It doesn't matter. Eve - as has been shown in my earlier arguments, is an aspect of Adam, cloned by the God-Entity - something you have yet to address and are unlikely to want to address if you keep to the path you are currently wanting to go down.

Effectively, it is all Adam. Just as the mythology of Adams sin became inherited by all of humankind, according to the main religions which believe and present the mythology to being true/non-fiction.

I absolutely addressed it. This is pure speculation that has no evidence from the text itself. The text clearly presents them as different individuals. As different individuals, male and female, they do represent all of humankind. And within much of the Jewish and Christian traditions, they are presented as both literal history as well as mytho-history and purely metaphorical.

There has been no evidence that the God-concept in the Garden is the same entity as the Creator of the universe. It is inferred to be the case, but there is no evidence that this is the truth of the matter.

The text goes from saying God created the heavens and the earth (1:1-2:3), to focusing on this same God creating humans (2:4ff). It clearly reads as the same being. The burden is on you to show differently.

It is my observation presently, that where you stand on the matter is "undecided" and that perhaps parts of the story you believe are literal and other parts, fiction.
What is one to make of that?

That I think it has literal and metaphorical parts to it. What’s wrong with that? It’s not all literal or all metaphorical only.

"Sure - call it "cloning" IF the story is taken literally" [?] What would you call it, IF the story was taken figuratively?

The metaphorical point of Eve coming from Adam’s side would be about the equality of man and woman in forming one of the deepest relationships humans can form that helps humanity live out its purpose. This is why the commentary in 2:24 is in there.

And.
How would that help your argument?

Help what argument? You brought up that Eve was cloned. How does the answer here help/hurt your argument?

Why would you think I have been counting? As pointed out, while one can refer to the story as being figurative, when one also argues as if the story is historically literal, this doesn't help establish your case, that the reader can be sure from what position you are arguing.

It was a rhetorical question. I have not argued as if the story is necessarily historically literal. I’ve probably said, well if it is historical, then your next point is wrong because… It’s on you to show my posts philosophical charity. If it seems like I’m saying something directly contradictory, then ask clarifying questions because you may not be understanding something rather than assuming I’m saying something I’m not.

Well then, please explain to the reader exactly what your position IS on the nature of the story. This would help establish a reasonable platform from which to argue. Otherwise the impression is that you jump from one to the other, depending upon your own particular beliefs and opinions, which you appear to be uncertain about as a result of said reactions.

No, your impression is that. That could be my fault or it could be yours. I don’t care whose it is, but I do wish you’d ask more questions because our conversations go like this quite often. I believe the story is largely poetic and metaphorical, but that it is based on a true event. I think there were initial humans (maybe a pair, maybe not) who first disobeyed and that humanity has descended from them. If you have more questions that need clarity, then ask them.

There are different kinds of fiction. So, treating it as fiction doesn’t mean one can make it mean whatever they want, including that it is an inner dialog of a human author placing himself in a story of creation to explain why he exists in a world of evil humans. There is no evidence from the text that this should be one’s interpretation.

The evidence is in the very text itself.

Which verse(s)? Which ones hint at Adam and Eve being the male and feminine aspects of the author? I know you can make it fit into that larger framework and just say the author didn’t want to hint at that. But you said the evidence for this is in the text itself. Where?

Why do you have a problem with my seeing the story as the author explaining why pain suffering and death are somehow "unnatural" when nature itself clearly show us that these things are indeed - quite natural?

Because I don’t think the text says that. The text speaks only of pain, suffering, and death that came as a result of the human’s actions; it isn’t a theological treatise on the entirety of pain, suffering, and death. Adam and Eve’s choice brings separation between them and separation between them and God.

In God’s speech to the serpent, Adam, and Eve, God speaks to the struggle between the serpent and the seed (3:15), parent-child (3:16), wife-husband (3:16), human-environment/work (3:17-19), and that humans lose access to eternal life (3:19, 22-24). That’s not exhaustive of pain, suffering, and death in this world.

And yet you struggle to agree with me that the text is a conjured thing from a mind which does not accept the nature of nature and sets about trying to convince the reader that all humans [and every biological thing] suffer and die due to having lost something, because of one human not resisting temptation, and so experimentation - which is the nature of nature - becomes "sinfulness" which would not have been the case if both the object [nature] and the command [do not eat of this specifically named fruit] had not been injected into said story.

The context is itself superimposing itself over the nature of nature, BY the author.

In that light, anything which is forbidden, is superimposing itself against nature.

Yes, because I think your conclusions are based on faulty premises. You have assumed it’s just from the author’s mind. You have claimed it contradicts nature, but it doesn’t because it’s more narrowly focused then you and doesn’t address the question you are addressing.

