I am sorry to be so cruel as to beat someone as defenseless as Big Jim......NOT.
From Big Jim and for all those who congratulated him on his reasoning abilities!
Adam
>Okay, so God created Adam in his own image. Physically or spiritually, whatever.
Isn't it important to know this, Jim? I mean, how can you attempt to analyze the story without understanding it?
>Did Adam have the standard male genitals? (most of you are probably familiar with them, one way or another). Now, I could understand God giving Adam a penis; after all, when you urinate it's handy to be able to aim somewhere convenient. But did he have testicles? Unless I've missed something, the sole purpose of testes is reproduction.
Uhhh, wouldn't it make sense for God to make him complete, since God already knew the whole history that would develop over the course of time? Indeed, any rube can see that since the animals were reproducing physically then man would also physically reproduce himself.
>( What other use do they have? Maybe in the days before Eve, they served some other purpose. Perhaps they were some sort of alarm system, that lit up and made loud hooting noises if Adam strayed too close to a cliff edge or was about to eat something poisonous? )
Yuck yuck yuck.
>My point? Well, God created Eve so that Adam would not be lonely. Why did he give Adam testes at the start unless he already knew that he would have to create Eve also? Why not just create the two of them (Adam and Eve, that is) at the same time? What use are male reproductive organs without the complimentary female ones?
Perhaps when God made Eve, he did a little extra surgery on Adam whilst he slept, and furnished him with the appropriate equipment. Imagine his surprise when he woke up!
Have you ever read BOTH Genesis accounts, Jimbo? The Hebrews had a way of telling (from their oral tradition) a story in brief and then repeating the same story in more detail. Really, I can't see why you got rave reviews from people like SlayerLayer, et all, unles they are also at a extreme disadvantage in basic Biblical knowledge.
Eve
>Why did God create Eve from one of Adam's ribs? He created Adam from dust, what's the big deal about creating another one without having to do a bit of surgery on poor old Adam? You'd think an omnipotent being would be a bit more organised...
( And, of course, there's the story of Lillith - Eve was not the first woman, she came in second (or maybe even third...)).
Oh, so you now subscribe tot he misbegotten theory that this is just a 'made over pagan story'?
Now we'll deal with the rest. WE are created of the very elements that exist on the earth, Jimbo. Why ask why when you already have no clue to the style of writing employed that both tells historical data yet spoke simply enough for a desert bedouin to understand!
Death
>Was there any form of death before "the Fall"? If there was not, did God intervene to prevent all the flies, bacteria and rabbits from breeding like, well, flies, bacteria and rabbits? If not, the world would have been hundreds of feet deep in ooze. Some people say "Aha, but disease is a result of sin, so there were no bacteria then". Aha back, I say, without bacteria the whole ecosystem collapses. Not all bacteria are harmful, many organisms have symbiotic relationships with bacteria and could not survive without them.
We only have our modern world to go on. It is proven to be out of balance. No sickness, no decay existed and man was perfect. A perfect world would have a balanced ecosystem.
The Apple
>Well, fruit of some sort, but we'll call it an apple for now, as that is the traditional image.
So, God creates Adam and Eve, with no knowledge of good or evil, right or wrong - they are truly innocent. He sticks them in a Garden, and for some reason creates a tree whose fruit gives you the Knowledge of Good and Evil (it's not explained how this works, but we'll take their word for it).
You don't NEED an explanation to understand the story or it's implications for mankind. Where do you atheists get the idea that God has to explain everything to you?
>"DO NOT EAT OF THIS TREE, OR YOU'LL DIE." says God.
Adam and Eve hear this and dutifully nod their heads. God goes off somewhere (he's a busy guy) leaving these two alone.
Now, as Adam and Eve don't have the faintest idea of right and wrong, they don't know it's a Bad Idea to disobey God ("Hey, God just told us not to eat that fruit!", "So? What's your point?", "Erm... I don't know. Save some for me!") The only way they can gain this knowledge is by.... Eating from the Tree!
ROFL. Tell me this part is not serious. They had one simple command, one law to obey. They also had 'free will' and they were told what the consequences of their sinning would be. Each one 'passed the buck' and knew thay had done wrong when God questioned them.
>It's like giving a bottle of bleach to a child who is too young to read the warning labels, and then being surprised when they poison themselves with it.
It was a simple test for man to answer for himself, not for God. Of course God knew ahead of time what would happen yet He determined that He would let them be drawn in by Satan. Man was given a choice, serve God or believe the lies of Satan. BTW, Adam was not decieved as Eve was. He chose to sin along with Eve knowing full well what he was doing.
>to make matter worse, Adam and Eve were threatened with the punishment of death. How can this be any sort of threat? There was no death in The Garden (see above) - they had never witnessed it, and would probably have a hard time grasping the concept anyway.
Death: see that rock, that soil? It is not alive. If you eat of that tree your bodies will be like that, knowing nothing. Not only that, you will have chosen to be separated from your creator until the day of your physical death....for they died spiritually that very day. Just because the story does not go into detail doesn't make it any less true or instructive!
>So, they were told not to do something (and had no way of knowing that disobedience was bad), otherwise something would happen to them (and they had no idea what that was, or whether it was a good or bad thing to happen anyway).. "We'll die? What does that mean? Maybe it's fun!"
It's the original Catch 22 situation.
YOU are a 'catch 22 situation'. Tell me Jim, who is 'Yossarian'?
