Posts by adamah

5

Learning to state the obvious...with a sense of Discovery!

by Terry in

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adamah

Heh, when I think of JWs and their 'helpful' Bible-study aids, I think of the classic Marx Bros. movie skit, except replace 'life-giving spiritual food' with 'hot tips on the ponies':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LBIsDBC848

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

Jeffro likely hit the nail on the head:

This conclusion is based on conflating the meanings of saraph (burning) and nachash (snake), on the basis that some snakes are described as 'saraph (burning) nachash (snake)'.

You can see how the two concepts COULD get intermingled with time (as snakes are known to possess a burning bite), but there's no rhyming connection and doesn't seem to be based on pun or rhyming word-play.

mP is right in that the Yahwist (one of the authors/redactors) had a known weakness for word-play and puns which he frequently displayed in Genesis. In fact, my user name (Adamah) is based on the word-play used on rhyming or similarity in words seen in the 'Cain and Abel' account of Genesis: Adam, Adamah (the ground), and Dam (blood) are all related words in Hebrew, and the author connects them (where Abel's spilled blood cries out from the ground) as if it's a sign of his cleverness. That's a hint that we're being in mythology and story-telling, NOT a historical account.

Of course, word-play is an extremely weak method of supporting one's argument (and best limited to poetry and fables), since it relies on the potential fallacy of placing "style over substance". I wrote an article about this potential logical fallacy on my blog, where word-play played a valuable role in OJ's criminal defense, since it remains a persuasive pseudo-argument for so many people:

http://awgue.weebly.com/what-did-ojs-legal-defense-team-and-genesis-yahwist-have-in-common.html

BTW, we see evidence of ironic word-play in the use of the word 'dust': notice how the serpent is cursed to eat 'dust' and Adam is cursed to work the unproductive ground until Adam returns to 'dust', having been made from 'dust'. That MIGHT be seen as supporting evidence for mP's idea of a serpent being forced to eat the same 'stuff' that man was made from, as if he was being taken down a notch and placed below man as his punishment (of course, that but doesn't support the later Xian interpretation of a grounded serpent BEING Satan: he was punished by being placed BELOW mankind, and even beneath the other animals, and feared by women).

Similarly, Eve's "desire" was for wisdom: her curse was that her "desire" would be that of Adam's, i.e. subsuming HER desires to those of her husband.

Some Biblical commentaries argue that Eve was cursed to lust FOR her husband: I don't think they support that very well, since the "LUST FOR" interpretation sounds more like a male's fantastic and wishful thinking, as if God was able to avoid their wives' eyes from wandering to the hunky virulent male, as if telling women that the Bible says they MUST lust for THEIR hubby. Sounds a bit improbable to me.

To support the "subsuming Eve's will" interpretation of the curse, Paul later cites the Genesis account to explain WHY women should remain in submission to their husbands, so Paul clearly supports that interpretation: it was HIS (or whoever wrote in his name) interpretation. It also fits with the Greek misogyny bias that was recorded for the period, blaming women for all evil and bad that entered the World (eg myth of Pandora's box). The Greeks and Hebrews sent representatives to the Imperial Persian Court after 550BC, and it's likely that they'd talk on "show and tell" day, being familiar with the myths of the other cultures who also sent representatives (including India, btw, part of the Persian Empire). They'd share stories and plagarize, knowing the uneducated minions they ruled wouldn't know it was borrowed.)

We sometimes see people using it when they rely on what they think are clever slogans (Lie-ble, etc) in order to prove a point that the Bible can't be trusted. It's really grasping at straws, and if its intent is simple to be needlessly inflammatory and insulting and not present EVIDENCE of why the BIble is lying, then it's effective at doing that (and yes, I know people feel angry after having been deceived, but it remains a weak argument, nonetheless, a form of ad hominem, not attacking the evidence directly).

mP, it seems you think Maimonedes, Acquinas, etc. can be considered trusted sources on the beliefs of those who lived 2,000 before THEY lived (an 'appeal to authority' argument). You'd need to demonstrate WHY they are to be considered as trusted sources on beliefs that existed 2,000 yrs before they lived. Again, I suspect you're trying to claim a level of certainty of knowing which just doesn't exist, likely as a vestige of believing that absolute certainty exists.