You act as though experimentation is the flip side of temptation, but it isn’t to me. Experimentation seems to be a value judgment that their actions aren’t bad. The text paints their actions as bad. If this is misunderstanding your term, fine, but then please answer what value you think the author ascribes to this “experimentation” and what value you give to it.

Distrusting something claimed to being the Creator of Nature. The claim has never been established as a true one.

It is clear from the text that the author thinks God is the Creator and worth trusting. The whole Pentateuch, Old Testament, and New Testament has this as the central message. It’s everywhere.

If you want to say the texts are wrong in their judgment, fine. But we were talking about the message of the text.

Further to that, the established religions [due to the claim being believed as true] are claiming that humans should trust the particular God-concept as being true, and that the trust has to be believed on faith.
Faith without evidence, because there is no evidence said establishments can provide.

Faith, in the Bible, is trusting God because one has reasons to, both personal interactions, as well as intellectual reasons. I can understand someone saying they think the evidence isn’t strongly in favor of, say, a Christian conclusion, but for one to think there is really no evidence is ridiculous. That you aren’t convinced isn’t the same thing as there is no evidence for it.

That is the nature of nature and how humans learn. Adding the confusion of condemnation through the idea that nature is the way in which The Creator punishes, clearly isn't and never has been helpful to the process of learning the nature of Nature, when ideas of good and bad produce products of misleading beliefs.

What "bad things in the world" re the nature of the natural world, are you referring to?

Perhaps we can examine those and see if they are simply a case of examples of humans doing what is good in their own sight and bad things resulting from this.

Do you think raping another human is evil? If not, why not? Do you think that believing it is evil to rape another human produces misleading beliefs? If so, why? If not, then rephrase what you said above to clarify your points.

Nature itself clearly has no good or bad except that which humans assign to it.

If it’s so clear, provide the argument that God cannot give objective good or bad to human nature.

Your argument that humans do so "in their own sight" only underlines how this has worked against humanity and the nature of nature, through the stories humans told, and other humans believed in.

If there is no good or bad, how can anything work against humanity?

This is why I asked you if you had questioned said stories, including the God-concept you appear to believe in.

And you think that shows I haven’t? If so, why? If not, then why did you ask this?

This is also why I mentioned the lack of a visible God humans can go to, who can give them guidance et al. Religions just have stories, and those stories created images…

Why do you think a visible God is necessary? A non-visible God can give them guidance as well. That religions just have stories is a claim. Where is your evidence that supports that?

and what is there available to us that we can question the validity of said stories to show that they are not merely - as you put it - something humans created as "good in their own sight"?

We should certainly question them. That questioning doesn’t necessarily lead to rejecting them.

If one is going to use such argument, one has to been seen to be showing WHY such stories are not simply products of authors expressing what is "good in their own sight".

Building mythologies atop of mythologies doesn't get us any closer to answering that question.

For this discussion, we were discussing what the text claims, not whether the text is true or not. Don’t enter that discussion and then, later, switch to a different question/context and then fault my posts for being spoken of under the previous question/context. If you want to talk about those things, then do it in a different thread.

What kind of evidence would have been left?

More to the point, if the stories were true, why would such evidence have been wiped away and humans then expected to believe by faith?

So we are having to rely on the evidence that nature provides, and there is no evidence to support that everything was paradise and there was no such thing as pain and suffering and death in nature "once upon a time".

I can’t answer your question until I understand what you are actually asking. What can of evidence would there be? As I’ve said, I don’t think Genesis says there was no pain, suffering, or death; it’s focus is more narrow than that.

Who is arguing that the story is sensible?

The inference is there as the author wrote the Garden-God told Adam that "in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" - NOT "900 years after you eat from it, you will eventually die."

What is NOT sensible, is to argue that the words attributed, were inferring something other than immediate death.

It is not sensible to think the writer wrote a story that is ridiculously unsensible. It is a silly move to think the author is saying that God lied/was wrong about Adam and Eve dying. If the author meant that, then they would have to say something when death doesn’t immediately happen. Either “you see God was lying for such-and-such a reason, or God is stupid, or God is …”. Therefore, death must be (at least) spiritual and (perhaps) mortal humans losing access to immortality.

To be clear, the image the author presents of the God-being, isn't at all clearly defined. We cannot ascertain whether the God was a voice Adam heard, or an actual entity Adam saw...until the author writes about what the God did after Adam had succumbed to the temptation.

The author presents God in certain clear ways. If God was just a sound or was visible to the eye is unclear, sure, but that’s not the entirety of present a clear image of God.

