The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

by Unlearn 267 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  tec

  Experiencing BAD, actually knowing it, leads to death

  Experience GOOD, actually knowing it, leads to death

  I'm trying to be clear, so forgive the over explanation. You keep saying that knowing BAD leads to death, while disregarding that knowing GOOD was included with an 'and'. So what is applied to BAD is also applied equally to GOOD.

  Experiencing good is life; which they had. Experiencing bad is death, which they had yet to know. They knew the one - life - but to know the other (bad) they also had to know death. That is the 'and'. Life, and death. Knowing both. God gives us a way out even of that though: by granting life, partaking of life, which life is His Son. (tree of life)

  I am not going to try and state that I understanding everything about this passage. I do not. My understanding even in the above is not complete. Knowledge missing.

  I do know that death was a consequence, though, and not a punishement. The wording itself is in line with that.

  "Eat and you will die". Not "Eat and I will kill you".

  Peace,

  tammy
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  soft+gentle

  I guess the serpent could also be seen as being instrumental in egging man on to engage in destruction (the kind that results from becomming too aware of his own power to lord it over others). So then knowing good and bad could be seen as a warning about hubris the kind of hubris that leads to destructiveness. Overweening man would then have no place in the garden of Eden.
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  NewChapter

  Experiencing good is life; which they had.

  This tree was not known as the tree of the knowledge of evil---

  I find the entire account makes so little sense, it can make a person dizzy.

  Adam an Eve have free will. But they don't know bad (or good). This tree is there with knowledge of good and knowledge of bad---the bad and the good they don't even know enough about to choose---and yet they have free will. Maybe their only freedom was to disobey and learn what was bad and what was good, and having this knowledge led to death. They were never supposed to know! So like babies, as long as they remained in ignorance unaware of their choices, unaware of what was good and what was evil, they were fine. As soon as they decided to grow up and learn what was good and what was evil so they could fully express their free will, they got killed.

  I can't understand how I EVER believed this wonky story. Even if I, for the sake of argument, allow that it happened, it is still the most ridiculous, confusing story out there. It makes absolutely no sense.

  But yeah, from this perspective, Satan is definitely the good guy. He went to people who were so ignorant, they could not judge good and bad, and helped them grow up. Really, what kind of god wants eternal infants any way? This mentality carries over with some believers today---who don't want their children to have sex education in school, because if you TELL them about it they might DO it.

  Crazy.
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  caliber

  C. S. Lewis

  “

  We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void; nay, if the principle were carried out to its logical conclusion, evil thoughts would be impossible, for the cerebral matter which we use in thinking would refuse its task when we attempted to frame them. [
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  NewChapter

  Interesting C.S. Lewis quote. So it would seem he is agreeing with the idea that there is an unsung hero in the bible. If wrong actions were impossible (before the tree of knowledge....etc) then free will is void. Had they never touched that tree---literally or figuratively---and gave themselves the option to choose bad----then they never would have had free will. Yet free will is viewed as a gift not a consequences.

  The contradictions always make me dizzy, but I used to be able to make it all fit somehow.

  NC
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  caliber

  If wrong actions were impossible (before the tree of knowledge....etc) then free will is void.

  this is a huge" if " indeed

  Is this statement a fact or speculation ? .... please explain
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  NewChapter

  this is a huge" if " indeed

  What exactly was achieved when they ate of that tree?
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  caliber

  It is so much easier to answer a question with a question right ? hahaha ! (another question )
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  THE GLADIATOR

  Correct me if I’m wrong but - the story of Adam & Eve was written by a pre Stone Age man on papyrus with dinosaur blood, using a tiger’s sabre-tooth as a pen. Neither schools nor the wheel had been invented and women were made from spare ribs.

  The only character that comes out looking good is the snake, and snakes are not known for their intelligence. We have moved on just a tad since then, and snakes have learned to keep their mouths shut.

  I cannot see there is any benefit to be gained from trying to make sense of this outdated fairytale. Spielberg’s ET was miles better and had a happy ending.
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  NewChapter

  Correct me if I’m wrong but - the story of Adam & Eve was written by a pre Stone Age man on papyrus with dinosaur blood,

  you are wrong. They had stone technology--I believe Abel can testify to this. They did not yet have papyrus (invented later by the egyptians). And it all happened before writing was invented. Please get your facts straight.