A rationalist is going to demand independent confirmation from many sources, as eg Maimonedes was likely inheriting the then-current beliefs of what ancients believed. In essence, you're taking his belief as FACT, when Maimonedes had no Divine insight and didn't have access to information or archaeological findings, etc. (and also is someone who spent much time studying the Torah and Talmudic texts seeing connections which others didn't, advancing Kabbalist mystical thinking, which is MORE evidence of his bias for fantasy over facts).

Instead, if we have many INDEPENDENT sources confirming a certain event happened (eg destruction of Temple in 70 CE, from Roman, Hebrew sources; 9/11 terrorist attack on WTC, etc), then we're going to place greater weight on the claim, since the odds of collusion (eg citing some vast mysterious conspiracy hypotheses, etc) goes down significantly.

Adamah

31

Catholic Cardinal Says Adam and Eve Didnt Exist

by His Excellency in

http://consciouslifenews.com/catholic-cardinal-adam-eve-didnt-exist/1127457/

adamah

TJ said-

If Adam and Eve did not exist, what is the need of the redemption of Jesus ( according to the Scriptures )?

Bingo! Give that man a ceegar...

That's only one reason why Jews have NEVER believed in the Christian interpretation of the serpent = Satan, or the doctrine of mankind needing redeeming for Adam's original sin; it's just not the way they conceived of God, sinning offerings, OR redemption (go'el) of another person, usually one's kin.

The idea of Christ redeeming mankind is inconsistent with Jewish beliefs and practices, eg per Jewish theology, the sinner MUST repent BEFORE providing a sacrifice (sin offering) or it's wasted effort, the sinner must offer the sacrifice personally (no delegation to another party), there is no inherited debt of sin to one's offspring, and of course the sin is erased in God's eyes upon the sinner's death. Bereshit (Genesis) doesn't mention any of this being done, since the story wasn't recorded for Christians to base their theology off of: it was an origins tale found in a book of law codes, explaining WHY it was critical to pay attention. Don't listen carefully, and things will go VERY BADLY for you and your offspring.

As TJ says, the 'Original Sin' doctrine is built with one questionable unproven (and unproveable) hypothesis stacked on top of another, stacked on another, etc, to make a Leaning Tower of beliefs which paradoxically becomes MORE resistant to challenge as it gets bigger; it's actually reinforced by seeming MORE probable when the claim stretches in outlandishness. How does that happen?

The belief exploits the fallacy of some humans preferring the IMPOSSIBLE that is stated with CERTAINTY over the merely IMPROBABLE. Some people paradoxically become MORE convinced it MUST be true, since they tell themselves who could possibly make this kind of stuff up (the answer is clever men)? In their minds, the implausible becomes MORE believable as it becomes more outlandish: some prefer the COMPLETELY impossible over the merely improbable (especially if the claim appeals to their narcissism, telling them they're the smart boys to have figured it all out).

Moral of the story of Christian's handling of A&E is that if you're going to tell a lie, start small and well within the realm of normal experience, but then slowly go to tall-tale dimensions, since people are easily cognitively-dazzled by impossible linguistic constructions, as some humans will predictably fall for new rephrasings and reinventions of quite ancient concepts that require contemplating the incomprehensible (eg trinity, soul, spirit, heaven, hell, etc).

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

LOL! Nice find, Jeffro.

But if 1,000 yrs to humans is but a day to Jehovah, if I did the math correctly that means Jehovah's Holy Spirit caught the error in 43 yrs, which works out to just over an hour in 'Jehovah Standard Time'. The ink didn't even have time to dry, so that doesn't count as a flip-flop.... Now, regretting making mankind before the Flood, and then regretting carrying out the Flood: THAT counts as a double-gainer flip-flop that any politician would be proud of!

Oh, where else did "some" get the odd idea the serpent had legs, you ask?

Once you get over Eve's nubile perkiness (!) and her blonde Lauren Bacall-influenced hair-do (the artist must've slipped out of Bethel and seen Casablanca, only released the year before), notice the lil' quadriped twiddling his thumbs in excitement, patiently sitting on his haunches in the lower left corner (from 1943 WTBTS publication, "The Truth Shall Make You Free", photo posted on an old thread by BluesBrother):

Adamah

4

Rupert Sheldrake- "Richard Dawkins Comes To Call"

by frankiespeakin in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtpukswp1mo.

adamah

Hi,

I'm not a physicist, but remember enough from my college physics days to know that his complaint about gravity measurements is baseless, as it's considered as a constant Worldwide simply for ease of calculations: gravity is going to vary, depending on where you are in the World since it's dependent on the mass underneath your feet at any given location and even changes with time. As such, it's going to vary (increasing when there's greater mass of the mountain underneath, but decreasing due to greater altitude, decreasing due to composition of the rock underneath with less dense material pulling, etc). Gravity will change due to shifts or flows in the Earth's liquid core, etc, just as the Earth's magnetic field is constantly changing.

