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originally posted by: Seede
a reply to: AgnosticDeity
Text a reply to: Seede Well I can't speak for the god of Abraham, but if I were to take my children and put them in a room with something I didn't want them to have they would run directly for said object... It seems to me that this god fellow had an obvious lapse if judgement by placing the tree of knowledge in easy reach of his children... I mean I'm obviously not the creator of the known universe and even I know to child proof my house.
Exactly right. That is the logical thing for you to do.
And that is exactly why God did the opposite from what you would do. He put them in that garden with the very thing that He wanted them to have. God wanted them to have knowledge so he put knowledge in front of them knowing that they would partake of this knowledge. If God did not want them to have knowledge of good and evil, then He would have done exactly what you have said you would do for your children. God did not want His children to remain ignorant. He wanted to teach them.
They were not educated, but deceived, if you go according to what the Bible says, and led astray.
God did not want His children to remain ignorant. He wanted to teach them.
The garden would have been the showcase of all the blessings that The Lord provided for the earth.
If God did not want them to have knowledge of good and evil, then He would have done exactly what you have said you would do for your children.
Then it would have been sufficient to just bar him from reentry to the garden, rather than cursing the Earth as a whole.
Adam was punished for disobedience and that punishment was to deprive him of the beauty and tranquility of the garden.
It isn't in Heaven, though it may have been a heavenly sort of vision when John saw it.
This was restored in New Jerusalem in heaven.
Text So in other words God is incapable of evil? Then that right there nullifies him as almighty God by any standards. If you are truly good, then your creation which is an extension of yourself, God man in our image, never got the "our" part means he must exhibit all human emotions and we could never have sinned in the first place.... Assuming of course that version of God is real...
originally posted by: jmdewey60
a reply to: SeedeThey were not educated, but deceived, if you go according to what the Bible says, and led astray.
God did not want His children to remain ignorant. He wanted to teach them.
Genesis 3:13-14
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock . . .
(2011 NIV)
A little odd, if the serpent was doing The Lord's bidding, that he gets cursed for his troubles.
Also The Lord does not correct Eve when she says that the serpent had deceived her.
2 Corinthians 11:3
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
(2011 NIV)
Disobeying The Lord did not end well for anyone.The garden would have been the showcase of all the blessings that The Lord provided for the earth.
If God did not want them to have knowledge of good and evil, then He would have done exactly what you have said you would do for your children.
The people were there to appreciate how nice it was.
The so-called tree of knowledge was a source for the skill of practicing evil.
It was the lie of the serpent that there was some useful knowledge that would be an advantage to them.
Also it is not explicit in the text that The Lord had put the tree there in the first place.
Despite claims otherwise by some members of this forum, they were not children, so understood perfectly well the dangers, but also had the capacity to ignore it if they chose.
Text Correct me if I'm wrong here. What you are saying is that the god of Abraham, who according to the jeudeo Christian mythos, created everything... Didn't put the tree of knowledge in the garden. Doesn't that make this god figure a little... Less than all powerful? Or did it allow the serpent to plant the tree, and then tempt it's creation into defying it's will? But wouldn't this make this god figure a bit sadistic? Considering that it is omniscient, and omnipresent according to the mythos it would know exactly how things would play out... Seems to me that it set its creation up to fail.
I don't think that it says that The Lord created everything.
Correct me if I'm wrong here. What you are saying is that the god of Abraham, who according to the jeudeo Christian mythos, created everything... Didn't put the tree of knowledge in the garden. Doesn't that make this god figure a little... Less than all powerful?
The Earth caused the tree of knowledge to come up as an exercise of its own will, with The Lord unable to prevent it.
Or did it allow the serpent to plant the tree, and then tempt it's creation into defying it's will?
Not if it was something that just happened, not "allowed", which would also eliminate the "all-knowing" part, which makes no sense if angels have the job of watching and then reporting back to heaven.
But wouldn't this make this god figure a bit sadistic?
Like I said, these attributes are Medieval products adduced through the logic of that age of absolutes.
Considering that it is omniscient, and omnipresent according to the mythos it would know exactly how things would play out... Seems to me that it set its creation up to fail.
It wasn't the tree of right and wrong.
The human race has made themselves into this mess by their own choice. That is what we got when we got free will (knowledge of right and wrong).
They were not educated, but deceived, if you go according to what the Bible says, and led astray.
According to what?
I realize that Eve made the excuse that she was deceived or cheated but God did not buy her excuse nor did God buy into Adam's excuse.
What we are tasked to understand is the text, what the story says, not to analyse what would have happened under different circumstances.
Our understanding is not the Lord God's understanding.
You say that as if it was a good thing, even though the story is obviously meant to convey how everything bad came into the world.
Without having this knowledge Adam and Eve would have remained ignorant of good and evil (good or bad).