I find it incredible that none in this original post could come up with these errors in reasoning!
This kind of reasoning gets a pat on the back? Oh, for the days of old on h2o where people knew how to argue a point.
Bare Naked Ladies (and Adam)
>Another confusing aspect involves their nakedness. Apparently, when they ate the fruit they suddenly realised that they were naked, and this was shameful. This seems a little strange, as presumably all other creatures in the Garden were also naked, unless it was populated by Disney cartoon animals. ( "Oh no! We've got no clothes on! How embarassing!", says Adam. "Erm... What are clothes?", says Eve. )
Jimbo, this is the first result of their sin and it shows a clear line between innocence and shame. Their childlike existence just came to a screeching halt.
>If it was inherently wrong and immoral for these two to walk around naked, then why did God create them that way in the first place? Why would He want them to do something that He considered to be wrong? Did He just like watching naked people or something?
Yuck yuck yuck. It says they were 'ashamed at their nakedness', not that their 'nakedness was wrong'.
>Possibly, He wanted them to remain completely innocent and unsullied by such concepts as Right and Wrong. In that case, Adam could have done anything he felt like, being totally oblivious to the fact that some things were right and some were wrong.
Nope. A perfectly created being in 'God's image' (and that means having his mental attributes) would never face any 'right or wrong' and only did fail because man misused his free will, just as Satan had already done (in his mind/heart).
> He could have tested the aerodynamic ability of small rodents, tortured bunnies, and killed and eaten Eve. God would have looked on happily as Adam innocently frolicked around enjoyed himself, unaware that he was committing all sorts of indecent, immoral and Wrong acts.
And made stupid posts like this?
>Giving them the Knowledge Of Good And Evil was the only way to prevent this sort of thing happening,
What?????
>so why is the act of eating the fruit considered to be Original Sin?
Man, they disobeyed God. They chose to rebel in a perfect world made for them to rule and take care of!
>After all, it stopped them from immorally walking around stark naked, didn't it? If Original Sin stems from Eve getting Adam to eat the fruit, in doing so she was preventing his wicked nakedness and any further immoral acts he might accidentally commit in his ignorance, wasn't she?
Oh sheesh! This is an example of where you find yourself after heaping wrong conclusion upon wrong conclusion ad nauseum.
>As for the clothing that they wore, Robert Green Ingersoll had this to say in his essay Some Mistakes Of Moses :
In this same chapter we are informed that "unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." Where did the Lord God get those skins?
He must have taken them from the animals; he was a butcher.
Then he had to prepare them; He was a tanner.
Then he made them into coats; he was a tailor.
How did it happen that they needed coats of skins, when they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition? Did the "fall" produce a change in the climate?
Is that from the Atheist BooK of the Month Club?
They were covering their own shame. God was already setting up their present and future 'atonement of sin' which would be necessary until the advent of God the Son (on earth as saviour), the Word of God as a fleshly human God-man who would be a propitiation for all sin, past, present and future.
Climate change was immediate, not drastic. The whole universe began to decay and all creation 'groaned'.
>Of course, God might have simply produced the coats using god-magic, and no animals needed to have been harmed.
You totally missed the point of the story. Are you sure you were a JW? Even they basically have these events right.
>The Knowledge Of Good And Evil must contain some sort of information regarding animal rights - I wonder how Adam and Eve responded to being given skin ripped from dead animals to wear? Modern animal rights activists would have a thing or two to say about the matter -
Yep, "let that mouse live you vicious scientist"!
>but then, God Himself seemed to think it was okay; and knowing Good from Evil, so then did Adam and Eve. After all, God seems to have been fairly keen on animal sacrifices throughout the Old Testament and, being immutable, I guess He still is...
Different dispensation period, Jimbo.
See the above. Have you ever read the book of Romans, Jimbo? Try reading the first four chapters.
>Alternatively, he could have woven them perfectly decent clothes from cotton, silk or wool or some other natural fabric. He could have even given them expensive designer outfits or clown clothes to wear, and they would have been none the wiser.
It did get worse (the analysis of course)!
Original Sin and Aliens
>Apparently the Vatican has been thinking about this. Problem is, if alien civilisations exist, will they have the problem of Original Sin? As Adam and Eve were created on Earth, Original Sin has passed down from them to the rest of us (apparently). Unless they developed space travel and whizzed off to Betelgeuse for a couple of weeks, aliens should be free from their taint. Aliens will, it seems, be free from sin. They will not have needed Christ to appear to them to get killed by the state, as they have no sin to be saved from.
I guess so. ;-)
The kids
>Adam and Eve had two children that we know of. Cain and Abel. When they grew up, Cain (or was it the other one?) went off and found a wife. Just where exactly did this woman come from?
Oh boy! Another original atheist question! They 'made whoppee' with their sisters (or Cain would have had one of his cousins), Jimbo.
>And, for that matter, where did everyone else come from? Unless God had been creating loads of people on the sly, the only way for the population to develop from Adam, Eve and the two sons has to involve incestuous relationships.
Not a very good example for the rest of us, is it?
Uh, humans who were that near to original creation were mean't to reproduce in kind. Just like animals.
>(The same also applies when God trashed the world and left Noah and his small family to repopulate the world).
Genesis has more holes in it than Blackburn, Lancashire.
Oh sheesh! Come on! Noah's sons had wives when they entered the ark.
This is the new 'Norm'. The torch has been passed to Big Jim.
Later,
Rex