Genesis was written by biased men.

reply to post by Nichiren


i have a feeling there's alot more to the story than we know and the problem is more related to the fact it was an oral tradition before it was written down, perhaps 1000 years or more, after the events it describes. i don't think the female of chapter 1 is the woman of chapter 2. two different things entirely.

Originally posted by SharkBait
reply to post by Pauligirl

 

To answer your questions as to how God thinks and the reason he does something, I would think that’s a little above us.

But I can say that in Gods word, he gave us the ability to accept or reject him. This has nothing to do with Adam and Eve but it has got everything to do with what you and I do. Its really up to you to decide what you want to do. You don’t have to accept God or Jesus, you have that right, the Bible says so.

With Adam and Eve –its all about Obedience. Its was a simple instruction. If you wanted God to control the situation we would not be free and have the will power to make up our own destination. Many people want God to control them like puppets and then will blame God for things that go wrong.


[edit on 20-9-2009 by SharkBait]

I wasn’t asking about how God thinks. I was talking about the Genesis writers (human men). I think they painted themselves into a corner on the whole garden and tree thing. They made their God look not-so-quite omnipotence. But then, so does the flood story. Guess he couldn’t see far enough ahead to know that humans are a right rowdy bunch. I just take the book with a grain of salt. It has some good ideas such as love your neighbor, but also some truly terrifying ones such as killing children and pregnant women in war. Like I said, I think it was written by hill tribes to justify their actions-nothing like have God on your side to make you right.

As far as having the right to accept or reject God because the Bible says so....no. I have the right to accept or reject any idea that hasn’t been proven. You have the right to believe anything you want to as long as you don’t expect everyone else to believe it.

reply to post by Pauligirl


just out of curiosity, do you believe gilgamesh existed ?

this question has an interesting direction

Originally posted by Nichiren
reply to post by Pauligirl

 

Sounds plausible to me, but what about the divine part of the Scripture? Did divinity fail logic at that point or is logic highly overrated?

I have a feeling it all boils down to having blind faith in the Scripture.

I think the men that wrote it failed at logic.

I don't do well at blind faith. I tend to peek.

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by Pauligirl

 

just out of curiosity, do you believe gilgamesh existed ?

this question has an interesting direction

As a person, maybe.
As a Demi-god, no.

reply to post by Pauligirl


define demi-god?

i think what's happened is, the schools of higher learning have made as many assumptions about the ancient past as they claim the religions have done. fact o' the matter is, none of us were there. it's about as scientific as a parade of pink elephants to assume something doesn't and never has existed based on lack of personal frame of reference. they've dropped the ball on that more than once, such as the commentary that it's not possible for the people, angels, gods, whatever, to fly in the sky, therefore such and such a story is a myth. then it happens. that women can't get pregnant any other way than sexual intercourse. then someone creates artificial insemination. there's many such examples. heck wasn't that long ago, they swore up and down that the bible couldn't possibly be anything but a fairy tale because there were no documents from that area that corroborated it. and then, they found the epic of gilgamesh, the enuma elish, and so on. never say never.

Originally posted by Pauligirl

I don't do well at blind faith. I tend to peek.

LOL. I hear ya!

reply to post by Nichiren


about as convincing as zeitgeist referencing "sun god" and claiming it was the same as "son of god"........in egyptian. we start with "sun" not being the same hieroglyph as "son", for starters. then add to that it isn't spoken phonetically or spelled the same. then add to that son and sun only sound the same in english. then add to that, it's pretty common for people to have sons and that doesn't mean they are suns.

better tighten up that thinkin' cap, cause this is not a category that is without evidence.

reply to post by undo


What are you referring to? I don't get it.

reply to post by Nichiren


i mean there's many possible explanations for all ancient histories, including the egyptian, grecian, norse, mesopotamian, chinese and so on. they teach in public schools that these are all myths. that's becoming more and more unlikely as the research and artifacts come up out of the ground. instead of archaeology disproving the ancient past as told by our ancient ancestors, it's proving it. that we don't understand the context or strange stories in genesis does not mean they never happened or that we are even capable of knowing what really happened beyond what it says at this juncture. could be just a whole lot of assumptions that are the problem... if'n ya know what i mean.

