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Goodbye Jesus

God's Secret Law In Eden.


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Universalism is the only rational and just ending in this context.

 

OR, it's a complete bunch of crap.

 

Thanks BAA, for explaining it so thoroughly!   :)

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Universalism is the only rational and just ending in this context.

 

That was the corner I had to flee to in my last days of being a Christian. Applying just the smallest amount of common sense made me question the entire concept of sin, hell, and salvation. For thousands of years Chinese people lived their lives and died, all without hearing the "good news" of Christ's death on the cross. According to most mainline Christian denominations that means they are in hell, through no fault of their own. 

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Good work, BAA.

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BAA, if I were I a Xtian I would be utterly exhausted by your onslaught.

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Excellent post, BAA.  You've raised this quandary before.  It's a rather important problem for Christianity.  I have yet to see any meaningful response from any theist, ever, although some Christians have tried to patch it with common theist nonsense.

 

One thing to add - Adam and Eve were allegedly created as adults:  they had no childhood or prior life experience from which to gain knowledge for themselves, including any experience regarding how to act with other humans, or other species.  In reality (not mythology), humans learn about moral, amoral and immoral behavior by being immersed in a society composed of other humans.  Their own behaviors are usually based on what they learn from others in the society in which they live, develop and grow.  Adam and Eve, according to the mythology, didn't have that.  Instead, moral, amoral and immoral behavior (the knowledge of good and evil) is contained in a fruit from a particular tree.  What a fantasy.  Reality is quite different.

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The Serpent was not Humanity's antagonist, but their nemesis; not their enemy, but their ally. The real antagonist, Humanity's arch-enemy, was/is God (Yahweh).

Yes, Zosia Mamet nails that aspect of the Serpent's role and character in this stunning dramatic portrayal:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-kk6UGKxsg

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Excellent dissection of that passage and its implications, BAA. I like the way you point out that to understand the secret law behind God's command, they'd have to break the command.

 

I've brought up this question before, and I know people have answered it, but somehow it still bugs me. What would you say to the interpreter who happily allegorizes that story and claims "it's a STORY, but it teaches deep spiritual truths"?

 

or the interpreter who doesn't exactly allegorize the story but views it as a profound way of trying to explain the reality we all experience in this flawed world - and in our flawed selves.

 

The former head of my former school is becoming an Episcopalian priest. I don't really want to "go there" with her over this question, but I think she'd think your analysis is irrelevant. She and many like her have various intellectual strategies for explaining the stuff that comes out as incoherent on the sort of fundamentalist interpretation that you so ably skewered.

 

------------

adding: I suppose there's really nothing much more to say on my above question than people have said already.

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Universalism is the only rational and just ending in this context.

 

That was the corner I had to flee to in my last days of being a Christian. Applying just the smallest amount of common sense made me question the entire concept of sin, hell, and salvation. For thousands of years Chinese people lived their lives and died, all without hearing the "good news" of Christ's death on the cross. According to most mainline Christian denominations that means they are in hell, through no fault of their own.

 

BrotherJosh,

 

That's a major issue which came to the fore of my thinking at the beginning of my deconversion.

 

I recall the various theological discussions I had with other Christians, back in the day, when this issue would come up. God is allegedly just and righteous and merciful and blah blah blah bullshite. It's because God makes the rules, defines the terms, then imposes all that upon humanity; but God himself doesn't have to follow the rules because he's God.

 

Beginning with a false premise, one can reach any conclusion. The false premise is "God."

 

 

My 7th grade history teacher told us the Native Americans prior to 1492 are all burning in hell, and most of them afterword too.  

 

I was shocked that god could be so cruel as to condemn people who had no way of knowing about jesus, although at the time I "understood" why those who heard and still rejected jesus would be sent there.

 

I had this teacher for 6-8th grade history, and he also taught my confirmation classes.  I credit him the most with the start of my deconversion.  He showed me what the logical outcome of christian thinking was, taken to the extremes.

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BAA, if I were I a Xtian I would be utterly exhausted by your onslaught.

 

I doubt if Ironhorse would be, Orbit.

 

But just in case... I PMed the whole thing to him, just now.  ;)

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Thanks, sdelsolray.

Excellent post, BAA.  You've raised this quandary before.  It's a rather important problem for Christianity.  I have yet to see any meaningful response from any theist, ever, although some Christians have tried to patch it with common theist nonsense.

 

One thing to add - Adam and Eve were allegedly created as adults:  they had no childhood or prior life experience from which to gain knowledge for themselves, including any experience regarding how to act with other humans, or other species.  In reality (not mythology), humans learn about moral, amoral and immoral behavior by being immersed in a society composed of other humans.  Their own behaviors are usually based on what they learn from others in the society in which they live, develop and grow.  Adam and Eve, according to the mythology, didn't have that.  Instead, moral, amoral and immoral behavior (the knowledge of good and evil) is contained in a fruit from a particular tree.  What a fantasy.  Reality is quite different.

