I Would Side With the Serpent

The serpent didn't lie about being 'like God, knowing good and evil', we certainly do know it by now.
The lie was 'you will not surely die'.
Death is the consequence of being apart from God, and the sin separates us from God.
Straight to subject: you side with the serpent, you'll certainly die too.
You side with God and He'll give you eternal life when he comes back.
This proves free will, cause you took your side.

reply to post by HSDA83


That actually doesn't prove anything but my point.

You are punished. Period.
For nothing.


If I die, so be it. Time to start a new game.

reply to post by dzonatas

The 'weight' you associated to is what I redirect you to the weight of knowledge. The lighter side being less knowledge.

Thank you for the clarification.

Let's take your rape example. Let's say the girl is a bot. To all others that witness that act, it looks like a dark act. On the heavier-side, the girl being a bot only reveals that no dark act was committed.

You have raised an interesting scenario, which addresses the appearance of one's evil to another. In humanistic thinking, this is the only true consideration. However, considering that this discussion is addressing an issue being raised against Scripture, I continue with the assumption that the Scriptures are true, and that the ultimate authority and consideration, when it comes to moral issues of justice, is what God thinks.

If this be the case, since God is omniscient, He knows the difference between a girl and a bot. However, my point in bringing this issue wasn't to question the moral implications of masturbating with a simulated life-form (oh how we could head down a rabbit warren with that one), but to present a moral dilemma which we can agree on the "wrongness" of, that is still violated by some who seem to feel that their personal gratification is of greater importance than another's rights.

This raises another issue, what would we think of someone who rapes a bot, believing to be a girl? Reidhead's second part to his definition of sin goes like this, "Sin is the decision of the will to act upon the temptation to fulfill a good desire, in a bad way." In other words, it is not the actual act, that defines sin, but the final decision to act. It is arriving at the "point of no return".

This is a dangerous concept, when their is only humanistic reasoning to guide us, without a benevolent Creator who is able to categorically proof that the point of no return has been crossed. The next problem is that the crime is being committed by guilty people, against other guilty people. Does He mete out swift justice, or should He give the guilty one opportunity to repent and be rehabilitated? Once we have that problem out of the way, comes the ranking of specific sins. Humanistically, we tend to view the activities that we participate in as being "good", and anything "worse" as "evil", thereby rendering ourselves as innocent and all others as guilty, to varying degrees.

The Bible presents a scenario where there Creator takes responsibility for His own creation's sin, and its rehabilitation to righteousness. He chooses no sinner over another, but desires that each sinner will choose Him.

5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

Agreed with CJaKfOrEsT!!
Say you're on your way to have a kid, but you know you'll die if you have him, would you have him anyway? It's exactly what happened. The salvation plan was made before even we existed, and Jesus knew He would have to die in our place. We can repent and take His righteousnes, the devil rejected it.

There is a big misunderstanding in our human minds about the word freedom.
"Free will" is the ability to choose who you will serve. If I take the devil's side (who posessed the serpent) I'm still not 'free' as one might think.
Being free from evil is being free period.
The problem would be associating the "serving" with "slavery"
God's angels have free will, didn't fall and are totally free and fully happy.
If you served God for once in your life you could have a different thinking.
You just serve the serpent, and are still not happy.
There's no 'time to start a new game' you only live once. You choose if you'll live a few more years or for ever.
But you only dare to taste of the fruit and now you wonder why did you...

[edit on 13-8-2009 by HSDA83]

Originally posted by CJaKfOrEsT
This is a dangerous concept, when their is only humanistic reasoning to guide us, without a benevolent Creator who is able to categorically proof that the point of no return has been crossed.

...

5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

The problem here is that such idea (from the two quotes above) introduces a deux ex machina. The idea is almost good enough to say that the LORD is a Computer. I'm sure not many would like to see it that way.

It also leaves out the point that one thing that many do believe in and consider very self-evident (without the bible): "One God Is All".... that is powerful statement that can be understood in many ways. It is one statement that works for monotheist, polytheist, pantheist, and even atheist that are smart enough to not deny their own existence.

Originally posted by HSDA83
Death is the consequence of being apart from God, and the sin separates us from God.
Straight to subject: you side with the serpent, you'll certainly die too.

Death is the separation of the body and soul. There are people who walk around on earth today and feel the pain from their body and soul being ripped apart, and Doctors (of science) are unable to cure it because such matters are an anomaly in science.

One God Is All.... death is the body being apart from that "all"... maybe this makes more sense to some now.

