No disrespct taken, KFC.  We clearly see and understand scripture and faith practice differently.  I would object to the "lie" part, though...we have different understandings honestly come to.  

I do not know how focusing on the Godliness of humanity is the same as taking one's eye off the model.  Jesus asked you to follow him, did he not? 

We are all to become holy, God has commanded us to do so.  The question is how? Jews believe we become holy through a meticulous adherence to scriptual commandments on he one hand, and contemplative practices, on the otherhand, those these days, these are much less well known. 

I do not know how God's breath which gave us each life is not a part of us.  You seem to reject this scriptual view.  No worries.

Be well.

 

No. The difference is that evolution can be tested in a lab while Creationism cannot.

We can observe how two animal populations evolve into two (or more) different directions. That may not be much, but it makes the theory falsifiable. (If the two populations would not evolve separately, evolution would be wrong. And no, it doesn't matter if the differences are enough for Creationists to accept.)

But we cannot even observe the tiniest example for spontaneous creation caused by any god (or space aliens or whoever) in a lab. Hence that proposal is not falsifiable and is not science. (If it could be tested and the god failed to create life or anything at all in the lab, Creationism would be wrong. And no, it doesn't matter if whatever the god creates is enough for Darwinists to accept.)

 

And no where does he argue that we derive from apes, just that organisms move from the simple to the complex and that through natural selection, differences arise.  His Descent of Man was an eloquent  description not of what has become a caricature, Social Darwinism, but more the power of cooperation and mutual aid within species.

 

Be well.

SoDaiho Posts: 888

SoDaiho,

Pure and simple, here you are saying that we are God just as Jesus is.

KFC POSTS:

I agree KFC. By believing that we, like Jesus, are God made manifest, SoDaiho has bought into the same lie that Satan sold to Eve.



This is a completely different argument from what you first said.

Yes, we know it's true for Genesis tells us that God breathed life into our soul..that's how we become "alive". It is in our soul that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

I disagree.  Its not God's breath that was breathed into us.  This is a confusion caused by anthropomorphism. God doesn't have breath.  It was God Himself. Be well.

 

The story in chapter two of Genesis is very interesting, isn't it?  It offers many challenges, even challenges to a contemporary understanding of the nature of God. There are two aspects of import, it seems to me.  First is temptation itself, which, I think, is the real issue, not the effect of eating what might have been forbidden.

In this context, what's interesting is that Eve didn't exist when God commanded Adam not to eat. So, Eve was innocent, in more ways than one, by taking the fruit.  Of course, we could argue that ignorance is no excuse, but then, to be fair, we must keep in mind, Adam and Eve both were very simple.  They had no ability to discern right from wrong, nor did they have knowledge or wisdom. so why would God be sooo upset?

It was their succumbing to temptation, I suspect. Yet God knew very well they would succumb if tempted: he made them that way, afterall.

 

In spite of what the serpent argues, they will not become as Gods or divine beings. This was his lie. He argues they possess the ability to discern what is right and wrong, good nutrition, and have the ability to gain wisdom.  God, on the other hand, has told Adam if he should eat of the fruit he will die.  Interesting, isn't it?

In a very real sense, Adam and Eve were not complete human beings.  They could not distinguish between right and wrong, in other words they had no moral autonomy, they lacked any sort of judgement, and by today's standards they would be complete morons, with a functional IQ of zip.

So, what are we to make of this?   God punishes two people who were not capable of discerning right from wrong.  One of these people did,'t even know she wasn't to eat.

Once they ate they did not die, in the sense we ordinarily think of it. Their innocence died.  They became aware.  They awakened, so to speak.

But they did not become divine in the sense we ordinarily think of it.

I suspect God's children had to grow up. It is, afterall, what children do.  One way of looking at the so-called "fall" is that the children of God helped God by completing His work.  Partnering with Him to set the stage for the drama to follow.

 

Be well.

 

Here's the passage:

Genesis 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth; and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul."


Sodaiho posts:

And then SoDaiho posts:


You seem to be the one who is confused.


SoDaiho posts:

Sorry SoDaiho, but Eve knew and therefore wasn't innocent. Chapter 3:1-5 has it that the serpent asked Eve, "Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?"