 

Yes, indeed.

Adam and Eve didn't have the experience base we all draw upon, which, we derive from our interactions with others.  Yet, God seemed quite happy to let them make the most important decision in human history in a state of blissful ignorance and innocence.  Then, having hidden the meaning of the law he entrapped them with, he wasn't content with punishing only them.  No.  He didn't just punish their descendants, to the third and fourth generation, he punished ALL generations.  That's all of us.  So, children as yet unborn and children, yet to be conceived will be punished for Adam and Eve's singular act of disobedience.

 

Which makes me wonder if human justice is somehow unjust, in comparison to God's justice?

After all, we only hold those who break a law responsible for this crime, right?  We don't hold their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren and ALL of their descendants guilty of that one crime - in perpetuity, do we?  Nor do we punish every succeeding generation for the sins of their parents - in perpetuity, do we? 

.

.

.

 

You see, sdelsolray.

This touches on another aspect of Adam and Eve's punishment that was impossible for them to understand, before they ate that magical fruit.  How could they have possibly understood that God planned to link their future disobedience to the fate of ALL CREATION...?  That their punishment was NOT JUST Death?

 

Genesis 2 : 15 - 17

 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

 

 

Do you see where God warns them that their punishment for disobedience would be much, much more than Death?  I don't.
 
Do you see where God warns them that He's placing the ultimate fate of every human being on their shoulders?  I don't.
 
Do you see where God warns them that billions of their descendants will also suffer agonizing diseases, before dying?  I don't.
 
Do you see where God warns them that many millions of their descendants will be born with terrible deformities?  I don't.
 
Do you see where God warns them that the entire animal kingdom will also suffer with disease, deformity and death?  I don't.
.
.
.
 
Yep!  
That Yahweh... he's real 'good' at keeping the important things secret, just when it matters most.
 
Thanks,
 
BAA.
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Excellent dissection of that passage and its implications, BAA. I like the way you point out that to understand the secret law behind God's command, they'd have to break the command.

 

The ultimate Catch-22, I'd say.  

 

I've brought up this question before, and I know people have answered it, but somehow it still bugs me. What would you say to the interpreter who happily allegorizes that story and claims "it's a STORY, but it teaches deep spiritual truths"?

 

In the context of my article Ficino, I haven't got anything at all to say to such an interpreter.

I've been at pains to treat the Genesis narrative as literally true, not as any kind of metaphor or allegory.  So, if doing this makes God seem like a sadistic monster, then I'm (not) sorry - but that's how the text describes Him.  Imho, a Christian who takes the Genesis narrative literally... has to deceive themselves about God's nature and character, to conclude that He is love.  (Waves to Ironhorse!  LeslieWave.gif )

 

or the interpreter who doesn't exactly allegorize the story but views it as a profound way of trying to explain the reality we all experience in this flawed world - and in our flawed selves.

 

Same answer.  

 

The former head of my former school is becoming an Episcopalian priest. I don't really want to "go there" with her over this question, but I think she'd think your analysis is irrelevant. She and many like her have various intellectual strategies for explaining the stuff that comes out as incoherent on the sort of fundamentalist interpretation that you so ably skewered.

 

In my book, her 'various intellectual strategies' are of the same order of self-deceit as that practiced by the kind of Christian referred to above.

They are more cleverly veneered, but still amount to lying to oneself.

 

------------

adding: I suppose there's really nothing much more to say on my above question than people have said already.

 

Agree.  But with one proviso.

 

We DO need to keep on saying how it really is... for the sake of those lurking, thinking of de-converting or struggling with their de-conversion.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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I have to skedaddle right now.

 

But I'd like to extend my thanks to the kind words of you other folks who've chimed in on this thread. 

 

Now, if you REALLY want to make me happy, please go back and re-read my opening post with a critical eye and do your level best to tear it down and refute it.  By doing this, you'll be doing us ALL a great deal of help.  We can only benefit if we subject each others viewpoints to the harshest possible (but constructive) criticism.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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I have to skedaddle right now.

 

But I'd like to extend my thanks to the kind words of you other folks who've chimed in on this thread. 

 

Now, if you REALLY want to make me happy, please go back and re-read my opening post with a critical eye and do your level best to tear it down and refute it.  By doing this, you'll be doing us ALL a great deal of help.  We can only benefit if we subject each others viewpoints to the harshest possible (but constructive) criticism.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

Hello BAA, in answer to your request, here are a few quickie nits to pick with what you wrote.

 

1. One might challenge your description of God’s command as a law. Usually laws are couched as generalities, no – e.g. “whosoever shall… shall not…” This one is spoken to two individuals. The text does not say that God’s command will apply to all other, future humans. I don’t really think this law vs. command distinction is relevant to your argument, though.