However, those fluctuations in gravity are known to occur, and are considered insignificant for most applications (and any applications where it ISN'T appropriate to use a constant will require use of a special device capable of generating local gravitational readings in real-time: gravimeters).

So while it's interesting to ask the question, it's hardly compelling, if that's going to be the entire basis of his approach.

If he's got a reason to suggest WHY we need to be measuring it more closely, he's perfectly capable of making his case and offer a specific hypothesis of what we're missing by not measuring it more accurately than it is currently being done. However, blind witch-hunts and gut feelings (hunches) are NOT compelling arguments in scientific inquiry: developing hypotheses is. A scientist needs to collect sufficient compelling anecdotal evidence together, and need to suggest to other scientists WHY they should look for something. His suggesting "to look for dark matter" is well outside his area of expertise and strikes me as talking outside of one's backside orifice.

I looked briefly at his credentials on his website, and I have no idea why someone who's PhD and research was in the field of botany is working in the field of paranormal research, or asking about questioning from theoretical physics except (allow me to hypothesize) it's probably MUCH harder to find an audience interested in reading about plant hormones in botany, and much easier to find an audience of laypersons interested in reading about pseudo-sciences like the paranormal and telepathy, esp from a scientist who is willing to "tickle their ears" (tell them what they want to hear). The guy strikes me a bit as a sly ear-tickler.

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

Jeffro asked:

Winged snakes is indeed a theme in various ancient mythologies. But Genesis doesn't seem to say anything about snakes flying. Can you explain? Which verses? Or which Hebrew words? Strongs numbers?

I'm not mP, but from reading his information he's likely referring to the cherubim being cursed to crawl on it's belly, in essence "losing it's wings": the account didn't actually state that it the serpent "lost it's legs", so that's more examples Christian 'eisegesis', engaging in speculative activity by ASSUMING that the serpent had legs before by reading details in the account that aren't explicitly stated.

Both the WTBTS (and Mormons, I think?) have produced artwork that shows a legged serpent (I Googled, but couldn't find an example).

BTW, I remembered Jesus' advice to his disciples in Matthew 10:16 to be "wise like serpents, and harmless as doves", and looked it up. The Greek word often translated as 'wise' was 'phronimoi' (Strongs: 5429), which also was translated as 'intelligent, prudent, sensible.'

So in Jesus' time, the serpent clearly still enjoyed a reputation for being wise, cautious, prudent (defined as "looking out for one's self-interests").

No WONDER the 'arum' (the Hebrew word which apparently was quite analogous to the Greek 'phtonimoi', ALSO used in a similiar manner to describe serpents) was hanging out at Tree that granted wisdom: Eve likely assumed it was eating there. Foolish Eve trusted the snakie's favorable Yelp! review, since it was associated with wisdom and near the tree that God said would wisdom to anyone who ate it (more incriminating evidence of Divine Intrapment: why LABEL it with a tempting name, and why make it good to eat, and pretty to look at? Heck, that's a bit like sticking razor blades into apples on Halloween, and handing them out to kids)!

As I said before, the serpent was ALSO associated with knowing the secrets of Eternal life (via it's reputation for shedding it's skin, seen as immortality via regeneration), and hence likely possessed insight into the Tree of Life.

So again: who exactly is to blame for creating foolish humans, and then acting offended and shocked when they act in accord with the way they were made (as fools) and make foolish choices? Is that the fault of Jehovah, or the humans?

That's why I say the story only gives creedence to YHWH as the cruel trickster God, which is what led the Early-Christian Gnostics to reasonably believe that YHWH was only a demi-God, and not the "real" God. They saw the serpent as analogous to Prometheus, the demi-God who was the friend of mankind, stealing fire (an ancient symbol of knowledge) from Zeus for the benefit of humanity (Zeus didn't want mankind to possess knowledge, just as YHWH didn't want man to have wisdom).