Given the fictional nature of the story, and the fact that there is no visible God-Being clearly to be seen by humanity, only adds to the argument that the author has created this figure as part of the authors own inner imagery processes and does so according to the authors own lack of ability to accept the nature of nature and blame humans for their predicament as being punishment for disobeying said imaged God-concept "in the beginning" [or very near to].

The rest that you are adding this to isn’t well supported. You also keep claiming a visible God is needed, but I’m not sure you’ve offered a reason why.

Which implies that they were not on earth to begin with, but were placed on earth where no god walks.

No, it doesn’t imply that. The Bible clearly paints God as a God who engages with the earth and those on it.

Questioning the story-telling abilities of the author is not saying that the author is a idiot. The author is simply not great at telling stories.
We can clearly see the implied intent of the authors own thinking, in that Adam allowed for his wife to be the guinea pig and only took a bite himself once it was clear that no harm had befallen Eve.

Clearly the context shows that Adam was unsure and doubted the Garden-God and the doubt would have been validated when it was seen by Adam [who the author says was with Eve at the time] that Eve did not die - thus the Serpent would have been seen to be telling the truth "you shall surely NOT die" and the author does not infer any more doubt on Adams part , having Adam reach for the fruit offered by Eve, and eat of it - without any further reservations.

Who would accuse me of "reading into the story" that which the story clearly describes?

Perhaps it is a matter of truth that it is you fail to read the story as it is written and presented?

It certainly is possible that I’m wrong. Do you feel it’s possible that you are wrong?

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #96]

While I gladly talk with other Christians about this, you brought this up as though their view of Christianity is the right one, so either back it up or change your position on it.

I don't recall having the intent you are implying re my mention of how Christianity is generally externalized as prompting a punishment/reward system and understood as such by those witnessing the externalization from a non-Christian perspective.

Use any basic, accepted definition of blind faith you want. Genesis doesn’t present Adam (or Eve) as having blind faith. Different desires, uncertainties, doubts, sure, but not blind faith.

So Adam didn't believe the God was who the God said the God was, re the story?
My comment was broader in that it references those who do have blind faith that the proclamation is a true one, based upon it being believed to be a true story/analogous mythology and the fact that there is no supporting evidence.

I am thus obliged to accept the statements as personal opinion and the personas faith being blind on account of the lack of evidence to support said belief.

Paul specifically refers to Eve’s sin as well. I gave you the clear verses. Other Christian writings don’t only focus on Adam either. You are clearly wrong here.

Not so fast. "Sin" as far as a word goes - only makes the claim something bad was done. Reference to Adams Sin is best focused upon in relation to it's mention, especially since according to the same Paul, who mentions it as the source of all subsequent sin which entered the world.

Therefore I see no justification in your use of words claiming I am clearly wrong about my insistence to focus on what Adams sin was and whether it goes against the nature of Nature or not.

Effectively, it is all Adam. Just as the mythology of Adams sin became inherited by all of humankind, according to the main religions which believe and present the mythology to being true/non-fiction.

I absolutely addressed it.

I disagree with this inflated observation.

This is pure speculation that has no evidence from the text itself. The text clearly presents them as different individuals.

My argument isn't that they are not different individuals. My argument is that they are more closely related than brother and sister.

As different individuals, male and female, they do represent all of humankind.

According to the mythology.
I haven't argued otherwise. What I have argued is that there is no supporting evidence in the science of genetics which corroborates the claim Adam and his extremely close relation Eve, are the "Parents" of Humanity.
This makes the mythology questionable.

And within much of the Jewish and Christian traditions, they are presented as both literal history as well as mytho-history and purely metaphorical.

Exactly my point!

Covering both bases and yet clearly providing no evidence in support of either position.
While it is a convenient way in which to side-step questioning, by having ones feet firmly planted in both camps [fiction and factual] there is still the requirement to back up one's position with evidence supporting either.

Both variations are questionable.

There has been no evidence that the God-concept in the Garden is the same entity as the Creator of the universe. It is inferred to be the case, but there is no evidence that this is the truth of the matter.

The text goes from saying God created the heavens and the earth (1:1-2:3), to focusing on this same God creating humans (2:4ff). It clearly reads as the same being. The burden is on you to show differently.

No. The burden is on those who claim that the two creation stories were from the same author, and were referring to the same event. Clearly there is enough discrepancy between the stories, for this to be a concern which requires addressing.

The overall mythology which evolved into current-times Christianity, is built upon the belief that the Garden Story is true - even in a literal sense.
I have pointed out some of those discrepancies. I am unconvinced that you are sincerely attempting to address those concerns I have mentioned.