"you side with the serpent, you'll certainly die too.".... so does this mean you have seen and have personal knowledge and you could prove you wouldn't bare false witness about such matters?

Originally posted by HSDA83
"Free will" is the ability to choose who you will serve. If I take the devil's side (who posessed the serpent) I'm still not 'free' as one might think.
Being free from evil is being free period.
The problem would be associating the "serving" with "slavery"
...
But you only dare to taste of the fruit and now you wonder why did you...

[edit on 13-8-2009 by HSDA83]

The words you use are from common peer pressure, which isn't good. It destroys peace.

Free will is more of a limitation to use will-power, and it is not a choice of who to serve. "Who to serve" is not free will at all.

Those that have will-power have learned to deliberate themselves, yet my guess is you would probably call them devils and serpents since they wouldn't be who you chosen to serve. Follow the logic?


[edit on 13-8-2009 by dzonatas]

[edit on 13-8-2009 by dzonatas]

Originally posted by HSDA83
The serpent didn't lie about being 'like God, knowing good and evil', we certainly do know it by now.

That is the correct answer. Stop while you are ahead.

The lie was 'you will not surely die'.

No. The lie was 'you will surely die' if you eat the apple or whatever the prop was.

Death is the consequence of being apart from God, and the sin separates us from God.

Here we go with the mental gymnastics and qualifiers.
And all this time I thought death occured when you stopped breathing for...oh, I don't know, more than thirty minutes. Silly me.

Straight to subject: you side with the serpent, you'll certainly die too.
You side with God and He'll give you eternal life when he comes back.

...says the god that lied in the first place.
Riiiiiiiight, when he comes back. Sure.

Here we have someone who knows god better than anyone- human or otherwise.
Lucifer was number 2, remember? He knows god's mind, he knows what he will do before he does it, and he certainly knows what he has done already through and through, and yet he chose to rebel despite of it? Or because of it.
You have to bypass the preloaded program of Lucifer-got-prideful-and-wanted-to-be-god in order to see this.
Has it occured to anyone that maybe someone in high place wanted to help the newly created human species to think for themselves?
Oh what a sin! It surely deserves eternal hell, well maybe just expulsion from the garden.Ok, now that they can think for themselves if they chose not to love god back,- that definately deserves eternal hell, don't you agree?

Long before Abraham Lincoln, Lucifer was the original Abolishionist. This is not so over the top, there is plenty of reference in the bible where god condones slavery, down to the instuctions of slaveownership.

There is a theme running through human collective history where a deity creates humans for its purposes, then another divinity (Lucifer and Prometheus for example) intervenes on behalf of the new species and is later punished for this:

from C. Scott Littleton, Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, at Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA.

Almost every ancient mythology includes at least one rebellious deity, one who willfully violates the divine "rules." For the most part, such figures are what anthropologists call "tricksters," that is, gods or heroes who gain their ends by cleverness, stealth, and liberal applications of magic rather than by sheer divine power. Tricksters are typically reprimanded and/or severely punished for their actions, which, more often than not, involve efforts to transmit elements of divine wisdom or "technology" to mortals.

link


[edit on 13-8-2009 by tungus]

reply to post by tungus


You have the right idea, I commend you.

The problem with Genesis, is that it retells a polytheistic tale within a monotheistic format. To quote,

“In a recent study of this conflict between the story and the mythical relics it preserves B. S. Childs has remarked that ‘behind the figure of the serpent shimmers another form still reflecting its former life.’ A tension exists because this independent life of the original figure still struggles against the framework of a simple snake into which it has been recast.” (p. 20. John Martin Evans. Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition. Oxford, England. Clarendon Press. 1968, citing from B. S. Childs. “Myth and Reality In the Old Testament.” Studies in Biblical Theology. Vol. 27. 1960. pp. 45-48)

"Lucifer" was not made by God, he was not a servant of God. He was a God. Unfortunately, the greatest work of propaganda in history, The Bible, has blinded so many people to such a blaringly obvious fact.

reply to post by DaisyAnne


Thank you.

The bible is a hodgepodge of tales some more violent than others. It was for bronze-age humans. There is nothing wrong with that, that's where the people were at that time.
There is some country-folk wisdom thrown in the mix, which hardly gives the bible the moral depths it claims.
By the times the Hebrews got a hold of the stories, the ruling deity of those tribes announced himself as the only one in the land. From that moment on, not only the gods of other tribes were inferior but the peculiar thing was that they were proclaimed nonexistent. That must have been odd the first day. They must have scrached their heads, ok this guy says he is real and this one isn't. We haven't seen either, escept for some weird weather. But since we do not how weather works, that's fine. In fact, we hardly know how anything works, so it must be god.
Take 'Baal' for example, it simply means 'Lord' in Caanite. But he was deemed non-existent, his priest killed about 3,000 of them and that was that. The rationale was that they would polute the believers in the true god, Yahweh.
Nice, isn't?


