Posts by Jeffro

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

Halcon:

As you explained, thereafter God took away the tree of life...and both Adam and Eve died, just as God told them they would if they ate from the wrong tree.

Maybe you’re reading a different story. In the version I have, God doesn’t tell Eve (who doesn’t get a name until later in the story) anything about either tree, and only tells Adam about the tree of knowledge. The story doesn’t state whether Eve is directly told by God about the tree of knowledge or whether it’s via Adam, but it doesn’t say either are told about the tree of life. God tells Adam he’ll die if he eats from the tree of knowledge, but isn’t told that this was actually a threat about preventing access to the other magical tree rather than a property of the knowledge fruit itself. As presented in the story, the snake didn’t lie when it said that eating the knowledge fruit doesn’t itself cause death, nor does the story say whether the snake knew about the deceptive scheme to prevent access to the other magical tree. Death was caused by the capricious deity getting angry at the naive people for being naive and preventing access to a different magical tree, not at the moment of eating the magical fruit that gave them knowledge.

46

August WT: DF'ing renamed "Removed." AKA: GB re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

so: the mystery has been clarified as to more "new light" / clarifications of decades old doctrine and procedure.

august watchtower has finally been leaked.

disfellowshipping?

Jeffro

Indeed. It’s more about what they can more likely get away with rather than actually caring about defaming people.

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

KOW:

Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the folklore and myths and legends of my people the Jews, and not.

I suppose we’ll have to shut down all the Star Wars and Harry Potter discussion forums too. Either that or they’ll have to all get degrees first.

46

August WT: DF'ing renamed "Removed." AKA: GB re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

so: the mystery has been clarified as to more "new light" / clarifications of decades old doctrine and procedure.

august watchtower has finally been leaked.

disfellowshipping?

Jeffro

NotFormer:

On the above basis announcing a disfellowshipment could be considered defamatory. It is certainly going to harm a person's reputation within the JW circle.

Precisely the same type of speculation results from the announcement that a person is “no longer one of Jehovah’s witnesses”, but with less transparency.

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

KalebOutWest:

Oh, for crying out loud! You are all a bunch of spoiled brats who want to promote your own ideas. You can't think outside your self-serving bubbles if you tried!
[Extended judgemental rant]

O…K… looks like someone is angry anyway.

And if you really wanted to know the answer, you would stop arguing and go and get a degree in theology.

That’s right, the only two options are ‘don’t talk about it at all’ or ‘get a degree in theology’. Because how dare anyone else talk about something on a discussion forum. 🤦‍♂️

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

joey jojo:

Compared to the rest of humanity, Adam and Eve suffered nothing. They lived over 900 years in near perfect health in a pristine world.

In reality, they didn’t exist at all… which I suppose still means they didn’t suffer. In the context of the story, they were in pristine conditions only until the capricious deity expelled them from the garden to prevent them eating from the magical tree that imparts immortality.

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

Halcon:

This is precisely why it was the snake that lied.
The snake said to Eve "you will not die"

Nonsense. In the story, Eve dies because the jerk God character prevents her from eating a separate magical fruit, not because of any inherent property of the first magical fruit (which does precisely what the snake said would happen). Nothing in the story suggests the snake knew that would happen. And if the snake knew God planned to kill her for naively eating magical fruit, it also indicates that the snake knew God’s a jerk.

If someone says it’s unlucky to walk under a ladder, but someone else says it’s not, the second person isn’t lying just because it’s possible that someone might walk under a ladder and then get stabbed by the person who said it’s unlucky to walk under ladders.

But it’s even worse when the first person is deliberately deceptive by saying ‘if you do this you will die’, but what they really mean is ‘if you do this, I will actively prevent your survival’.

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

enoughisenough:

I haven't read through all whatever points of facts ones choose to promote here and won't waste my time, save to write, If one believes in a divine creator, they should be leary of trying to prove him a liar.

Sounds like a veiled attempt at begging the question, because you are suggesting that the ‘divine creator’, if one exists, is necessarily the one in this particular story.

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

What do you mean by “actually true”? We can only interpret the story in a context, whether you pick an early Jewish context, or a later Christian context, those are interpretive choices. We don’t have access to the story in its original form, so it’s not as if you can claim a pristine original that must be sacrosanct. One contextual reading is not “actually true”, and the other “false”. They are both narratives and make sense in their own terms. Unless you are arguing that there really was a snake in an actual garden of Eden and that one interpretation is closer to that reality than another, and therefore “actually true”. I can’t imagine that’s what you mean.

You’re not really this dim though are you? You do understand, I hope, that Christians propose that Adam and Eve were real people and that their actions are actually significant (and I am obviously not talking about denominations that don’t believe that, though their basis for belief is on much shakier ground). But the actual reality is that it is just a story. The fact that it is a story based on an earlier story doesn’t change the fact that it’s just a story. 🤦‍♂️

299

Who told the first lie?

by nicolaou in

this is a continuation of the discussion which sprang from an unrelated topic.. so according to genesis, who told the first lie?

god told eve that if she ate from the tree of knowledge she would die that very same day.

in response to that statement the devil told her she would not die.. eve ate from the tree and did not die.

Jeffro

Setting aside the Christian retrofitting of the Enkidu and Shamhat… sorry… Adam and Eve story, it was God who told the first lie. After Adam and Eve eat the magical fruit of one tree, God has to take action to prevent them eating from a different magical tree. It is directly stated in the story that it is the fruit of the other magical tree that imparts eternal life, not refraining from eating the fruit of the first tree. (All of the quibbling about what day ‘really’ means is just a distraction.)

But the Christian mangling of the story is so tangled in knots that they can’t unravel what parts are supposed to be literal and what is metaphor. Kind of pathetic really. It’s not a very complicated story.