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by Pauligirl

 

define demi-god?

i think what's happened is, the schools of higher learning have made as many assumptions about the ancient past as they claim the religions have done. fact o' the matter is, none of us were there.

it's about as scientific as a parade of pink elephants to assume something doesn't and never has existed based on lack of personal frame of reference. they've dropped the ball on that more than once, such as the commentary that it's not possible for the people, angels, gods, whatever, to fly in the sky, therefore such and such a story is a myth. then it happens. that women can't get pregnant any other way than sexual intercourse. then someone creates artificial insemination. there's many such examples. heck wasn't that long ago, they swore up and down that the bible couldn't possibly be anything but a fairy tale because there were no documents from that area that corroborated it. and then, they found the epic of gilgamesh, the enuma elish, and so on. never say never.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, his mother was Ninsun, a goddess. The epic hero Gilgamesh is described in the beginning of the poem as one part man and two parts god. Historically he was the son of Lugalbanda and the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk), ruling circa 2700 BC, according to the Sumerian king list. (From Wikipedia) Did he exist–someone with that name probably did. Did he do all the things in the Epic–no.


I understand what you are saying, but you can’t take it backwards. We have the technology now to fly, but not back then. If you have a story that’s 2000 years old that claims man flew in the sky, then it’s a myth unless you find evidence to prove otherwise. As far as the bible, many of the towns mentioned have always been known to exist, along with some of the people. However, Gone with Wind has Sherman burning Atlanta, and we know the Civil War took place, but that doesn’t make Rhett Butler a real person.

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by Nichiren

 

i mean there's many possible explanations for all ancient histories, including the egyptian, grecian, norse, mesopotamian, chinese and so on. they teach in public schools that these are all myths. that's becoming more and more unlikely as the research and artifacts come up out of the ground. instead of archaeology disproving the ancient past as told by our ancient ancestors, it's proving it. that we don't understand the context or strange stories in genesis does not mean they never happened or that we are even capable of knowing what really happened beyond what it says at this juncture. could be just a whole lot of assumptions that are the problem... if'n ya know what i mean.

The history is taught as history and the myth is taught as myth. Two entirely different things.

reply to post by Pauligirl


know who enki is?

he predates gilgamesh.
his "e.abzu" flew, floated, glowed, roared, had an interior that was a "tangled thread beyond understanding", it gave advice, and here's the clincher...it was totally made of metals. not mud bricks.

ever read the mahabharata? i recall mentioning to a fella that to me INDRA'S many headed iron weapon with which he was said to have destroyed a few cities, sounded like modern weaponry. the excuse given was it was clearly a reference to lightning because they thought of indra as a storm god. and when i mentioned it was iron, they said, probably meteor debris falling from sky. so when i pointed out the reference to a ground based weapon shooting a projectile into space, they quit talking to me.

i know the stories often sound wrong, but i believe that's the fault of translation and assumption .

reply to post by Pauligirl


you realize that at one time, they viewed all ancient history as myth? that error has been corrected. and now that science is proving the things mentioned in the ancient histories are scientifically possible, what's left to call myth? the word "god." if we established two out of three things as either physically proven or physically possible, what are the chances just that one thing is a fable with no possible corroboration ever? we need to better understand what the concept of "god" is, and that will answer the last question, once and for all. but let's not assume, cause you can see where that's lead to so far.

reply to post by Praetorian Guard

Another is to serve as a polemic against Egyptian and Babylonian cosmologies. In other words, it wasn't the Annunaki or Egyptian gods who created us, but Yahweh...the God of Israel.

But yahweh didn't get invented till well after the egyptian gods and israel did not even exists when monotheism was conceived in Egypt.

