Nice air of arrogance, btw...
The feeling is mutual.
What 'exactly' changed in Adam when he sinned?
by gumby 297 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Schizm
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LittleToe
Still talking, I see
Maybe you have something in common with that snake-thingy.Arrogant - Hmmm - there's something I've never been called before. I wonder, does that make you special?
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Gretchen956
The tree of life was a symbol long before the bible was written. Archeology has dug up evidence of a whole culture of worshippers who had this as one of their most sacred symbols. The snake, too was a sacred symbol, as it represented continued life through adversity (shedding it's skin and then continuing in life). The trouble with this culture, was that they worshipped the "mother" or goddess. So, when the patriarchal biblical times came in, they used the symbols of this culture as objects of fear and derision in their holy book in order to discredit them. It took thousands of years to eradicate all goddess worship, but was nearly impossible, it creeps in as Mary worship or in other ways. Now it has made a comeback.
Read: The Chalice and the Blade, or When God was a Woman. Very interesting books.
Either way, its all just a story. It may have some metaphorical interest, but thats about it. The world seems to have used this story for thousands of years to cast women as the bringers in of man's eventual destruction aka Pandora's box.
(yawn)
Gretchen
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Abaddon
Schizm
??? nice attitude, I will enjoy you reaping what you sow...
I believe that the "tree of life" contained the unique ingredients that Adam & Eve needed in order to sustain their lives forever.
You ASSUME that there was a tree despite the fact other stories in Genesis are either historically and scientifically inaccurate or are metaphorical. We can discuss the factual nature or otherwise of Genesis in a seperate thread if you like. I'd enjoy it; would you?
Likewise, despite the fact that the story of the fall sounds like a metaphoral story (e.g. the story of Pandora), you assume that there was a tree and a snake, even though it's quite unlikely there was a real Pandora or a real box that contained all unhappiness.
Big assumption. Snakes don't talk, so why should there be a tree if one part of the story is already metaphorical? Why isn't the whole story a metaphor?
Or does the impact of the story being metaphorical exceed the capacity of your faith?
Have you got god in such a little box that discovering a bronze-age goatherd made stuff up will make you insist that the book is right ANYWAY? Even if commen sense tells you otherwise? Surely god is larger than the book you're trying to fit him in? Are you telling me your faith in god is so small that it cannot survive finding out the Bible isn't literal? God can exist AND the Bible be well intentioned fairy-stories you know!!
XQsThaiPoes, your post is full of errors.
Scientifically man is perfect we age because we lack enought anti oxidents and we rust to death.
This is one half utterly wrong (man is perfect, yeah, get a Biology degree...) and one half very partly true in very lay-mans terms, but it doesn't sound like you are condensing a lot of knowledge into a simplified explanation; it sounds like you don't know what you are talking about.
at the very best The proof is animals like mice age faster than us.
This isn't proof. It's a fact. It is not proof of what you say. That particular technique is used over and over again by most cults. Take a fact (easy) apply it to something you want to prove, and say the fact is proof.
If you swapped human genes in a mouse one could petential live 80's years.
No, they couldn't. Trust me.
If you eliminate birth defects or simply abort the defective fetuses which the body is programed to do naturally anyway you can have eden today.
It is quite possible for a child to be born at nine months with birth defects; only some are pre-natally fatal. So, this statement is also wrong.
Perfection is eugenics and pharamacology. If we knew the chemical formuals and had mastery over bio engineering building a relatively immortal man is easy.
The word 'realtively' saves you from utter error. The problem is you are using the word 'perfection' in a pseudo-scientific way.
Being perfect is just a side effect of "evolution" anything that servives to reproduce is perfect enought.
Again, your use of 'perfect' makes this statement false. An animal that can reproduce is fitted to survive in an environment, but is not neccesarily 'perfect' either for that environment or for all environments.
Look a roaches how can you buil a more prefect animal?
How well do these 'perfect' animals do in environments they are not evolved for? The bottom of the Marianas Deep Sea Trench doesn't have cockroaches. Therefore, again, using 'perfect' with borgish or pseduoscietific connatations lets you down.
Long lifespan is the only awnser I can think of and that is kind of easy to do but sadly this technology may take 500 years to being to master and that is expecting a constant increase in knowlege we could hit a dark age and be set back thousands of years.
Alternately it could take tweleve years to make breakthroughs that would extend lifespan by 1/3 to 1/2.
But with your 'the end is nigh' viewpoint you have to echo the Cassandra-like attitude of the Borg...
... actually, my lifespan is probably going to be double that of what my great-great grandfather's was. Pretty good for long life span, and my great-great grand children, just on the small steady health-care increments we've seen each decade this last century (i.e. no major breakthrough), might not consider 100 a very big deal.
Everything is as good as we allow it to be.
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LittleToe
Gyles:
You're on form, and cracking me up, today. Thanks, palI'm gonna get my ass out of the house and enjoy this fine sunny Mayday holiday.
Sadly I've got some grass to cut and a car to wash, but it'll be good to get some sun... at last!!! -
Abaddon
Actually, most of the ventrilloquist snake rountine is my girlfriend's; it's developed and eveloped with each telling.
I just don't get which part of METAPHOR people don't understand.
It is exactly like a neo-pagan explaining that the sun really was carried in a divine chariot. For all their faults (who else is responsible for New Age bookshops?), neo-pagans are entirely too sensible to inisist on such a thing. Likewise an awful lot of Hindus will happily accept the Hindu pantheon is a metphor in its entirity, and that it all boils down to something far simpler.