 

2. The possessive “its” has no apostrophe. The contraction of “it is,” viz. “it’s,” does have an apostrophe. Heh heh.

 

3. As a fundy, I would have replied that Adam and Eve didn’t need to understand good and evil. They didn’t need to figure out what was good or not good. All they had to do was trust God. They did not trust God. They disobeyed (just the way you’re doing, BAA, thou that shalt burn in hell). So, says once-fundy, your argument fails. No entrapment, no Catch-22.

 

4. As a Calvinist fundy, I would perhaps have added that God predestines everything according to His will and pleasure. So God predestined all this stuff. What’s the problem? You, a mere sinful creature, cannot even know what good, evil, and justice are except by God’s common grace, so you’re not competent to say that God was unjust.

 

5. As a Catholic, I would have pulled in genre arguments, parallels to other ancient literature, etc. to try to siphon off some stuff (I’m not sure what). Then I would have brought in Augustine’s famous line, which made its way into the Easter liturgy: “O felix culpa, quae talem and tantum meruit habere redemptorem.” O happy fault, which deserved to have such a great redeemer. As Milton does in Paradise Lost, I would have said that your analysis misses the mark because it neglects how great is the result of God’s plan: redeemed believers are knit to God with even deeper bonds than those that would have knit an obedient Adam and Eve to Him. It is greater to be redeemed than to be sinless creatures that never needed redemption. Only through redemption does one come to BE PARTAKERS IN THE DIVINE NATURE, as Peter says. Even the Blessed Virgin Mary is bound to her Lord by redemption, not by sinlessness. (A Calvinist could go along with this, too.)

 

6. The liberal strategy I already mentioned in my earlier response. I think it’s a pallid and weaker version of #5.

 

So I guess I’d say that criticisms I can think of are not really criticism of your argument, as far as it goes, but of how you assessed the relative value of some of the terms in your assumptions.

 

This is the best I can do now! Cheers, F

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I have to skedaddle right now.

 

But I'd like to extend my thanks to the kind words of you other folks who've chimed in on this thread. 

 

Now, if you REALLY want to make me happy, please go back and re-read my opening post with a critical eye and do your level best to tear it down and refute it.  By doing this, you'll be doing us ALL a great deal of help.  We can only benefit if we subject each others viewpoints to the harshest possible (but constructive) criticism.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

BAA,

 

As you know, I do not believe that Adam and Eve were truly innocent.  Eve had the capacity to experience envy and pride, which enabled her to look at the fruit and desire the knowledge she could gain from it.  This leads me to the conclusion that Adam and Eve were created with the capacity to sin from the beginning and that god knowingly used the fruit merely as an excuse to sell them out to the very sin he had created them with.  We arrive at the same conclusion, to wit: it was god's intention to entrap them.  However, we take different routes to get there.

 

Cheers,

TRP

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Thanks for the input, F.

 

I'll give some thought to your points and get back to you.

 

(But if anyone else wants to respond in the meantime, don't wait for me... jump right in!)

 

BAA.

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3. As a fundy, I would have replied that Adam and Eve didn’t need to understand good and evil. They didn’t need to figure out what was good or not good. All they had to do was trust God. They did not trust God. They disobeyed (just the way you’re doing, BAA, thou that shalt burn in hell). So, says once-fundy, your argument fails. No entrapment, no Catch-22.

 

I suppose one could answer that by saying that Adam & Eve couldn't trust God because they had no knowledge about whether or not is was a good thing or an evil thing to trust God.

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3. As a fundy, I would have replied that Adam and Eve didn’t need to understand good and evil. They didn’t need to figure out what was good or not good. All they had to do was trust God. They did not trust God. They disobeyed (just the way you’re doing, BAA, thou that shalt burn in hell). So, says once-fundy, your argument fails. No entrapment, no Catch-22.

 

I suppose one could answer that by saying that Adam & Eve couldn't trust God because they had no knowledge about whether or not is was a good thing or an evil thing to trust God.

 

Dude, they didn't have to know! That's the genius of it. All they had to do was know what "thou shalt not eat..." means and then keep their mouths shut.

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To the Prof...

 

Yes, we have convergent ideas about entrapment... for sure.

But I've taken great pains to try and see the Genesis narrative from Adam and Eve's totally innocent p.o.v.  This meant making a deliberate effort to try and forget what I know about Good and Evil, about Reward and Punishment and about Death. To try and put aside the stuff that sdelsolray mentioned that we unconsciously and consciously absorb from others, as we grow up. (Fyi, this wasn't easy!) 

 

In doing this I've tried to question everything I'd normally take for granted.