2 "And the woman answered him saying, "of the fruit if the trees that are in paradise we do eat: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God has commanded [B]us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die." 4 And the serpent said to the woman, No, you shall not die the death. 5 For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened; and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."[/B]

SoDaiho Posts: 888


KFC POSTS:

After reading verses 1-5, can you see why I agree with KFC and said that ?

My Torah translation uses "dust" not slime. And both use "breath of life."  Now just what do you suppose that is when we are talking about a non-corporeal God?  Answer, His spirit, which I believe is the more appropriate translation of ruach.  In any event, Lula, God is not a being who breathes.  The text is as it is for human understanding at the level we were able to understand at the time.

It may appear that way, but in one case I am using the same metaphor as the Torah does, in the second case, I am explaining it.

 

Exactly,  It is the serpent who is instructing and enticing Eve, not God.  Maybe Eve is just repeating what Adam had to say, but the Torah does not show God instructing Eve as she was not made when God instructed Adam on the subject. 

How can someone who is not competent to discern right from wrong be anything other than innocent?  I really want to know.

Be well

 

With palms together,

 

Well everyone, its time for me to go to Temple to welcome the Sabbath bride.

Shabbat shalom.

 

We know by reading Chapter 3 that Eve was not ignorant of God's command that they were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man, like the angels, was gifted with free will and had to undergo a probation. God gave them a command by which they could freely choose Him or against Him. That command stands with each and every one of us today.




God created them in His image and likeness, their soul in a state of sanctity and their physical natural body was immortal. God raised them above everything else with gifts of intellect and reason, made them to rule over all the creatures and the world. Adam was given charge to name all the animals, etc. It takes knowledge for that. God gave man reason that he might know right from wrong.





There were never to become divine. As long as they remained in a state of grace, that is they obeyed God's one command, they would not have died, but would have been translated, body and soul, from the earthly paradise to the heavenly paradise.



Yes, they died a twofold death. Almighty God threatened them with a twofold death, the death of the soul and the death of the body. The last one didn't take place immediately after the sin was committed, for Adam lived on earth till he was 930 years old, but all the same from the moment he sinned, his body became liable to death. The death of the soul took place the very instant the sin was committed. The soul cannot lose it's natural life becasue its an immortal spirit, but it lost its supernatural life founded on supernatural grace and friendship with God. The loss of supernatural grace is the soul's supernatural death, and leads to eternal death as a result of grevious (deadly) sins.



God knew that they would fall, but that wasn't the only thing GOd knew. He knew that they would not be compelled to fall for sin is an evil choice of free will and God will not coerce the will of Adam and Eve in favor of fidelty. Our first parents remained in control of their destinies and they were fully responsible for their choice. God knew also that granted sin side by side with His justice, His mercy would so provide for mankind that good would result from the evil, so much so that it would be infinitely better for mankind to have been created and to fall from grace, than not to have been created at all.

Mercy did grant ultimate forgiveness to them, for Scripture tells us that God drew them from their sin. Wisdom 10:2. But mercy itself demanded that this should only be after they had learned humility from consequent miseries.



The sin of Adam and Eve didn't produce the Atonement. God produced the atonement in order to repair the sin of our first parents and of all subsequent generations.

As God's children, we have to grow up by making correct use of our mind and free will in accordance with God's law.

SODAIHO POSTS:

lula posts:


SODAIHO POSTS:

The Genesis passage says that the Lord God formed man and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

God breathes life into us and we become alive. Where's the metaphor here?

Scripture doesnt't tell us how Eve knew, but chapter 3 reveals that by her answer she did indeed know of God's prohibition not only not to eat it, but they weren't even supposed to touch it according to Eve.




This is very telling and a very good lesson for us...

The serpent asks Eve, "Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?" Why?

Satan was very cunning here by not just saying, eat of the tree.... Instead he asked, why in order that Eve might be induced to hesitate and question whether God's prohibition was a legitimate one and whether God really meant it. Eve must have understood that this was an evil talking through the serpant and what she should have done was not answer and flee or said God has willed it and I don't ask why becasue I know God wants what is best for us. Instead, Eve let herself be drawn into the conversation and the devil had already gained half his object.

Don't touch it means that was God's command so that they might keep away from even the occasion to sin. Pretty good stuff I'd say!

Where do you get all this stuff about "Satan"?

In the Hebrew Bible he is merely a servant of G-d acting as the accuser in the court where G-d is the judge.