I find it hard to believe these stories are NOT related, likely originating from a common mythological source: there's just too much similarities in their storylines to believe they both sprung up independently. Ancient people (circa 3,000 BC) likely didn't believe in an all-loving, all-knowing God: they were comfortable with the idea of Gods who could gang up and kill each other, and apparently didn't see them coming!

Julia said-

No wonder they don't want you reading Hebrew.

Nor Greek, or conducting independent research, or using parallel Bible translations on the Internet (biblehub.com), etc.

Here's another little interesting tid-bit I ran across last night:

One of the OTHER occurrences of the Greek word 'phronimoi' (out of a total of 14 in the NT) is in Jesus' parable of 'the Faithful and WISE servant' found in Matthew 24:5 (and in Luke). How interesting that Jesus would use the same adjective for serpents as he'd use for the faithful and WISE slave?

I dare say the JWs don't want to use 'prudence' there, since that might be too much of a "tell" for the GB's power and control-grabbing scheme.

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

mP said-

Thats simply not true. Snakes were special in ancient tradition, the Hebrew religion was no different from everybody else. Most religions are pretty

similar in the end

You missed my point: it seems you're trying to place too fine a point on your certainty about claiming to KNOW something that is actually impossible to know: what a large population of people actually believed in the past. That would apply EVEN IF you got into a time machine and travelled to Ancient Near East, sampled the opinions of EVERY INHABITANT of the 'Land of Israel' on a single day (say 500BC), EVEN IF you were able to sample their opinions of their beliefs with ABSOLUTE certainty and the results were free of error. Why? You're dealing with people's BELIEFS, which are plastic and ever-changing, by definition; the results would be different 50 or 100 years later. Just think of your own experience: if we had sampled your beliefs when you were a JW (however long ago that was), the results would be different than now, right? People's beliefs change (as opinion on gay marriage changes, or even gun control opinions changed overnight after Sandy Hook, etc).

By only being able to rely on written evidence that survives (assuming 100% accurate translation, an impossibility, BTW), we're automatically introducing the bias of examining the 'minority report' of the literate class, something that is associated with the elite living in urban centers (e.g. Jerusalem). The archaeological evidence instead reveals the practice of 'folk religion' thoughout ancient Isreal over a lengthy period of time which differed from the official record of how Judaism SHOULD be practiced.

Besides, there's evidence that some many of scribes and redactors of the Tanakh felt empowered to "correct" (change) as they made copies: it's really no different than the errors introduced by deliberate mistranslation (even leaving out the accidents, simply due to ignorance of past linguistic practices). Leolaia has written about the story of Job, which OT scholars agree contains some of the oldest passages in the Bible (based on linguistic analysis), but later redactors decided to alter the poetic core, adding a narrative "frame" (epilogue and prologue) as well as poetic passages. So 99.999% of readers have NO IDEA they're reading the product of a committee that likely spanned centuries, and shows classic "too many cooks spoil the broth" as a result.

You're claiming that Hebrew religion was "no different", when even THAT is a questionable claim (I suspect that Hebrews adopted or 'hijacked' ancient Egyptian and Babylonian pre-existing beliefs, and modified many to fit into their beliefs over a long period of time, the process of blending beliefs is largely unavoidable, called 'syncretism'. Why the motivation to place the Torah in written form? The "Persian Emperial Authorization Hypothesis" is hotly-debated in scholarly circles, and it MAY provide a compelling explanation for the motivations of the leaders of Hebrews held in captivity to assemble the written Torah into a historiographical work of legal code, in order to gain their autonomy under the Persian Empire who liberated them from Babylonain captivity).

So claiming a level of ABSOLUTE certainty for anything as slippery as beliefs of ancient people is probably a vestige of fantastic ABSOLUTIST thinking, since knowing ANYTHING to that level of certainty is impossible; it would require performing a series of miracles that perhaps approaches the miracles of the Biblical Flood account to have occurred as recorded.

Instead, science only deals in a language of statistical analysis/probability, where certainty (if the study allows that it even CAN be quantified) is expressed in 'confidence intervals'. Unfortunately, lay-people often prefer a claim of certainty which is based on a lie over an honest assessment of doubt; that's part of the dynamic that drives religions, scammers, etc. and leads to the aphorism, "if it seems too good to be true, it likely IS".