[edit on 13-8-2009 by tungus]

reply to post by tungus


Exactly!

Originally posted by HSDA83
The serpent didn't lie about being 'like God, knowing good and evil', we certainly do know it by now.
The lie was 'you will not surely die'.
Death is the consequence of being apart from God, and the sin separates us from God.
Straight to subject: you side with the serpent, you'll certainly die too.
You side with God and He'll give you eternal life when he comes back.
This proves free will, cause you took your side.

That is ridiculous. That is like saying the slaves weren't really slaves because they could run off the farm anytime they liked. Never mind they would be shot, hung or beaten if caught.

Sounds like a bunch of church dogma to me. That isn't what is meant at all, such a suggestion is silly. Not to mention the incredibly low success rate on the grand scheme of things.

reply to post by DaisyAnne


On the subject of the Serpent being a God also:

Absolutely! It says it right there when God commanded man to remain ignorant: "For They Shall Be Like *US*"

But your explanation works also.

reply to post by tungus
Take 'Baal' for example, it simply means 'Lord' in Caanite. But he was deemed non-existent, his priest killed about 3,000 of them and that was that. The rationale was that they would polute the believers in the true god, Yahweh.
Nice, isn't?

For the record, Baal was never deemed non-existent, in the account of Elijah on mount Carmel, he was deemed powerless. His prophets called upon him, and he did not respond. It never actually says that he didn't exist.

This bares the question of who this Canaanite deity was, which was assigned the name "Lord", by the people of Israel? And why did Jezebel seek enthrone such a deity over Jehovah? And finally, why was is it that Jehovah took such displeasure over the prophets of such a deity, that he required their life?

Another side question to all this would be, why did He wait so long to make such an example?

[edit on 15-8-2009 by CJaKfOrEsT]

reply to post by DaisyAnne
"Lucifer" was not made by God, he was not a servant of God. He was a God. Unfortunately, the greatest work of propaganda in history, The Bible, has blinded so many people to such a blaringly obvious fact.

Lucifer (Latin: Light bringer - where/who did he bring it from) was an anointed Cherub, predating material creation (which is where Genesis 1:1 begins). Tungus' quote only establishes that the serpent was already around before the creation account, and not before Jehovah began to exist (if His existence even had a beginning).

The Scripture does, however say that Lucifer sought to establish himself above the throne of God. Revelation (which defines itself as being symbolic - Revelation 1:1) describes a scene where Lucifer was discarded from heaven, taking a third of the angelic beings with him (Revelation 12:3-4). The apostle Paul described him as "the god of this world" saying that he had "blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (2 Corinthian 4:4). At other times he describe him as the "prince of the power of the air", adding that there are also "principalities (and) powers, .. the rulers of the darkness of this world, (and) spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12), which is consistent with the idea of a "cast out Lucifer", with his fallen angelic host.

So the "Satanic senario" goes like this: Tempt humanity into looking away from God, as source of light and morality; Set oneself up as an alternate deity, who promises to teach us how to get whatever we want, guilt free; Establish a pantheon of "underlings", able to remove curses (that they themselves placed) from the land and its people. Once such an "theo-political" environment is established, then it is only a matter of comparing Jehovah which the plethora of alternate deities, claiming that He is merely a composite of them.

Note that after the forementioned story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, Jehovah comes to a dejected Elijah, by speaking in a "still small voice", after sending a wind, an earthquake and a fire (1 Kings 19:11-12). The apostle Peter describe the devil as walking around "like a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8). It would stand to reason that, if this was the case, we would rarely see God going out of His way to prove Himself, where Lucifer would be working extra hard at establishing himself. I would see it as a "blaringly obvious fact", that the one who has the power, and deserves the authority, would take such a silent stand, as described below.

I would also take it as a "blaringly obvious fact", that any person who have decided that they are above such rule, and therefore have a right to demand such a Divine Ruler answer to their own requirements, would fall for such a "false divinity", and the carefully established lie that he has put forward. Not only that, but I would expect such a one to think it a "blaringly obvious fact" that Lucifer's true idenity is actually God, or at least equal to Him.