No Christian I have meet to date, has been able to do so.

It is my observation presently, that where you stand on the matter is "undecided" and that perhaps parts of the story you believe are literal and other parts, fiction.
What is one to make of that?

That I think it has literal and metaphorical parts to it. What’s wrong with that? It’s not all literal or all metaphorical only.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, what YOU think is not relevant until information comes with it.
The reader cannot read your mind. What are those parts you think are literal and are metaphorical to the story.
By sharing those, what you think - may then become relevant.

"Sure - call it "cloning" IF the story is taken literally" [?] What would you call it, IF the story was taken figuratively?

The metaphorical point of Eve coming from Adam’s side would be about the equality of man and woman in forming one of the deepest relationships humans can form that helps humanity live out its purpose. This is why the commentary in 2:24 is in there.

Therein, the Garden God is made to speak by the author, proclaiming a thing which is clearly not seen in the nature of Nature.

In the nature of Human institution, sure. But this has to be examined to see how it might affect the nature of Nature.

And.
How would that help your argument?

Help what argument?

In this case, the argument that Male Humans were to "cleave to a woman they shall marry and to think of each other as one individual."
This in itself goes against your previous statement that my take on Eve being a clone is pure speculation and that has no evidence from the text itself, as the text clearly presents them as different individuals.
Now you present as evidence that the God is [by the authors writing] signifying that they should regard each other as the same.
Interesting to that note, the author appears to be claiming that the God instituted marriage, rather than marriage being an institution of Human Cultures.

You brought up that Eve was cloned. How does the answer here help/hurt your argument?

My argument overall is that mythology has been built upon mythology and none of it has supporting evidence and so can be treated as hear-say and examined/questioned for defect.

The most notable explanation for why the mythology exists at all is that it was packaged and sold as a commodity which could assist those [ and their offspring ] in ruling positions educated in the ways of controlling and influencing the direction of whole societies, through culture, politics, science and religion.

As pointed out, while one can refer to the story as being figurative, when one also argues as if the story is historically literal, this doesn't help establish your case, that the reader can be sure from what position you are arguing.

I have not argued as if the story is necessarily historically literal. I’ve probably said, well if it is historical, then your next point is wrong because… It’s on you to show my posts philosophical charity. If it seems like I’m saying something directly contradictory, then ask clarifying questions because you may not be understanding something rather than assuming I’m saying something I’m not.

Good advice, which we need both take heed.

I have given my response to your having your feet in both camps, and explained why I think folk do this.

Well then, please explain to the reader exactly what your position IS on the nature of the story. This would help establish a reasonable platform from which to argue. Otherwise the impression is that you jump from one to the other, depending upon your own particular beliefs and opinions, which you appear to be uncertain about as a result of said reactions.

No, your impression is that. That could be my fault or it could be yours. I don’t care whose it is, but I do wish you’d ask more questions because our conversations go like this quite often.

I try not to ask more questions until answers to the questions I have already asked, are adequately answered.

I believe the story is largely poetic and metaphorical, but that it is based on a true event. I think there were initial humans (maybe a pair, maybe not) who first disobeyed and that humanity has descended from them. If you have more questions that need clarity, then ask them.

As mentioned, it is not what you THINK that I am asking you about, but what evidence you have which backs up WHY you think the story is "based on a true event".

The evidence is in the very text itself.

Which verse(s)? Which ones hint at Adam and Eve being the male and feminine aspects of the author? I know you can make it fit into that larger framework and just say the author didn’t want to hint at that. But you said the evidence for this is in the text itself. Where?

In the whole story, if it is to be taken as "based on a true event" since it cannot be verified that any of it is in fact "based on a true event".

It means that - rather than us having to assume that the story is "based on a true event" it is far better to first examine what is known about phycology to examine the idea that the story is based upon the way the author thought about the world and translated those ideas from the authors own inner workings of the mind. I pointed that out already, in that the story isn't reflecting the nature of Nature and as a result has planted a seed in the minds of humans that they are being punished by The Creator because they experience pain and suffering and death.

Why do you have a problem with my seeing the story as the author explaining why pain suffering and death are somehow "unnatural" when nature itself clearly show us that these things are indeed - quite natural?

Because I don’t think the text says that.

Generations of Christian teaching beg to differ. Indeed, the notion is cemented into the fabric of human society. It does not matter that YOU do not THINK the text say's that, if the overwhelming number of humans think that the text AND all the mythologies built upon said text, are actually saying that.