All that stated, thanks for the seraphim info: knowing human nature, it's easy to imagine how a 'flaming sword' could be associated (morph) from or into the idea of fanged serpentine angels. Just realize that the medieval stuff (eg Kaballah mysticism) was likely written at least 2,000 yrs AFTER the original account of A&E was widely heard in a public reading (as recorded in the Bible as having occurred Hebrews were released from Babylonian captivity, circa 500 BC, that is, if the Bible is to be believed on that claim)

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

Jeffro said-

I got bored and stopped reading about a third of the way through.

Good catch regarding the NWT's translation of Genesis 3:6.

Yeah, it's a bit scattered, but I try to hit on all different levels; something that gets through to someone is going to be different for another (ie there is no "one size fits all" magic argument that breaks the barrier for everyone).

The Genesis 3 find was something I didn't go out of my way to find; it found me when I was talking to a JW at a Starbucks, LOL! I asked him to look it up in the NWT, and was shocked (but not really surprised to find they're the ONLY translation to try and bury the "wisdom-granting" bit, as if no one would notice! "Lying scribes", indeed.

Comatose said-

adamah, great read. I reason pretty much identically the same as you. If the WT hadn't turned me into an alcoholic and forced me to quit drinking, I'd wish we get beers sometime. :-)

Thanks for the complement! I don't drink much these days, either, since drinking kills brain cells (and I like Homer Simpsons' theory that only the strong ones survive)!

I'll be writing a new article on my blog explaining why Jesus felt the need to pooh-pooh the practice of handwashing before eating (Mark 7), saying it was a worthless practice, since it was a "tradition of men".

I recently talked to people engaging in a project in Africa (Zambia), installing inexpensive filters that produce potable drinking water from pathogenic disease-causing water sources, teaching hygenic practices in a country where millions die from preventable diseases caused by drinking dirty water, poor hygenic practices (including lack of handwashing), and poor sanitation. These folks are actually DOING something to help save lives:

http://www.sohip.org

Apparently Jesus could turn water into wine to prevent social embarrassment at wedding receptions, could heal the sick via miracles, but Jesus couldn't be bothered to turn dirty disease-laden water into clean drinking water to prevent disease! He only cured them AFTER they were sick.

Worse: Jesus actively discouraged the ONE hygenic practice which actually made sense from a public health standpoint when science investigated the issue thousands of years later: handwashing before eating (and after elimination/urination, etc). It's almost as if Jesus wasn't familiar with the germ theory of disease? How could that be: it wasn't like he was there when God created bacteria and viruses, right?

So much for the claim of having Divine insight....

I'll post a link to my blog when the article is done.

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

Here's something I've written that's relevant to the snakie story:

Another goofy element in the story is that Adam and Eve were supposedly "perfect" (although it's not explicitly stated in the entire account), presumably meaning they were lacking in nothing, and had everything they wanted and/or needed.

Per Genesis 3, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden under only ONE rule: "Don't eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". ONE rule, right? But just like an itch that you cannot keep from scratching, we all know what happened next: fruit was consumed, a certain deity got angry, curses were made, legs and green thumbs were removed, and the rest is (allegedly) history.

The element often overlooked in the account is the REASON Eve saw the fruit as "desirable to eat", the last of THREE reasons offered in Gen 3:6 (NIV):

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it."

1) Good for food,

2) pleasing to the eye, (it looked pretty)

3) DESIRABLE FOR GAINING WISDOM.

Hmmm, now if a talking snake didn't clue you in, which one of those reasons JUST MIGHT indicate that the hallucinogen the author had taken had firmly kicked in, and we're now deep into the land of magical fantasy? Perhaps the last one, the only UNIQUE and FANTASTIC (supernatural) reason which offers something that cannot be obtained by eating from regular non-magical trees? Sure, it's the last one, the "wisdom-bestowing" properties of the fruit, since wisdom is the 'fuel' used by the conscience (moral compass) in order to make sound, wise (or at least, not foolish) decisions. Last I checked, wisdom fruit doesn't exist!

BTW, the New World Translation completely botches the translation by rendering Genesis 3:6 like this:

6 Consequently the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was something to be longed for to the eyes, yes, the tree was desirable to look upon. So she began taking of its fruit and eating it...

Did you catch what they did there? What are the THREE reasons they give?