I've also tried to question everything I can in the text.  Obviously I can't succeed, because too much goes on in my subconscious mind for me to be consciously aware of it.  But I HAVE tried to start with as clean a slate as possible.  This meant NOT beginning with the idea that Yahweh was an evil and manipulative monster.  If I did that I'd be doing exactly the same as an indoctrinated Christian would do - albeit in an inverted way.  Such a Christian would begin with the preconceived notion that Yahweh is good and this would influence them from get go, biasing their exploration of Genesis.

 

My exploration (trying to see things from the p.o.v. of Adam and Eve) has lead me to conclude that they were entrapped by Yahweh.

 

By this I mean that by taking the text literally and applying the logic of complete innocence, I've concluded that they had no hope of understanding what God meant by His warning.  Since God would have foreknown this, I'm therefore forced to conclude that it was His intention that they disobey Him. 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To the Prof...

 

Yes, we have convergent ideas about entrapment... for sure.

But I've taken great pains to try and see the Genesis narrative from Adam and Eve's totally innocent p.o.v.  This meant making a deliberate effort to try and forget what I know about Good and Evil, about Reward and Punishment and about Death. To try and put aside the stuff that sdelsolray mentioned that we unconsciously and consciously absorb from others, as we grow up. (Fyi, this wasn't easy!) 

 

In doing this I've tried to question everything I'd normally take for granted.

I've also tried to question everything I can in the text.  Obviously I can't succeed, because too much goes on in my subconscious mind for me to be consciously aware of it.  But I HAVE tried to start with as clean a slate as possible.  This meant NOT beginning with the idea that Yahweh was an evil and manipulative monster.  If I did that I'd be doing exactly the same as an indoctrinated Christian would do - albeit in an inverted way.  Such a Christian would begin with the preconceived notion that Yahweh is good and this would influence them from get go, biasing their exploration of Genesis.

 

My exploration (trying to see things from the p.o.v. of Adam and Eve) has lead me to conclude that they were entrapped by Yahweh.

 

By this I mean that by taking the text literally and applying the logic of complete innocence, I've concluded that they had no hope of understanding what God meant by His warning.  Since God would have foreknown this, I'm therefore forced to conclude that it was His intention that they disobey Him. 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

BAA,

 

I remember a thread you started maybe a year ago or so about how Yahweh's command was only given to Adam and not Eve and you explored the communication, knowledge and timing issues surrounding that.

 

But I can't find the thread.

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Yes indeed, sdelsolray!

 

This is the very issue the Prof was referring to earlier.

 

Please go to the thread, "God Is a Liar" in the Den (started by the Prof on Feb 27 this year) and see post # 11.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

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That's it.

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To the Prof...

 

Yes, we have convergent ideas about entrapment... for sure.

But I've taken great pains to try and see the Genesis narrative from Adam and Eve's totally innocent p.o.v.  This meant making a deliberate effort to try and forget what I know about Good and Evil, about Reward and Punishment and about Death. To try and put aside the stuff that sdelsolray mentioned that we unconsciously and consciously absorb from others, as we grow up. (Fyi, this wasn't easy!) 

 

In doing this I've tried to question everything I'd normally take for granted.

I've also tried to question everything I can in the text.  Obviously I can't succeed, because too much goes on in my subconscious mind for me to be consciously aware of it.  But I HAVE tried to start with as clean a slate as possible.  This meant NOT beginning with the idea that Yahweh was an evil and manipulative monster.  If I did that I'd be doing exactly the same as an indoctrinated Christian would do - albeit in an inverted way.  Such a Christian would begin with the preconceived notion that Yahweh is good and this would influence them from get go, biasing their exploration of Genesis.

 

My exploration (trying to see things from the p.o.v. of Adam and Eve) has lead me to conclude that they were entrapped by Yahweh.

 

By this I mean that by taking the text literally and applying the logic of complete innocence, I've concluded that they had no hope of understanding what God meant by His warning.  Since God would have foreknown this, I'm therefore forced to conclude that it was His intention that they disobey Him. 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

I see what you are saying, BAA.  We know god to be evil because we can see him from the vantage point of the old testament narrative.  Adam and Eve would have had no way of understanding whether god was good, evil, both, or neither until after they broke the law.  This left them with little option but to either trust him or not.  

 

Because of their innocence and the lack of social interaction, as shown by sdelsolray, Adam and Eve had no way of even understanding that god was attempting to entrap them.  They had nothing by which to gauge god's intentions toward them, until after they broke the law.

 

It's clear that god intended for them to disobey, which, I think, speaks to Eve having the ability to experience envy and pride.  However, it occurred to me this morning that Eve would have had no way of understanding that the pride and envy she felt was evil (can't understand why I didn't realize this sooner).  Her ability to feel it, but not be able to understand it, would therefore place her in a state of innocence, in a sense.  god, therefore, created her capable of sinning, but without the necessary understanding to choose not to.

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