The text speaks only of pain, suffering, and death that came as a result of the human’s actions;

The text is therefore incorrect because pain and death were around even before Humans, so humans cannot be responsible for those things existing already in Nature.

it isn’t a theological treatise on the entirety of pain, suffering, and death. Adam and Eve’s choice brings separation between them and separation between them and God.

Not according to the mythology since built upon the text. It is clear that the mythology concerns itself with ALL of Humanity [including Eve] in its entirety having to endure the experience of pain suffering and death BECAUSE of Adam's Sin.

In God’s speech to the serpent, Adam, and Eve, God speaks to the struggle between the serpent and the seed (3:15), parent-child (3:16), wife-husband (3:16), human-environment/work (3:17-19), and that humans lose access to eternal life (3:19, 22-24). That’s not exhaustive of pain, suffering, and death in this world.

In the speeches you reference - the author writes the Gods lines, and the God curses not only the offenders, but also the offenders offspring.

But the question still remains as to why the God did not want Humans experimenting and learning about Nature through that process and made the knowledge of good and evil a prohibited thing.

It begs the question as to what humans would have become, if they did not possess knowledge of good and evil and whether that would have been directly in opposition to learning about the nature of Nature - which appears to have no such being as the God the author writes about walking around giving out wise advise to Humans, let alone whether such a being could be said to have created the universe.

Where then does the metaphor for such a being derive, other than in the minds of those who author such a being/beings into a state of quasi existence?

We are largely left with an invisible mind which appears to work within the minds of individuals...

Are we thus to make the assumption that even if we regard the story of Adam to being true, the God was all in the Mind of Adam, rather than a literal being walking around in the garden with the other literal beings, yet claims to have created all the other literal beings...

Yes, because I think your conclusions are based on faulty premises.

It doesn't matter what you THINK. What matters is whether what you think is supported by actual evidence.

You have assumed it’s just from the author’s mind.

No. I am investigating the possibility that it is. I haven't reached any conclusion on the matter but point out that our understanding of the science of psychology supports the idea that it may be the case, and can therefore be questioned in light of this. That is why I mentioned Jung's Archetypes, to which you have not addressed.

You have claimed it contradicts nature, but it doesn’t because it’s more narrowly focused then you and doesn’t address the question you are addressing.

Rather, I have and continue to point out that the mythologies built upon the initial Garden Story do contradict nature, and that even parts of the story contradict nature.
So it is not a case of my saying the story contradicts what we know about Nature in it's broad sense, since the story is generally used to infer that it is the way in which Nature did/does things, when clearly it is not.

The "narrow focus" you claim the story represents, should of itself - declare the story unhelpful even as metaphor let alone be allowed to be built upon by all the other mythology, which altogether has been presented to the world as "The Truth".

You act as though experimentation is the flip side of temptation, but it isn’t to me.

No. I act as if Nature includes experimentation and experimentation shouldn't be regarded as temptation, and I explained why.

Experimentation seems to be a value judgment that their actions aren’t bad.

I am using the word specific to the nature of Nature, and therein are not assigning "good/evil" to the actions of Nature.

The text paints their actions as bad.

Which is why I have been critiquing the authors story, using nature as the background phenomena rather than the phenomena the author is using in the story.

If this is misunderstanding your term, fine, but then please answer what value you think the author ascribes to this “experimentation” and what value you give to it.

The author clearly ascribes "evil" to the action of Adam. I ascribe a natural curiosity evident in human behaviors' which I have used the word experimentation to describe the ongoing effect of natural curiosity. I do not think of the effect as "good" or "evil" but as "Natural"

Distrusting something claimed to being the Creator of Nature. The claim has never been established as a true one.

It is clear from the text that the author thinks God is the Creator and worth trusting.

Of course it is. What the author THINKS is not necessarily reverent to what the actual truth is, as this has not been established.

The whole Pentateuch, Old Testament, and New Testament has this as the central message. It’s everywhere.

Exactly my point.
Myths built upon an initial myth [being discussed] which has not established the claim as being true, or even questioned the claim of the Garden God being The Creator of this universe.

The collective mythology is simply based upon the author implying the Entity which created Adam and then placed Adam in the Garden, is the same Entity which created the whole universe.

If you want to say the texts are wrong in their judgment, fine. But we were talking about the message of the text.

The whole message of the collected mythology, yes. The focus is upon the initial story which all the other stories were then built upon.

Further to that, the established religions [due to the claim being believed as true] are claiming that humans should trust the particular God-concept as being true, and that the trust has to be believed on faith.
Faith without evidence, because there is no evidence said establishments can provide.