It took Albert Pike in excess of 800 pages to establish such a logic (actually, he technically reached it half way through his book), and today it seems that anyone would love to jump onboard, and all this a direct result of the serpent's temptation in eden. The decision made by Adam and Eve was just a mere symbol of the far reaching implications to go through the millenia to our present day, filled with wars and rumours of war.

1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
James 4:1-3

[edit on 15-8-2009 by CJaKfOrEsT]

Originally posted by cathedral
So who was god growing the fruit for anyway?

And

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

So if Adam or eve had made a run for the tree of life we would have had all the fruit and been in full ****god mode****

Nope, they wouldn't, I believe this part of the bible is full of symbolism, to take it apart on a site that hates the bible would be pearls before swine, to even quote the bible on here is pretty pointless, the garden was a place for innocence, they were no longer innocent, the garden could've been a state of mind, but if you want to take the literal route, the tree of life was guarded if you remember by angels with fire swords, so I don't think any mortal is gonna 'out run' an immortal fire sword wielding angel.

reply to post by JayinAR
On the subject of the Serpent being a God also:

Absolutely! It says it right there when God commanded man to remain ignorant: "For They Shall Be Like *US*"

First consideration: Was the "us" referred to by God meant to be Himself and the serpent, or is it th earliest Scriptural expression of the "triune God"? After all, it is interesting to note that God's dialogue is addressed to specific people in Genesis 3, and the statement you quoted (v22) isn't addressed to anyone particular. Also, the serpent is not mentioned in that chapter after v15.

Second consideration: Even if that is not the case, Scripture declares that God has made man a "little lower than the angels" (Psalm 8:3-6; Hebrews 2:5-7). All the above statment proves is that angelic beings have greater knowledge of good and evil than man, and that man was now is the same ball park, after eating the fruit.

This is made obvious by the second part of the quote, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil", in similar ways to me saying, "My daughter is like me, having blue eyes." She is not identical, because she is female, and I am male; she has straight blonde hair, I have curly brown hair; she is a child, I am an adult. There are many things that make us different, and the statement is still true, because I was only pointing out one characteristic.

Originally posted by Razimus
..the tree of life was guarded if you remember by angels with fire swords, so I don't think any mortal is gonna 'out run' an immortal fire sword wielding angel.

..after all, the mortal wouldn't be running in "god mode"

reply to post by CJaKfOrEsT


There is no point in you quoting the Bible to me. I have a degree in Ancient Near Eastern religions. I know the Bible like the back of my hand. This is why I know where your Biblical stories come from. So, please try and sell your "scripture" elsewhere.

So, the God of Israel declared himself to be the only God. That didn't make it true. The Sumerian polytheistic stories were rewritten to fit the Jewish monotheistic format. This was common practice at the time. It happened in Babylon, too, where Marduk was made the hero of all the Babylonian myths, when they retold the Sumerian tales that originally featured a pantheon.

Was Albert Pike correct? I dare say that he was. People are more willing to "jump on board" because education is more widespread now, people can see the true origins of these stories by studying ancient history, and they can start to understand them without superstition, or fear.

Originally posted by Razimus

Originally posted by cathedral
So who was god growing the fruit for anyway?

And

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

So if Adam or eve had made a run for the tree of life we would have had all the fruit and been in full ****god mode****

Nope, they wouldn't, I believe this part of the bible is full of symbolism, to take it apart on a site that hates the bible would be pearls before swine, to even quote the bible on here is pretty pointless, the garden was a place for innocence, they were no longer innocent, the garden could've been a state of mind, but if you want to take the literal route, the tree of life was guarded if you remember by angels with fire swords, so I don't think any mortal is gonna 'out run' an immortal fire sword wielding angel.

Sorry no I don’t remember “angels with fire swords” where’s that bit?

Are you saying that this part of the bible is full of symbolism and real angels with fiery swords?

And my main question still remains
So who was god growing the fruit for anyway?

reply to post by CJaKfOrEsT


Don’t forget christians think god is an old guy with a long white beard, eve could probably push him into some bushes while adam made a run for the tree

Adam could throw an animal skin full of oil (possibly whale oil) at the guard with the fiery sword, who would try and bat the animal skin away but would ignite the oil and therefore set himself on fire – adam could then get the other fruit – once in full god mode adam could give eve some of the fruit and they could team up and own jehovah


I think there might be a movie in this

Originally posted by cathedral
adam could then get the other fruit – once in full god mode adam could give eve some of the fruit and they could team up and own jehovah

Dude, you spelled "pwned" with an "o".

On a serious note, no Christian that I know (myself included) sees God as being an old guy with a beard.