Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou 299 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Sea Breeze
    Sea Breeze

    @joey jojo

    It amazes me that 6000 years later we are arguing about it and people still base their lives on this incomplete, confusing fairytale.
    There certainly is no shortage of confusing fairytales in the world. Just looks at the myths some people choose to base their lives on. Truly irresponsible in my opinion.


    1. Origin of the Universe

    Materialists (Atheists) once tried to believe that the universe was eternal, to erase the question of where it came from. The famous British Atheist Bertrand Russell, for example, took this position. However, this is not tenable. The progress of scientific knowledge about thermodynamics, for example, means that virtually everyone has been forced to acknowledge that the universe had a beginning, somewhere, sometime—the big bang idea acknowledges this.

    But now that the James Webb Space Telescope has proven fully formed, spiral, "third generation" stars near the beginning of time. Science has once again left atheists with literally nothing to believe in except miracles.

    2. Origin of Life

    Astrobiologist Professor Paul Davies said,

    “How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software … ? Nobody knows … there is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing.”

    Embeded coding is different for different purposes. If you want to build a race car for speed, embedded design characterists are different than if a vehicle is designed to carry many passengers like an SUV.

    DNA is full of embedded coding that differs from life form to life form. This shows a top-down design rather than a bottom up creation.

    3. Origin of the Diversity of Life

    In July 2008, 16 high profile evolutionists met, by invitation, in Altenburg, Austria. They had come because they realized that mutations and natural selection did not explain the diversity of life, and they had come together to discuss this crisis in evolutionary biology. The only consensus was that there is a major problem, a crisis. Since then things have only gotten worse for evolutionists.

    One world famous geneticist with inventions on display at Smithsonian has proven that it would take longer than the 13.8 billion alleged years the universe has been here to produce a small 8 letter genetic word through natural selection.

    4. Origin of the Mind and Morality.

    The famous (and reluctant) convert from Atheism to Christianity, C.S. Lewis, put it well when he wrote:

    “If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents.

    It just boggles the mind that with modern understanding and scientific research that people could believe in such outlandish miracles and reject a man who claimed he would resurrect himself from the dead - while he was dead, and then did it.

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro

    🤦‍♂️

  • Halcon
    Halcon
    Joey -If there was open and free access to the "tree fo life", which granted immortality, as there was to the "tree of knowledge" - how was the serpent to know god would restrict access to it so that adam and eve couldnt live forever after they ate the fruit.

    Because the snake was present when God gave Adam and Eve his instructions regarding all trees, Joey.

    We know this because it was the snake himself who revealed that he was listening to God when he initiated the conversation with Eve..."did God really say...?"

    So you are correct, Adam and Eve could eat from the tree of life forever and ever, something the snake KNEW. Clearly, it was the mechanism thru which God would keep them alive since God immediately restricted Adam and Eve from going near it after eating from the wrong tree.

    The serpent told adam and eve exactly what would occur- if they ate from the tree of knowledge - they would know good and bad. That happened and it was confirmed by god in Gen 3: 22.

    As with Simon, I agree completely with you here. But you are referring here to what the snake said after the lie. And that lie was,

    "you will not die".

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete
    One, YOM, means a literal day, such as when the sun goes up and then the sun sets. But BEYOM refers to a period of the time...

    I was debating whether to discuss that angle, decided not, but glad you did. The point that the authors had individual traditions and emphasis, along with your pointing out that the words YOM and BEYOM are not equal, should end this conversation.

    When a Christian writer utilized a story, like the Adam and Eve or Noah stories, he almost certainly did so in the same spirit as the original author, a theological/moral tale.

    While not an exact parallel, the Grimms Fairy tales preserved an ancient German moral code of sorts. Characters dramatizing values and traditions. Do some children mistake the stories as real? Sure, but as adults we can appreciate them for what they are.

    As an aside, it's my view that the Gospel stories are a continuation of the Jewish/Greek affinity for moral tales and can be appreciated as such.

  • Dagney
    Dagney

    (as I read through this thread it cracks me up it's all about a talking snake. A TALKING SNAKE!!!)

    (Did Noah get those snakes on the boat so Moses could write about a talking snake, [a TALKING SNAKE!!], hundreds of years later?)

    See, this is why even as a kid it sounded absolutely crazy to me.

    Don't worry I'm leaving the room.

  • Halcon
    Halcon
    Dagney -Did Noah get those snakes on the boat so Moses could write about a talking snake, [a TALKING SNAKE!!], hundreds of years later?

    Lol... snake, evil, sin, hatred, murder....there are many forms to this thing.

  • joey jojo
    joey jojo
    Halcon
    Because the snake was present when God gave Adam and Eve his instructions regarding all trees, Joey.

    Sorry? How in the hell would anyone possibly know that??

  • Halcon
    Halcon
    Joey- Sorry? How in the hell would anyone possibly know that?

    Because Genesis 3:1 reads-

    "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?"

    Now joey, how would the snake know what God said?

  • nicolaou
    nicolaou
    Halcon: the snake was present when God gave Adam and Eve his instructions regarding all trees

    Incorrect. You're conflating two separate conversations, one that god had with Adam re the tree of knowledge and the second he had with deities unidentified about the tree of life.

    Or are you assuming that there were only two trees in this paradisaic garden?

    Why am I even indulging this nonsense? Oh right, I started the dumb thread.

    Sorry.

  • Halcon
    Halcon
    Nicolaou -Incorrect. You're conflating two separate conversations, one that god had with Adam re the tree of knowledge and the second he had with deities unidentified about the tree of life.

    Nicolaou, see the verses in Genesis chapter 2 below -

    "15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

    God prohibited Adam and Eve from eating from only ONE tree. He could eat from any other tree in the garden. That included the tree of life.

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