Faith, in the Bible, is trusting God because one has reasons to, both personal interactions, as well as intellectual reasons. I can understand someone saying they think the evidence isn’t strongly in favor of, say, a Christian conclusion, but for one to think there is really no evidence is ridiculous. That you aren’t convinced isn’t the same thing as there is no evidence for it.

More to the point I have been making in my posts, I am open to viewing any evidence and as yet not a single Christian through the 60 years of my experience on this planet, has ever provided the evidence that the God of the Bible, is the creator of this universe rather than the Bible simply being a collection of myths built upon the original and unproven myth.

William wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:39 pm
That is the nature of nature and how humans learn. Adding the confusion of condemnation through the idea that nature is the way in which The Creator punishes, clearly isn't and never has been helpful to the process of learning the nature of Nature, when ideas of good and bad produce products of misleading beliefs.
William wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:39 pm
What "bad things in the world" re the nature of the natural world, are you referring to?

Perhaps we can examine those and see if they are simply a case of examples of humans doing what is good in their own sight and bad things resulting from this.

Do you think raping another human is evil? If not, why not?

No. What I think it is, is a misguided way of doing things. "Rape" is the nature of Nature, and is only now a thing recognized as less necessary than it once was, in today's modern world.
Who in the story, did Adam rape?
Is not "rape" something which happens to the individual through the actions of another, without the individuals consent?
If so, we can take that back to the idea that we individuals generally have no memory of having a past existence, and thus no memory of being asked if we wanted to experience being human on a planet in the middle of nowhere.
Couple those two concepts together and one can then argue that one was raped into existence without one's consent...and thus misguided ideas can formulate through subconscious activity as per Jung's Archetypes.

Do you think that believing it is evil to rape another human produces misleading beliefs? If so, why?

Yes. This is because assigning "evil" to something induces an incorrect understanding and a reaction which attempts to deal with the problem in an incorrect way, perpetuating problem upon problem rather than any actual Solution.

Nature itself clearly has no good or bad except that which humans assign to it.

If it’s so clear, provide the argument that God cannot give objective good or bad to human nature.

"GOD" has yet to be established as being "part of nature" rather than simply an outward expression of an unaligned [to Nature] concept/image originating within the minds of Humans, expressed into the external reality through stories.

In the case of this "GOD" we have the additional condemnation of human curiosity and accompanying behavior's through an entity concept authored by someone who thinks about nature in terms of "good and evil" and believes that this is the way the God who created this universe, thinks about "His" creation, by writing that the GOD thought of its creation as "good" as if it wasn't "evil" and only became so, after Adam disobeyed a rule imposed upon him which worked against his Naturally Human curiosity to learn things through the only Natural path made available to Humans - to learn through experimentation, how to navigate the complexity of the experience collectively being had.

Your argument that humans do so "in their own sight" only underlines how this has worked against humanity and the nature of nature, through the stories humans told, and other humans believed in.

If there is no good or bad, how can anything work against humanity?

Through bringing in ideas such as these which the author brought in, through the story.

My pointing that out using the very "in their own sight" argument you used was to spotlight the contradictive irony of the belief.
In other words, by/through/in who's 'sight' should humans be understanding things?

The answer - clearly - is that no one knows, even though many claim that they do and the best we have to go on is the visible evidence of the nature of Nature and the requirement for us to properly understand that nature.

This is why I asked you if you had questioned said stories, including the God-concept you appear to believe in.

And you think that shows I haven’t? If so, why?

I know that you have not presented any convincing evidence that you have done what you claim to have done. You have given no verifiable examples. I cannot simply accept "what you think" without being shown "why you think it".

This is also why I mentioned the lack of a visible God humans can go to, who can give them guidance et al. Religions just have stories, and those stories created images…

Why do you think a visible God is necessary?

I don't. That is why I think the author drew the material from within the authors imagination, aligned with how the author viewed existence through the lens of the concept of "good and evil" - believing that the view "in their own sight", was the true one. The one to pick up and run with.

A non-visible God can give them guidance as well.

Do you think the author described the Garden God as being visible to Adam or not?

That religions just have stories is a claim. Where is your evidence that supports that?

I consider the nature of Nature to being a story as well - It is the stage on which the story is set and each human experience is a story within the main story.

So my 'claim' is based upon that view. What else can one call the writings in a BOOK, but "stories".
Believing they might be true stories, or mixture of fact and fiction, or outright lies, doe's not change the fact that they are Stories.

and what is there available to us that we can question the validity of said stories to show that they are not merely - as you put it - something humans created as "good in their own sight"?
We should certainly question them. That questioning doesn’t necessarily lead to rejecting them.

