The Genesis Paradox

a reply to: birdxofxprey

I don't understand your rationale, does the child need to mentally grasp the monumental danger there is with playing with a loaded gun or do they just need to obey their parent when they say not to touch it?

a reply to: NOTurTypical

I don't understand your rationale, does the child need to mentally grasp the monumental danger there is with playing with a loaded gun or do they just need to obey their parent when they say not to touch it?

Hate to rain your parade, but.....

Any parent that thinks it's enough to just tell kids not to play with a loaded gun, and believes that relinquishes them of the responsibility of locking that loaded weapon up and keeping it out of the hands of curious and naive children, doesn't deserve to be a parent in the first place.

Much the same reasoning can be applied to the forbidden tree.

a reply to: windword

I don't see it as the same rationale. The entire reason God gave man free will and choices is because if love isn't freely chosen to be given then it's not love at all.

Like any parent that says don't, God realized his children will and have to learn from their mistakes. By biting the apple to experience sexual gratification we were forced into rebirth until we learn to overcome the temptation of our desires.

Growing up I was shocked to learn people molest children. I knew about sex. I know about children. Never in a million years would I have imagined the perversion of those that combine the two?

a reply to: NOTurTypical

I don't see it as the same rationale.

You know what? That's BS! You're the one that brought up the gun analogy.

I don't understand your rationale, does the child need to mentally grasp the monumental danger there is with playing with a loaded gun or do they just need to obey their parent when they say not to touch it?

Look, "good parents" don't leave a loaded gun out for unsupervised kids to play with, even though they've warned them of its dangers. That's just nuts! Why can't we apply the same standard to our "heavenly father's" supposed parenting skills and the forbidden fruit?

a reply to: windword

Call it BS or not, It's irrelevant to me. The child doesn't need to comprehend the consequences of of a high velocity projectile entering flesh to obey the parent over them that lays down a rule not to touch it.

It's the fundamental basics of parenting, children don't have to understand the wisdom behind our commands before they obey.

a reply to: Matrixsurvivor
I'm a Christian. I have had the same difficulties reconciling the inconsistencies and abominable commands and actions of God in the Old Testament with the love and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. I actually can't reconcile them.

I know God in my life and it's an entirely different experience, and what I feel is expected of me is totally unlike anything the people in the Old Testament or the "Paulians" were expected to put up with or act like. And as a woman I can't stomach any oppression of my gender and I never got the impression Jesus expects me to, either.

Every time I pray I feel filled with love and good will and wanting to be kind to my fellow humans and animals. I don't care what religion or race or sexual orientation they are, I want to express kindness. The older I get, the more I sense and feel the existence or essence of everything around me.

I once read an account of the aftermath of Adam and Eve's ouster from Eden and how God had to help them cope. I don't know if it was supposed to be a "missing" book from the Bible or what, but it was actually quite funny and showed a loving God trying to guide his humans to coping with mortal life against a Devil who wanted to scare and destroy them. He explained how he would send Jesus someday to save his creation. I wish I could remember the story better and where I found it. I think a forum member directed me to it about three years ago. It helped make better sense of why Jesus needed to be sent than anything that is currently expressed in the Bible we have now.

I think there is a lot of missing information and suppressed knowledge out there somewhere. I've seen some of it that feels false, but that account rang true and resonated with me and seemed more the God I know and love today than that mean and scary one in the Old Testament who told his people to trick their enemies into converting and accepting circumcision and slaying them while they are recovering. Really? What the hell? That God who told people to lie and murder trusting people in cold blood isn't the God I recognize in prayer nor the one Jesus could be speaking of. Crazy.

As a Christian parent I have had to be "free range" and rely a lot on teaching what it means to be kind, generous, loving and what we think of as a "good person" based on the words and example of Jesus Christ, than trying to teach out of the whole Bible like I was taught. Because like you said, I had to skim and overlook a lot. When I did dare to question too much, my youth pastors gave me a smackdown. I left church at 16 and only attend some local Catholic Churches from time to time because they don't seem to mind people questioning things, at least not on a local level. They mind it if you get too entrenched in their bureaucracy though. But my husband's Catholic education encouraged deep questioning and thinking.