1) Good for food

2) Longed for to the eyes, (it looked pretty)

3) Desirable to look at, (it looked pretty)

They completely DROPPED the last reason, and simply repeated the second reason to replace the third, thus removing the MOST-IMPORTANT, the truly-UNIQUE reason that explains why Eve wanted to eat the fruit: to gain WISDOM.

Note that in the Bible, the antonym (opposite) of the word 'wise' is 'fool' (as reflected in the parallel usage of 'wise' and 'fool' found in Proverbs).

But if Eve saw the fruit as "desirous for gaining wisdom", that implies God created the pair as LACKING or WANTING in wisdom, such that Eve was DESIROUS of GAINING wisdom. So the Genesis account is actually suggesting that God created the first pair as FOOLS, since people don't desire a property or trait they already possess!

But to make matters worse, with his rule ("don't eat the fruit"), God actually forbade them from ACQUIRING wisdom.

Now, Xians believe that Adam and Eve were created as the first "perfect pair", thus justifying the need for humankind's atonement from Adamic 'original sin' by the offering of a perfect sacrifice, Jesus. So if they weren't "perfect", something doesn't add up here, does it?

(And note that Genesis doesn't indicate ANYTHING about the first pair being "perfect": the claim represents Xian eisegesis (defined as "reading an interpretation into the text" that isn't explicitly stated AKA rampant speculation). It's a reading of the account which has NEVER been supported by Jews, the people who wrote the story, since they don't believe in Adam's inherited sin.)

It gets worse:

Genesis 3:1 tells us that the serpent was 'arum' (Hebrew word translated in some translations as 'crafty', 'clever', or even 'prudent': THAT interpretation would never fly in Xian Bibles, as it's 'red flag' that something is rotten in the State of Denmark if the serpent (who's claimed to be Satan; more eisegesis) were described as 'prudent'!):

Genesis 3:1 (NIV):

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made."

So YHWH is stated as making the serpent CRAFTIER than the other animals, and possibly moreso than the human pair, since it was able to outsmart a foolish Eve who desired what she didn't have! Huh, go figure! It's almost like the account is actually mocking humans, making fun of our gullibility and naivity, right in front of our faces, as if most people are actually too stoopid (sic) to figure out when they're being insulted, LOL!

(Of course, it's likely no accident the serpent happened to be hanging around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad, since snakes were commonly-known symbols to early Hebrews, thought of as wise animals that had discovered the secret of immortality, largely due to their ability to magically regenerate, via shedding their skin. It was taken as a sign of rebirth.)

So it turns out the magic fruit worked as promised (which, BTW, is a nice thing about fiction: all things are possible!), since the account states, "their eyes had been opened". Even God acknowledges the fruit worked as advertised, saying in Gen 3:22, "they have become like us, knowing good and evil". They possessed the wisdom of God(s).

HOWEVER, that's where the paradox of Adam and Eve arises:

How would Adam and Eve understand the FOOLISHNESS of disobeying YHWH if they were LACKING in wisdom BEFORE, and even AS THEY ATE the fruit?

How would they be able to use their powers of right and wrong to decide the wrongness of disobedience to God, if their internal moral compass was 'out of fuel' (devoid of wisdom), in the first place?

That's the paradox of Adam and Eve, the logical "continuity error" that only a few have spotted in the basic story-line since few stop to think about it.

This paradox is quite analogous to Xians who claim they cannot trust their own horribly-flawed and corrupt moral compass, arguing that we ALL need to rely on their God as the ultimate source of morality, since He's the superior moral law-giver. But that admission of their lack of trust in their own decision-making skills only undermines their appeal, for if a Xian admits their internal moral compass is corrupt and horribly-flawed, then how do they trust it in order to make the MORAL DECISION that God actually IS a superior moral agent, deserving of handing over their own decision-making capabilities to Him? Hmmmm, might THEIR decision in fact be flawed, since it was made using their flawed moral compass? Could THEY in fact be wrong?

(Fundamentalist Xian Eric Hovind loves to ask that question of rationalists ("could you be WRONG?"), exploiting the fact that most atheists know statistics and understand that absolute answers rarely exist: instead, the language of math is statistics, which is all about 'confidence intervals', the LEVELS of certainty you obtain, where absolutes don't exist. Eric doesn't get any of that, and claims that NOT possessing absolute certainty is a WEAKNESS, as if someone who claims ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY is more trust-worthy that someone who honestly admits to a measure of uncertainty, however small it may be.)