Nor does it lead to necessarily accepting them. Rejecting or accepting on what grounds, is precisely what questioning and examining them can result in.

For my part, it isn't about either so much as it is about whether any aspect of any story aligns with the nature of Nature re the behavior's of the Garden God in making something obviously natural, prohibited by way of "explaining" why Human beings are experiencing Nature as Nature is.

If one is going to use such argument, one has to been seen to be showing WHY such stories are not simply products of authors expressing what is "good in their own sight".

Building mythologies atop of mythologies doesn't get us any closer to answering that question.

For this discussion, we were discussing what the text claims, not whether the text is true or not.

What are you saying here?
That claims are not to be examined as to whether they are true or false?

Don’t enter that discussion and then, later, switch to a different question/context and then fault my posts for being spoken of under the previous question/context. If you want to talk about those things, then do it in a different thread.

You are free to focus on just the one story, as you please.

From my perspective, my mention of what has been built upon that one story, is a whole religion which has influenced the direction this world has gone, and still does - and I take the opportunity to let the reader know that in all that time, it has never been established that the Garden God is the same Entity as The Creator of the universe.

The threads are better seen as a whole garment, rather than organized into an array of disconnected threads.
In that, it doesn't matter to me what 'thread' is being discussed, as I write the same critique that the whole garment is what requires examination. "The beginning" is simply the stone that caused the ripple that allowed for the stories to be composed.

I am simply answering the questions you put forth to me, which provides opportunity for the reader to have access to information.
You can stop asking me questions if you want to believe they are not relevant to this thread topic - and who knows! Perhaps the whole thread will sink into obscurity or go off on a more convivial track, appropriate to "Christian" thinking...what Christians consider to being appropriate thinking, which as we both know, is questionable...

What kind of evidence would have been left?

More to the point, if the stories were true, why would such evidence have been wiped away and humans then expected to believe by faith?

So we are having to rely on the evidence that nature provides, and there is no evidence to support that everything was paradise and there was no such thing as pain and suffering and death in nature "once upon a time".

I can’t answer your question until I understand what you are actually asking.

You asked me what kind of evidence would have been left, and I gave you my reply. I wasn't the one asking. My question [if the stories were true, why would such evidence have been wiped away and humans then expected to believe by faith] was rhetorical.

The evidence I am referring to which - if the stories were true , must have been wiped away, because no such evidence has been produced to support said stories.

Why are the stories expected to be believed on faith? That is not how the universe works. That is not the nature of Nature.

To example, Humans did not learn to be cautious of where they step by being cautious of where they step.

Rather, they learn through the nature of Nature, that if they do not proceed with caution, they might even die a painful death.

If we consider that as a "rule" we then understand that following the rule will produce better outcomes, but we also learn that Nature has a way of saying "hold my beer" when Humans get too cocky with their knowledge and subsequent rule-making.

We know this through the direct experience of Nature itself, without having to imagine some concept-"GOD" having anything to do with said making of the rules. Nature does this naturally and humans respond accordingly.

Some invisible God in a protective Garden, making rules about what can and cannot be eaten, seems to be surplus to the process - a figment of Human invention, casting "good" on some things and "evil" on other things, all dependent upon the level of pain and suffering or joy and comfort that thing grants us.

The GOD has become the mind behind creation, and the mythology has cast said GOD-concept in a role which appears quite unnatural, mirroring the manner in which humans have learned to view their collective existence.

Which is why I turn to Jung's Archetypes as the main source, and how humans decided to view their existence - as some type of punishment for some presumed sin.

This can also be evidenced in the mythologies which deal with stories which happened prior to this universe being created. Specific to "Fallen Angels" et al.

William wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:39 pm
Who is arguing that the story is sensible?

The inference is there as the author wrote the Garden-God told Adam that "in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" - NOT "900 years after you eat from it, you will eventually die."

What is NOT sensible, is to argue that the words attributed, were inferring something other than immediate death.

It is not sensible to think the writer wrote a story that is ridiculously unsensible. It is a silly move to think the author is saying that God lied/was wrong about Adam and Eve dying. If the author meant that, then they would have to say something when death doesn’t immediately happen. Either “you see God was lying for such-and-such a reason, or God is stupid, or God is …”. Therefore, death must be (at least) spiritual and (perhaps) mortal humans losing access to immortality.

So if we agree that the author has some knowledge and was attempting to convey that knowledge to the reader, we have to come up with a reason as to WHY the author chose to hide that knowledge within the mythology, and make it appear that a contradiction was occurring.

The continuing mythology has it in the stories that this God cannot lie or be mistaken, and there is the ongoing argument that the God is all knowing, and thus knew what was going to eventuate, and opposed to that, we have notions along the lines that - while the God is all knowing - "He" chooses to hide such information from "himself".