Other legends, like the Yezidi religion (native Kurdish religion with probably Aramaic roots) claim that the Peacock Angel (Melakh Taus or Melakh Tavus, spelt ML'K TVVS in Hebrew/Aramaic) rebelled againt G-d but soon repented and it is said that his tears quenched the fires of hell.

Islam has the devil as an evil figure, like Christianity. But where their takes come from, I do not know.

But Zoroastrianism (the faith identified in the Bible as that of the righteous king Cyrus, the only non-Jew bestowed with the title Messiah in the Bible) doesn't have a person "devil", although it does have the idea of "good" and "evil" as forces.

Bahai'is (a complicated Muslim of-shoot) do not believe in a "devil" either, only in free will.

You can see the Bahai temple here:

http://web.mac.com/ajbrehm/Resources/November.html#9


Seems to me that legends of the devil being an evil angel have been introduced into monotheism from pagan Arab ideas of evil jinns and pagan Greek ideas of horned demons.

I reject all beliefs of supernatural evils as superstition and paganism.

(But I do watch Buffy and root for good girls and Xander. Vampires are evil!)

Leauki,

Good Shabbos.

My sense of this material in post 914 is that human beings tend to anthropomorphize their fears and hopes.  Stories, such as the biblical creation stories, are our attempts at understanding and teaching.  Human beings use devices like "God" as a being and the "Adversary" as a being, to play out the drama in our lives. Much as the Greeks and Romans did with their pantheon. 

In trying to undersand God it seems, historicaly, that we must do these things.  Judaism's kabbalists did this with the ten seferot, aspects of the Divine reflected in man, Torah, etc.

Catholicism does this with the trinity and a pantheon of angels and saints.

We just have a very hard time with God is One. Nor do we really have the language for it.  So we use metaphors such as "the hand of God" or the "breath of God" to discuss what we wish (or think) is His relationship to us and the universe.

We get in trouble when we make the metaphor real, because the hand becomes an object and an object is bounded: instant dualism. Or, as Lula is fond of saying, "error".

Be well

I've been around and around this so many times. The same "evidence" used to support evolution is also used to support biblical creationism. Obviously, if biblical creationism was scientifically disproven, there wouldn't be a single scientist that believed in it.



This is fact mixed with opinion Leauki.

The fact: "We can observe how two animal populations evolve into two (or more) different directions" (very unscientifically worded, but we get the general idea).

The opinion: "It makes the theory falsifiable. If the two populations would not evolve separately, evolution would be wrong."

This scientific fact that that you stated is accepted by evolutionists and creationists and can be predicted by hypotheses. Here's how:

1. Evolution predicts a common ancester to all life- thus, you would expect a change in two animal populations in two different directions over time.

2. God created variation within the created kinds of animals and in humans too- thus, you would expect a change in two animal populations in two different directions over time.

Now this is opinion "If the two populations would not evolve separately, evolution would be wrong," is incorrect. There are a myriad of variables that could explain why the two populations didn't evolve, if that were the case.

For example, if there is no external conditions present to cause natural selection, you would expect the populations to remain relatively constant. In the same way, because the two populations evolved over time, doesn't prove that creationism is wrong. This is because the observation of "two animal populations evolve into two (or more) different directions doesn't prove anything. It's an observation that can be used to support both models. The next step in the scientific method is to then take an observation and interpret the results. Based on your worldview you can interpret these results in many different ways, which was illustrated above.



In the same way that we cannot observe spontaneous life arise from non-life in a lab. These experiements have been attempted and repeatedly fail. So I'll use your own quote:

"Hence that proposal (evolution) is not falsifiable and is not Science." In Science, you can never use observation to say something is not there, but only to say that something is there. This is a simple but important principle. For example, if I perform an experiment to look for a particular type of cell in the brain and I don't find that cell, I can't say that it isn't there. I can only say that I didn't find it. BECAUSE, if I say that something isn't there, and then someone comes after me and uses a more advanced technique to demonstrate that it is there, then I look like a fool.

First of all Eve, we can see quite clearly, knew because she was able to explain to the serpent the rules of the Garden as Lula has pointed out clearly. Later Adam was held responsible because it was he who was supposed to pass this knowledge down and make sure she obeyed God. Adam and Eve did have knowledge but what they lacked was experimental knowledge. That happened when they disobeyed God. Sort of like telling our children not to touch a hot stove because it's hot. While they may know in their head it would be hot they have no experimental knowledge of what this hot feels like. So they don't trust their parents and go ahead and touch that stove to find out for themselves.