TextIt wasn't the tree of right and wrong.
What we are "taught" by Paul in Romans was that Adam sinned and because of that death came into the world so that now everyone naturally is prone to sin with the inevitable result of death.
We are taught to believe that Adam and Eve were punished for disobedience but was this the same as evil?
I think you are trying to take this too literally.
In other words was this knowledge of evil which was revealed to Adam and Eve the same as that act of disobedience of which they were punished?
It is sort of vague on that probably on purpose so as to not take the focus away from the actual act, which is the real character, this sort of smooth talking that may be the view of the Jerusalem priesthood of the seducing influence to engage in false worship in the "groves" or other natural places like caves.
I cannot read malice into the garden story except perhaps with the serpent.
originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb
Just read the OT and you can clearly see why some people think this god is evil...
I think a better question would be, is the god of the OT really God?
My answer to that is absolutely not...
God would not contradict himself, Nor does he have any reason to "command" any of his children to commit the horrible atrocities found within those books...
Heres Another good question...
IS this so called god an actual entity? This I do not know...
The gnostics believed it was a false god... So it is either false god, or stories from the minds of man who either thought they were speaking about God or inspired by said God... OR... people with agendas using God as a method to control a people who didn't know any better
Text What we are "taught" by Paul in Romans was that Adam sinned and because of that death came into the world so that now everyone naturally is prone to sin with the inevitable result of death. Evil is the result of sin, according to the Bible.
Text I think you are trying to take this too literally. I think this is like I said, a fable type explanation for why people in general so often behave badly, and probably mostly why most nations don't follow the same God that Israel does. The "good" people overcome these disadvantages and still try to worship this god even if it is with diminished capacity.
Text It is sort of vague on that probably on purpose so as to not take the focus away from the actual act, which is the real character, this sort of smooth talking that may be the view of the Jerusalem priesthood of the seducing influence to engage in false worship in the "groves" or other natural places like caves.
"Common sense" should tell you that I was talking about the writers of the Garden story in Genesis.
That makes no common sense in any way possible. At this time the Apostle Paul was not involved with the Jerusalem priesthood . . .
I did not say that, equating sin and evil.
Thank you. That was exactly the answer that I was hoping that you would give. Sin is evil and evil is sin . . .
It sounds like you are trying to say that God created evil by making a law, so that breaking the law made evil real.
but before Adam ate of the tree of Knowledge of sin, he was not held accountable for sin because with knowledge of what sin is came law. After knowledge of sin was revealed to the world then all creation was accountable that would sin and that would include all creation.
I think you are confusing yourself here.
And now we are back to Hyperbole once again. Who gets to decide that Romans 5:12-14 is not literal and is a fable?
It has all the indications of being of the "fable-type" genre, a woman pulled out of the body of a man, a talking snake, a magic set of trees, one evil and the other good but only as long as you don't eat first from the evil one.
By your belief the Genesis account is also fable.
Everything is a "judgment on my part".
Which parts of the bible are actually true and are not fable or metaphors? Is this a judgment on your part?
Text Then why the punishment, and the warning not to eat from the tree? I don't give my children a gift and then punish them for accepting it... Seems rather oxymoronic to me.
It didn't "stop there".
It had to stop right there or God's creation would not be in His perfect will.
What was the punishment, other than being ejected from the garden?
Adam and Eve were punished for the act of disobedience and expelled from the garden so that they could not then live forever with this unchecked.
You are ignoring the facts as laid out in the story.
The choice had to be given to obey or to disobey in order for a judgment to even exist. This is the reason that the command was given to not partake of this tree.
This is just ridiculous and has no biblical support whatsoever.
Now by punishment it may seem harsh to you and I but to God it is the best way to permit people the right to choose right from wrong. By giving the choice to people produces true character and love.
This is your own invention of an alternative story.
He would now have to really go to work and that is the reason the earth was cursed. It was cursed to make it hard to live in comparison to the garden.
You are creating your own Bible out of your imaginings that are "propagated" after reading the Bible.
As far as death is concerned. Death was a necessity because sin was propagated throughout the world and the world could no longer be Good such as was before sin was propagated. Therefore if the world would last forever then sin would also last forever. As the world would be destroyed then sin would also be destroyed.
This word you are using, "justified", is here being applied in a different way than it is in the Bible.
People by the trillions may have died with a perfect will and or a permissive will of God but at the end of this creation it will be shown the true character of the individual. Some will be justified by God and some will not be justified by God. Those who are justified will be allowed to live in the kingdom of heaven where sin (evil) is not present.
This is the idea, but it exists in the people, like Jesus said, "The kingdom is inside you".
Sin has now been disallowed in this kingdom of heaven and here we are told that the trees and water of life are given to sustain everlasting life.
This is another case of you writing your own Bible.
In order to destroy sin the universe must be destroyed and naturally that means people also.