The problem is we cannot determine the morality of another entity without using our OWN moral compass, so we're ALL independent moral entities, however much anyone wants to claim otherwise.

And such is the case with Adam and Eve's understanding of their disobedience, except the situation is slightly altered, since they didn't possess the wisdom to drive their conscience to understand the immorality of disobeying God.

The often-heard comparison of Adam and Eve to infants and children is actually quite valid, since children seemingly lack shame or self-awareness of their nakedness (hence why they run around nude), and children also act rashly, without thinking of the consequences of their impulsive actions. A child's lack of forethought explains why modern law recognizes the concept of minors not being held fully-liable for their actions, since society EXPECTS them to lack sound judgment: they're children, and that's EXPECTED BEHAVIOR, in their nature! Even in adults, society recognizes the concept of "diminished capacity", where people are not criminally-liable for their actions by reason of temporary insanity, after being diagnosed as sociopaths or psychotic (instead of being sentenced to general population of prisoners, they are sent to a Fed prison with mental heath services).

The Adam and Eve account actually supports the concept of diminished capacity, which reveals they only understood the 'wrongness' of their disobedience only AFTER eating the fruit, after their "eyes had been opened". Hence why they only knew it was wrong AFTER gaining wisdom to know it was a mistake. But that doesn't apply to their decision which was made BEFORE gaining wisdom: they weren't aware.

(Some cite Eve's parroting of the rule to the serpent as evidence that she knew better, but apparently these people have never dealt with children, who can exactly cite the rule they are not supposed to break, and will break it anyway: they haven't intellectualized the reason WHY they should obey, and have to learn the hard way, experiencing consequences for it to sink in. For God to exact death and pain is more than a bit severe, showing a preference to teach lessons via punishment, setting them into an unwinnable scenario, AKA Divine entrapment.)

Of course, this plot element is a classical motif found in a Greek tragedy, where the protagonist only realizes the folly of their action (hamartia), but only AFTER it's too late to do anything about it (anagnoris, defined as a tragic recognition or insight which explains why the character is in their current dilemma). The story also uses elements of foreshadowing (the "and they were naked, and unaware" bit), as the author of the Genesis account apparently was familiar with the common source for the Greek tragedy.

So if taken as literal truth, YHWH needs to be asked:

if God KNEW they were incapable of making sound decisions, then WHY would He place the Tree in the MIDDLE of the Garden, and leave it unprotected, where they possibly could get to it?

Principles of responsible custodianship (not to mention, Federal Laws) say that we cannot leave sweet-tasting anti-freeze (ethylene glycol) out where small child and animals can drink it, since it's toxic and kills; we also cannot leave loaded guns out where children can play with them. Duh? Isn't that OBVIOUS?

To make matters worse for YHWH, the story demonstrates that He actually POSSESSED the ability to block their access to it, thus preventing humans from eating fruit off trees: remember that immediately afterwards, God posted a cherubim with a flaming sword. So YHWH clearly had the necessary technology to protect his wisdom-bestowing fruit, if he's only going to get his nose bent out of shape when someone ate his fruit! (I once had a roommate in college like that, but I digress...)

God comes off more like that sad Uncle who says, "pull my finger!", except a much more sadistic version!

Clearly the story is a Hebraic rewriting of an ancient origins myth common in the Ancient Near East, with Sumerian/Babylonian versions which predate by 1,000 years. The same plot line can be recognized in Greek versions you already likely know (eg Hesiod's story of Prometheus, the demi-god who stole "fire" (a symbol for knowledge) to help mortals; add Pandora's myth into the broth, and there's your Adam and Eve account, with hope remaining in Genesis 3:16.

Only the names have been changed: replace 'Zeus' with 'YHWH', 'Prometheus' with 'the serpent', 'Pandora' with 'Eve', and 'fire' (the ancient symbol in Greek mythology for knowledge) with 'wisdom' (a special form of knowledge, morality), and you've got an identical parallel tale. The gnostics (an early groups of Xians) even recognized the 'good guy' nature of the serpent, just as Prometheus was viewed as the friend or advocate of humanity. Same elements of protagonists being given Sisypean never-ending tasks by God(s) (Adam: cursed by YHWH to work the cursed ground until he died; Prometheus: his liver was eaten daily by an eagle, a symbol for Zeus).

