If Adam Had Not Sinned.............?

by stevieb1 24 Replies latest jw friends

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  stevieb1

  I have posted this topic before and achieved some good replies from it. I'm just reposting to see if anyone has any further takes on this matter. Here is my original post:

  One of the ways the WT tries to get you into believing you are not going to heaven even if you d not have faith in Christ is by saying that if Adam had not sinned we would all be living in a paradise earth. The publication "Reasoning from the Scriptures" states on page 162: "It wa not Jehovah's original purpose for man someday to die.......Death was to be punishment for disobedience, not the doorway to a better life in heaven. Obedience would have been rewarded by continued life, eternal life, in the Paradise that God had given to man. See also Isaiah 45:18"

  Does anyone have any comment on this matter?
• 

  gumby

  Quote.....One of the ways the WT tries to get you into believing you are not going to heaven even if you d not have faith in Christ is by saying that if Adam had not sinned we would all be living in a paradise earth.

  The watchtower also teaches Jehovah NEVER changes his plans.
  Apparently he did!

  How? He changed his whole plan of man living peaceful on earth with no need of Jesus as a sacrafice or as a mediator to.....now needing a government made up of Jesus, 144,000 (which will live in heaven with Jesus forever) This supposedly wasn't his original plan!

  We could speculate forever on the scenarios that COULD have happened.
  One thing the bible say's....He chose Jesus as a ransomer before the founding of the world.

  God gave us free will from the gitgo....he knew the choice we would make....he had a plan for the messup.

  Hard to swallow but I do.Why would he start something destined to mess up? We may have to wait for the answer on this one!
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  Cygnus

  : Does anyone have any comment on this matter?

  Yeah, it's bullshit.

  Now, I'm not saying the whole Adam/Eve/Serpent/Jehovah thing is out of the realm of possibility. It very well could be the truth and I am just too proud to accept it as such.

  But, the whole theory of Adamic sin and resultant physical "imperfection" and death is so full of holes it is just too ridiculous to accept. I had to sit through 30 minutes of explanation about why we grow old and die and what Jehovah purposes to do about it at the Kingdom Hall yesterday. 6 years ago I would have agreed 100% with the ideology, but yesterday I sat there wondering how I ever believed in that wackiness.

  I will be turning thirty in a couple of weeks. That is supposedly the age everyone will grow forward or backward to in the new system. Just imagine that -- an earth entirely populated by physically perfect thirty-year olds, eating watermelons and petting lions. It's like something out of the Twilight Zone. THAT is God's purpose for mankind? It seems to me that if there is a dog, err... god, that he's left it to us to figure out our own way to "paradise" or happiness, whatever course that takes each individual on.
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  gumby

  Cygnus..I had to sit through 30 minutes of explanation about why we grow old and die and what Jehovah purposes to do about it at the Kingdom Hall yesterday.

  Are you back at meetings? Why?
  Hang in there dude. Sounds like you have been going through the 'what is truth thing' again.

  The witnesess and some others divert the real meaning of what God wants....Love your fellowman/woman as yourself and love him. All other stuff is fluff!!!!!!!! Nice to hear from you dude.
• 

  Undecided

  I can't seem to get the picture the WT protrays about the Eden scene.
  If the tree of knowledge and the tree of life was not a literal tree with the powers described why did their eyes become opened to good and evil after eating, and why did God invent the sword to keep them from eating from a literal tree and living forever? That's the way the fairy tale is told in the bible.

  Ken P.
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  teejay

  Adam who?
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  Elsewhere

  I have been wondering the same thing about the Dish that ran away with the Spoon. What would life be like if that had never happened?

  Believe in yourself, not mythology.
  <x ><
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  Beans

  I have no comment on this matter.

  Beans
• 

  Yadirf

  Ken P.

  I can't seem to get the picture the WT portrays about the Eden scene.
  If the tree of knowledge and the tree of life was not a literal tree with the powers described why did their eyes become opened to good and evil after eating, and why did God invent the sword to keep them from eating from a literal tree and living forever? That's the way the fairy tale is told in the bible.

  The "tree of life" had the needed nutrients that if Adam and Eve had CONTINUED to partake of it they would have CONTINUED to live on indefinitely. For certain reasons, that I've pointed out before, Adam and Eve had indeed been partaking of THIS tree all along.

  On the other hand, the "tree of the knowledge of good and bad", although a literal tree also, had no special powers in its fruit as did the other tree. By eating of the fruit of this tree Adam and Eve rejected God's oversight in favor of deciding for themselves what was good and what was bad. So it was a tree with literal fruit, but with no special powers ... its purpose being 100% symbolic.

  Yes, whether one likes it or not, the one tree literally had longevity-benefits within its fruitage -- whereas eating of the other tree simply was indicative of their preferred self-rule.

  Insofar as "the sword to keep them from eating from a literal tree and living forever", the answer to that question is obvious. The "sword" simply implied that any attempt at continuing to eat of the tree of life would spell the immediate end to their lives.

  Yadirf

  Daniel 11:35 ... a KEY prophecy that must be fulfilled before the "time of the end" gets underway.
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  joelbear

  If Adam had not sinned

  none of us would have ever been born.