There's no evidence we were created by any of these oldy worldy gods, so to say that one imaginary being and not another created us is kind of childish.

reply to post by moocowman


whoa there, moo-man. yahweh is jehovah. he's enlil. remember enlil? well his name is etymologically attached to enlil, let's just put it that way. i suspect he predates enlil as well but that's in the backdrop of the larger motif of the divine council. to put it most succintly, he's the head of the pantheon, which is comprised of elohiym gods with him at the helm. there are various names for the elohiym gods.

my son pointed out a passage to me in revelation referring to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. he said "hey mom, did you see this? it's hades following a horseman." i did a double take. sure enough, it was the grecian god of the dead, hades. add this to the apollo as god of plagues reference in the bottomless pit chapter and things start adding up in a hurry.

reply to post by undo

. they teach in public schools that these are all myths. that's becoming more and more unlikely as the research and artifacts come up out of the ground. instead of archaeology disproving the ancient past as told by our ancient ancestors, it's proving it

Sorry Undo but stories whether oral tradition or carved in stone are not evidence of (A) Visitors from other worlds (B) Gods (although I freely admit that A would go a long way to explain B.

We do need hard evidence to go with the stories/myths/legends, yes we have great floods which may not necessarily be localized.

The Baghdad batteries and Antithekeraclock prove that our ancestor were a little more advanced than once though.

We have many many archeological anomalies, and its' not unreasonable to propose that there is something big missing out of the history of man. But we still don't have the elusive technologically advanced artifacts (which would be wonderful) if they have been found then they've been squirrelled away .

A 30000 year old piece of aeronautical engineering would go a long way to providing evidence of Indian (if they were Indian) flying vehicles. This would only push the likelihood that the "gods" spoken of were nothing more than technologically advanced ETs, unless of course it was human ingenuity that was somehow lost.

reply to post by undo

yahweh is jehovah. he's enlil. remember enlil? well his name is etymologically attached to enlil,

Yes, and the evidence of the reality of said being (beings) remains the same = zero.

It's not good enough Undo claiming leprechauns derived from fairies does not prove that leprechauns are real because you believe fairies are real, evidence is still required unless it is not.

reply to post by moocowman


well we have alot of evidence of abductees, spiritual experiences, seeming miraculous (i.e. unexplainable) events, sightings, artifacts, texts, the thing is about to jump up and pull your ear!

Originally posted by WalterRatlos

Originally posted by Nichiren

Here is another conundrum for me. Since God is omnipotent and omniscient He knew that planting the tree of knowledge would result in the serpent making the move. He also knew that Eve wasn't able to resist the temptation.

I asked in my first post: why did God set up his own children for failure and then acts totally surprised?

I'd be curious how Christians would answer this, though I have a hunch that they will try to explain it away as test (the OT God loved to test the faith of his believers) which Eve and then Adam failed miserably. From my point of view the explanation is simple, if you ask yourself: what is the purpose of this particular story? Well, it explains how sin came to be and who's to blame for it (the serpent, Eve, Adam) in that order of gravity. Of course it was mighty convenient that the people of that time could point fingers at Eve for being seduced and then seducing herself Adam, because that was used (and is still being used in some fundamentalist churches) to treat women less than men and to subdue them to men's will.

Have you ever asked your children a question, even though you knew the real answer, just to see if your child would be honest? I see God as a parent wanting to teach his children right from wrong. Sure, your parents may tell you something is bad, but until you experience it yourself, you will never know for sure. I'm sorry to say this, because a lot of people don't feel this way, but you rarely ever learn from succeeding. Your best lessons in life come from failure. Everyone has to have the chance to fail. Even as a parent, if your child is in an instance to fail, you don't pull them from the situation or they will never learn coping skills. This may be a little off topic, but honestly isn't that what's wrong with our country today? People find out life isn't as peachy as they thought and they aren't able to cope with it. So they turn to drugs, alcohol, greed, power, etc. because they think it's the easy way out. Every time I failed in my life, it brought me closer to my parents, because they were there when I needed them and helped me through it and let me know I didn't need to be perfect. I just needed to keep trying to be the best person I can be. That's how God is to me. Just my two cents.