I value science and logical thinking and spent some years as an atheist. I did return to feeling and knowing the presence of God in my life and I believe I don't have to check logic and reason at the door to believe in Him. I think if something fails to make sense in the Bible, there's a reason for that. Something is very badly "off" in the narrative as a whole. Perhaps it would help if I had a better education and grounding in the Hebrew language and the Jewish roots of the Old Testament. But working off the translations available to your average English-only speaker, there is a lot that doesn't make sense, at least to me.

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: windword

Call it BS or not, It's irrelevant to me. The child doesn't need to comprehend the consequences of of a high velocity projectile entering flesh to obey the parent over them that lays down a rule not to touch it.

It's the fundamental basics of parenting, children don't have to understand the wisdom behind our commands before they obey.

This analogy, the one that you provided, squarely puts the responsibility, to keep loaded weapons out of the reach of children, on the parents, not on the children. Should the gun go off and harm or kill someone, that would be on the parent, NOT on the children.

Who does God answer to for leaving the forbidden fruit out for the children to get into?

a reply to: windword

So in your opinion children have no responsibility to obey a parent?

And God answers to no one. He created us with free will, that means there are choices to be made. The responsibility for those choices are ours.

a reply to: NOTurTypical
If a consequence to a child is so dire as to it being unthinkable that one would allow it to happen, then a smart parent who nevertheless has a need to keep a dangerous weapon in the house would tell the child to never touch the gun and would put a trigger lock on it and hide it in a secured location. At least that is what my flawed ordinary earthly father did with his guns. Because my dad understood human nature enough to know we all have that natural instinct to want to push the big red button especially when told not to push it. He didn't want to risk a dead kid, but he felt the need to keep a gun in the house (and it was a bad neighborhood and he did use that gun to stave off a home invasion) so he did everything within reason to minimize risk of harm to his family from its presence. My dad did the same with potentially toxic household cleaners, insecticides and so forth: he issued a verbal warning and put the dangerous stuff behind a secured barrier in the utility room.

How that translates into how our Creator understood the nature of his creation and how dire he considered the consequence of disobeying his particular order to not eat of the tree of Knowledge is unclear. Either God wasn't too concerned that we suffer the consequences or he wanted that particular outcome to take place for some reason. Because if He really didn't want to risk it, he would have put up an actual barrier to the tree to keep his innocent little brats safe. I mean, seriously, this is God. He can do anything. And he surely knew about that serpent just like MY dad knew about the bratty friends of mine who would try to dare me to get into trouble and took precautions on that front, too.

Whether it was a literal fruit and serpent or allegorical ones, for whatever reasons, God abstained from fully protecting very toddler-minded creations from the machinations of a more sophisticated,advanced intelligence.

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: windword

So in your opinion children have no responsibility to obey a parent?

And God answers to no one. He created us with free will, that means there are choices to be made. The responsibility for those choices are ours.

Sigh..........

Please see the above post by SheeplFlavoredAgain. I completely concur with this poster's understanding....especially this!

And he surely knew about that serpent just like MY dad knew about the bratty friends of mine who would try to dare me to get into trouble and took precautions on that front, too.

Heck yeah!

a reply to: windword

My thoughts are that God put the choice to disobey Him in the garden on purpose. Because He knew man would eventually choose it. Because without the free will choice to choose Him, to love Him, then true love couldn't exist. Love cannot be ordered or programmed from another, in order for love to be genuine and pure it must be freely given. It must be a choice of the giver, if not a free will choice it's not love.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

Just be aware as far as comprension goes? People often define love different... especially those still wrestling to have control over their trouser snake.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

Just be aware as far as comprehension goes? People often define love different... especially those still wrestling to have control over their trouser snake.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: NOTurTypical

Just be aware as far as comprension goes? People often define love different... especially those still wrestling to have control over their trouser snake.