See I don't think that's it. They were capable. They just rebelled. I don't believe Adam and Eve were dummies at all. Eve, like I said did know quite well. She just chose to turn her back on what God told her and followed the liar instead.

The two greatest chapters on Satan is Isaiah 14 and Ezek 28. That's considered the Hebrew Bible. There's much more but those two are the ones that really describe and explain who Satan really is.

Leauki posts #851


Re: the highlighted...For this to be true, we'd have to find a legend that mentions rainbows before the time of the Great Flood of Noah. Gilgamesh which you say mentions a rainbow, (but haven't given the actual reference) was after the fact.



Jewish legends? Specifically, what Jewish "legends" did Christianity take and make into Christianity? Hebraic Judaism is God's revealed Revelation of His plan of salvation to mankind....Judaism was the bud and Christianity is Judaism full-blossomed and ever- blossomed until the end of the world.

Hi KFC, I am really puzzled then.  Moral action is contingent upon the ability to discern right from wrong. As I understand the story, it wasn't until after they ate of the tree's fruit that they posessed these attributes. God's commandments are moral imperatives. So, it seems to be suggesting that God held the couple accountable before they had the ability to be accountable.

 

How do you see these people, completely ignorant of the difference between right and wrong, with no...that is, zero...wisdom to be capable?

Be well.

 

God's "breath".

I am not arguing that she did not "know" the rules, although I don't see where she actually received them from God. An idiot can recite a rule verbatum, but not have an iota of understanding as to what the rule actually means. I am arguing just that: Adam and Eve, according to scripture, were moral and ethical imbiciles.

In your analogy to children, the problem is we are being taught nearly from birth, concepts such as right and wrong.  Adam and Eve were born "adults" so to speak, minuse the ability to discern right from wrong or build an aggregate of wisdom based on their experience.  This came with the fruit of the tree.

Believe what you want about the pair, the timing of the text suggests otherwise. One cannot chose to make a moral (or immoral) decision without moral judgement (or a lack thereof) being brought into play.

 

Be well.

Sodaiho posts #852


SoDaiho,

Thanks for pointing this out to Leauki.

Sacred Scripture depiction of the Great Flood in Genesis is a true historical event while the stories about it that followed, like Gilgamesh, depicted some truth and error. Sacred Scripture is the banchmark and all else must be compared with that.

Well then the adults should have learned easier than a child right? They were much more capable as adults with their complete understanding. I don't think they were minus the ability to discern right or wrong. You can see this by Eve's explanation to the serpent. She laid it all out. She knew what the rules were, she knew what breaking the rules would bring yet she chose to forfeit what she knew because Satan offered her (what she thought)a better deal.

And that is still what's going on today. Satan lures us with a better deal and we're still falling for it. It's no different for us today and you can't say we don't know right from wrong.

You and I may know something in our heads but still go ahead and find out xperimentally what we already knew ahead of time don't we? Why are they any different? We are by nature a rebellious creation and we have Adam and Eve to thank for this genetic trait.

Leauki posts #877

Just as in the global Flood of Noah, I tend to believe the obvious meaning of "the 6 days" of Creation, that is, God created space, time and matter in what we know as ordinary days of 24 hours mainly because of the way Scripture describes "evening and morning" of each day.

I agree with Sodaiho. That's why I don't use place names as evidence of the authenticity of the story.

But how do you fit into this?




Unless, of course, somebody decides to read sacred scripture with some knowledge of the language and culture it was written in and happens to disagree with your interpretation of it.

_I_ believe that the flood was a true historical event. But I also believe that it happened, as the Bible says, in _the land_ and not all earth and I believe that the age of the people involved was given in "alterations" and not "years" (and because Genesis and Exodus use the Babylonian LUNAR calender and not the later Hebrew lunisolar calendar an alteration would have been a month).

What I _don't_ believe is that a story translated using a word ("earth") that changed its meaning over hundred of years (from surface to planet) is still the same story. And that's why doing research and comparing it with other legends from the same time is so important.

Perhaps you think it's holy scripture. But you certainly don't respect it much, otherwise you would be interested in what it really says, even if it costs effort and even if it challenges your beliefs.

Knowing things is easier than learning things, isn't it?