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Elsewhere
Nothing changed... it was just a fairy tale.
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AlanF
Schizm said:
: I believe that the "tree of life" contained the unique ingredients that Adam & Eve needed in order to sustain their lives forever. I also believe that they were at least periodically eating from this tree, for the reason that the other tree was the only one of the two that was off-grounds for them. It was only AFTER they disobeyed that they were prevented from eating of the tree of life any longer. Had they not disobeyed it appears that they would have continued to live for as long as they replenished the needs of their bodies by consuming the essential ingredients that could be found in the tree of life alone.
: No question about it, they had permission to eat of the tree of life.
Assuming for purposes of argument that the entire story is not simply myth, I think you're engaging in special pleading. You'll see why I say this in my comments below.
: The fruit from the tree of life really had life-sustaining ingredients.
Such as? Do you have any evidence at all that people could live forever simply by eating the right food?
: The fruit from the "other" tree was simply good for food, just plain ole food, and to eat from it was to disobey God and merit not being worthy of eating of the tree of life any longer.
That's consistent with the rest of your story.
: So Adam and Eve would still be alive today had they not been disallowed from eating from the tree of life.
: We die for the same reason that Adam and Eve died ... because we need the ingredients from the tree of life and aren't getting them.
Do you have any evidence that if we ate the proper chemicals, we wouldn't die? How about animals? If they ate whatever you think was contained in the tree of life, would they keep on living?
: What are your thoughts with regards to what I've said up above, AlanF? Do you see any flaws in my reasoning?
Mainly that it's special pleading. In other words, you already know that the Watchtower explanation involving genetics (and yes, they really do claim this) is nonsensical, so I think you've come up with another theory -- one that's completely untestable and for which there's zero evidence -- to explain a myth that you want to believe is true.
: We die for the same reasons that Adam and Eve died. Namely, because we need the ingredients found in the tree of life, and can't have them. The reason we can't have them is because we fail to be fully righteous. We fail to be fully righteous because our fathers were unable to inculcate this quality into us by way of teaching us properly. Our fathers were unable to teach us properly because their fathers were just as incapable ... and so on all the way back to Adam. Ultimately it can all be blamed on "sin". Person's who "sin" aren't worthy of eating from the tree of life. Once we've been helped to overcome our sinfulness then we will be allowed to eat from the tree of life. That's apparently the reason for the mention of the "trees of life" in the book of Revelation. It has nothing at all to do with genes!
Once again all I see is special pleading. You've also ignored the possibility that much, or even all of the Bible's story on this stuff is allegorical or symbolic.
Additionally, you've pretty much ignored the problems inherent in the doctrine of the ransom sacrifice of Jesus. No matter the details of how God punished Adam and Eve, your theory and that of the Watchtower and those of eveyone else I've seen ignore the basic injustice of God's punishing all of Adam & Eve's offspring by making it impossible for them to fully obey him. Whether this inability is genetic, as the Watchtower teaches, or cultural, as you claim, is immaterial. God still is the cause of the inability, and is the root cause of mankind's sinfulness. This is easily seen by way of an illustration. Suppose you tell your son that to gain your approval he must run a mile in under 4 1/2 minutes on a track comprised of broken fragments of glass. But before he can start running, you catch him and chop off one of his feet, then tell him, "Go to it, boy!" Obviously he won't be able to run very well, and he won't gain your approval. This is like the Watchtower's theory. Alternatively, you catch him and take away his shoes. Obviously he still won't be able to run very well and still won't gain your approval. This is like your theory. The other fatal problem with the ransom doctrine is that it ignores another basic principle of justice. Suppose my son kills your son, and you demand justice from authorities with "an eye for an eye" justice. My son is convicted of murder and is about to be executed, but I run up to the executioners and say, "Don't kill him! Kill me instead!" And they do, and my son lives. Has justice been served? Obviously not. Nor is justice served in any way by Jesus' death to atone for the life Adam lost, or however you want to phrase this.
My above comments simply go to show that the Adam & Eve story, along with the ransom doctrine, are just ancient myths. As a friend likes to say, can anyone really believe that God punished all of mankind because a naked lady was fooled into eating a piece of fruit by a talking snake?
AlanF
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Undaunted Danny
Growing old s**ks!
Adam lived 935 years why? Is there a master switch to immortality that can be reset,OR is there a lot of little switches that have to be altered?
Some species of snapping turtles live and still can reproduce at 300 years of age.Elephants live 80 years.What they have in common is a slow metabolism.
The slower the metabolic rate the longer the life span,one exception to this rule is birds.
Humans are genetically pre programed to live 120 years,this is estimated to be about 50 cell divisions.At this finite limit the cell runs out of viable DNA lineage.
Cancer cells and some bacteria are immortal because their DNA is circular.
The key to their immortality is, a circle has no ends they continue to replicate forever.Our DNA is linear (gets shorter and snipped off at each replication) and comes to an end.
One important step to immortality or emortality,is find a way to exceed this limit.The only way to beat the system at present,is to slow down the rate of cellular divisions by caloric restriction.This sets the body up from a growth and development profile to a maintenance and repair setting.
Genesis 11 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Will we ever find a way to beat the system? Time will tell........
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gumby
Alan....great stuff
If you would like, you can post the material you mentioned earlier as it covers in a better way, some that has been said. People are too damn lazy to click on the link
Gumby