These concepts and arguments in turn, branch out in a seemingly endless fashion, with no particular end in sight.

I have no explanation as to why the author chose to write the words in the style they were written, or why there is a seeming need for secrecy.

To be clear, the image the author presents of the God-being, isn't at all clearly defined. We cannot ascertain whether the God was a voice Adam heard, or an actual entity Adam saw...until the author writes about what the God did after Adam had succumbed to the temptation.

The author presents God in certain clear ways. If God was just a sound or was visible to the eye is unclear, sure, but that’s not the entirety of present a clear image of God.

Indeed. How is that possible to achieve in written form? The mythologies have this God represented in form/working through form, but the image is questionable and has to align with the nature of Nature, rather than simply align with whatever Humans wish to believe, even on faith.

The rest that you are adding this to isn’t well supported. You also keep claiming a visible God is needed, but I’m not sure you’ve offered a reason why.

I am not claiming a visible God is needed. I am more of the opinion that one cannot accurately visualize a creator of this universe by assigning it any form, other than - perhaps - the form of the whole universe itself, which is still undefined given its nature and our position within its nature.

It is the mythology being critiqued which claims that a visible God is promised, not I.

A visible God is not needed because to have such a one, only complicates things as it will need to be examined and prove itself that it is what it claims it is, and how would that be possible for it to achieve, using form as a medium?

Which implies that they were not on earth to begin with, but were placed on earth where no god walks.

No, it doesn’t imply that. The Bible clearly paints God as a God who engages with the earth and those on it.

Well then we are dealing with the Earth Entity as the form through which the Mind engages. I continue to advocate that idea and you have made it known to me that you reject what I advocate. Unless it is on your terms and agrees with the bible-concept of that Mind behind creation?

In both cases, what we have is a mind engaging with individual human minds and the planet entirely, and re that, we can clearly understand that such a mind existing cannot be the overall mind of the universe, but -perhaps maybe could be an accurate representative/ambassador to said Universal Mind, and it is only by our questioning such concepts that we can possible find the correct answer, and resolve the claim as being true or not.

Questioning the story-telling abilities of the author is not saying that the author is a idiot. The author is simply not great at telling stories.
We can clearly see the implied intent of the authors own thinking, in that Adam allowed for his wife to be the guinea pig and only took a bite himself once it was clear that no harm had befallen Eve.

Clearly the context shows that Adam was unsure and doubted the Garden-God and the doubt would have been validated when it was seen by Adam [who the author says was with Eve at the time] that Eve did not die - thus the Serpent would have been seen to be telling the truth "you shall surely NOT die" and the author does not infer any more doubt on Adams part , having Adam reach for the fruit offered by Eve, and eat of it - without any further reservations.

Who would accuse me of "reading into the story" that which the story clearly describes?

Perhaps it is a matter of truth that it is you fail to read the story as it is written and presented?

It certainly is possible that I’m wrong. Do you feel it’s possible that you are wrong?

For me - it is no longer a journey involving notions of "right and wrong". My views are not intended to blaspheme anyone's idea of "GOD", but to find the most aligned idea of GOD, and commune with that, mind to mind/heart to heart, if such a mind exists.

And I cannot know that, unless I examine the evidence and find ways of answering that question.

So - my understanding goes as follows;

1: Do I exist within a created thing? [Was the universe created]
2: If so, is there a way to connect with whatever created it?
3: What is the relationship between my existing within this universe now, and The Creator[s]?

Answering those question will assist me with understanding my purpose as a single personality currently experiencing said possibly created thing.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to William in post #97]

William,

I think I’ll just leave the discussion as it is, as I don’t think it’s being helpful. I think there are two many misunderstandings as well as some going in circles and irrelevant tangents. I appreciate the thoughts you’ve shared, but I don’t think this can be easily untangled. Have a wonderful day.

[Brightfame52]

Adam and Eve made the choice God purposed for them to make. See Adam must sin because it had already been predetermined that Christ must die and redeem Gods Elect, that was determined before Adam was formed from the dust.1 Pet 1:18-20

18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

[JehovahsWitness]

The world (Greek KOSMOS) refered to at 1 Pet 1:18-20 does not refer to the planet (earth) but to the world of humanity. The word FOUNDING can refer to "the injection or depositing of the virile semen in the womb " so the founding of the world of humans started with the conception of the first human child (compare Heb 4:3)

CONCLUSION : The Ransom was pre-determined to be offered for humanity not from before the creation of the planet but from the conceptions of the first human baby.