Well, using that specific example, what is sex with another person where they don't freely give consent?

It's not love, it's rape.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

the point maybe it is consensual
but not well thought out...

" wrestling to have control over their trouser snake "

a reply to: NOTurTypical

Obviously... but some people do equate sex with love, ie "making love" when that's simply lust... consent given or not.

Sex is sex... consent means every single time, married or not mood or not, sober or not. Even if someone gives consent only to save their life stuck in a situation hoping it doesnt lead to death or physical violence... it is still rape and that "consent" is a protection for their own life to not escalate a situation... it does occur yet not often talked about. Those saying No sometimes means yes or really means yes... likely know from some experience that consent to avoid a worse issue is sometimes given to avoid... courts need to take that into consideration.

Consent isnt everything... but when it's freely and willfully given with a smile and age appropriate? That's a beautiful thing, and that's the only time it should really take place. Begging, co-ersion, out of pity, or a psychological weapon... sad times.

So be wise know the difference.

originally posted by: SheeplFlavoredAgain
a reply to: Matrixsurvivor
I'm a Christian. I have had the same difficulties reconciling the inconsistencies and abominable commands and actions of God in the Old Testament with the love and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. I actually can't reconcile them.

I know God in my life and it's an entirely different experience, and what I feel is expected of me is totally unlike anything the people in the Old Testament or the "Paulians" were expected to put up with or act like. And as a woman I can't stomach any oppression of my gender and I never got the impression Jesus expects me to, either.

Every time I pray I feel filled with love and good will and wanting to be kind to my fellow humans and animals. I don't care what religion or race or sexual orientation they are, I want to express kindness. The older I get, the more I sense and feel the existence or essence of everything around me.

I once read an account of the aftermath of Adam and Eve's ouster from Eden and how God had to help them cope. I don't know if it was supposed to be a "missing" book from the Bible or what, but it was actually quite funny and showed a loving God trying to guide his humans to coping with mortal life against a Devil who wanted to scare and destroy them. He explained how he would send Jesus someday to save his creation. I wish I could remember the story better and where I found it. I think a forum member directed me to it about three years ago. It helped make better sense of why Jesus needed to be sent than anything that is currently expressed in the Bible we have now.

I think there is a lot of missing information and suppressed knowledge out there somewhere. I've seen some of it that feels false, but that account rang true and resonated with me and seemed more the God I know and love today than that mean and scary one in the Old Testament who told his people to trick their enemies into converting and accepting circumcision and slaying them while they are recovering. Really? What the hell? That God who told people to lie and murder trusting people in cold blood isn't the God I recognize in prayer nor the one Jesus could be speaking of. Crazy.

As a Christian parent I have had to be "free range" and rely a lot on teaching what it means to be kind, generous, loving and what we think of as a "good person" based on the words and example of Jesus Christ, than trying to teach out of the whole Bible like I was taught. Because like you said, I had to skim and overlook a lot. When I did dare to question too much, my youth pastors gave me a smackdown. I left church at 16 and only attend some local Catholic Churches from time to time because they don't seem to mind people questioning things, at least not on a local level. They mind it if you get too entrenched in their bureaucracy though. But my husband's Catholic education encouraged deep questioning and thinking.

I value science and logical thinking and spent some years as an atheist. I did return to feeling and knowing the presence of God in my life and I believe I don't have to check logic and reason at the door to believe in Him. I think if something fails to make sense in the Bible, there's a reason for that. Something is very badly "off" in the narrative as a whole. Perhaps it would help if I had a better education and grounding in the Hebrew language and the Jewish roots of the Old Testament. But working off the translations available to your average English-only speaker, there is a lot that doesn't make sense, at least to me.

Thank you for sharing all of that.