In fact, the Adam and Eve account is counter-balanced by the tale of a young King Solomon who was asked by YHWH in a dream what he desired as a gift: he responded 'wisdom', and hence was granted a generous dollop. The MORAL of the stories is that one should ask before taking.

It's as if YHWH wants to play an elaborate game of "Mother May I?" with mortals, where Adam and Eve lost the game (they also sucked at 'Hide and Seek', with God playing dumb with the, "Adam, where are thou?" line: it's admittedly hard to win, when the guy you're trying to hide from is omniscient, and KNOWS where you are hiding!). In contrast, King Solomon won at the "Mother, May I?" game by ASKING before TAKING (which would be hard to do, anyway, since the Tree of Wisdom has been removed off the face of the Earth by Solomon's time: it likely was chopped down and used to build Noah's Ark, as magic wood). :)

It's absolutely crazy how so many people build their lives around these ancient myths. Seriously, is this Bible thing some kind of inside joke, where I just didn't get the memo (I expect camera crews to jump out any minute, with a host saying I've been punked)?

Adamah

89

"Snakes will eat dirt in the new order."

by Comatose in

i was talking with a jw i've known a long time and the topic of da new order came up.

she mentioned how nice it will be when all animals are at peace.

i asked why they had camouflage and defensive and offensive weapons if they were to always get along?

adamah

Jeffro said:

"So... if mutton dresses as lamb, they're asking for it? Or to put it another way, if people weren't meant to have sex with sheep, God wouldn't have made them so sexy."

I see where you're going here: why make the organs of sexual reproduction so similar between humans and animals, with the ewe vagina so similar to the human vagina such that horny humans would even be able to try?

Why didn't God limit asexual reproduction to animals (eg starfish breaks off a limb which regenerates into two organisms; a bacteria splits into two, via mitosis, etc) and keep the sexual reproduction exclusively for the humans?

That's why it's hard to claim a perfect God created EVERYTHING and then discover problems with the basic design of an imperfect system that was supposedly designed by an Intelligent Designer. It makes no sense, as a God that supposedly can do ANYTHING certainly could've avoided many problems by making different basic design decisions, in the first place.

That's the insight I had as a young teen in the JWs, realizing that a "perfect" God who created everything couldn't have been "perfect" since he created imperfect beings who displayed evil (a branch of theology called "theodicy" has arisen in order to deal with the "problem" of evil).

LIke the old saying goes, 'the fish stinks from the head down', and there's no scape-goating His way out of this predicament, blaming others.

It's irresolvably illogical, and represents a FUNDAMENTAL Achille's Heel in the hypothesis of God, which isn't exactly new: it was voiced 2,500 years ago by Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

PS Oh, then I went to college and learned about biology and evolution: that made TONS more rational sense than the answer, "A Perfect God Dun It!".

mP said:

Not quite, the ancients beleived snakes were messengers of god. Thats why Eve listened to the snake. They blieved they were eternal and not mortal due to snakes shedding their skin and being reborn.

Yeah, that's quibbling over details that neither of us can claim any certainty of KNOWING: those people are long dead, and the far majority didn't leave directed statements explaining their beliefs.

It's reasonable to assume that 'ancient people' were generally no different from modern people in holding a spectrum of beliefs, and that's the problem with making sweeping statement about the beliefs of an ancient people without bothering to define WHAT ancient people you're talking about, and WHEN: the beliefs of a culture will change over time.

In this instance, the story likely was originally written for a Hebrew audience living circa 500 BC emerging from exile in Babylon, and they held many divergent beliefs based on the older mythology of the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, etc. IN MOST cases, the ancient hearer of the story knew of the snake's association with special powers, having Divine insight by seemingly possess the secret powers of regeneration, etc. That viewpoint changed with time as syncretism under Persian/Hellenistic/Roman influences occurred, but the point is not to understand what the mythical character EVE believed in 4,000 BC, but what the AUDIENCE would think.

The story contains a few anachronistic elements (AKA continuity errors, elements that are inconsistent with the time in which the the story is set), which are a "tell" that the story was written much later. The most obvious is the "flaming sword"; the story was set in 4,000 BC, long before the sword had supposedly been invented (even later in Genesis). Whoopsie!!

Adamah