eve was tricked into eating the apple.
the serpant was possessed by the devil.
adam took the apple from eve, even though god specifically told him not to. eve was not told. eve wanted to eat this apple to be all- knowing. adam just liked it because it looked good- it seduced him.
but god was “all-powerful” and “all-knowing”, could he not stop them?
embracetrees wrote:
Of course He could. But you cant blame any being, if you would like to ascribe blame, it would have to be on natural progression.
…elaborate on that please…
embracetrees wrote:
When they decided to eat the fruit, it was a decision. It was the free will, the choice, that God allowed us to have. This is a natural progression in the course of evolution. More specifically, being conscious of ourselves, awareness as us being an “I”, this provides for conscious choice, making for conscious consequences.
This conscious awareness is a result of the progressive nature of evolution. It is a must in the evolution of consciousness, for further progression allows for what we had before, simple consciousness, ie. perception alone without the “I” identification, but with added awareness. In simple consciousness alone we were connected with all things, but werent conscious of it. So in progression we move to being aware of ourselves as a separate entity. The next step involves this awareness, but with the all inclusive identification associated with simple consciousness. So we are aware and fully conscious that we are connected with and are all things. We step away from the “I”.
Your reading the story literally. The snake was a representation of immortality not of evil or of “satan”.
It was believed that snakes could live forever because they shed their skins.
as for the allegory, I would ascribe looking at it differently. Why did god find it necessary to place temptation in the middle of the garden? Why was man too lazy, when he was obviously in “good” communication with god, to talk to god about why the fruit is forbidden?
The real sin was one of letting entropy control their actions.
before we go on, how are we supposed to interpret the bible? i am most convinced that bible verses-in fact any peice of literature- can be taken/interpreted in more than a million ways. if not literally, tell me then; how AM i suposed to interpret it??hmm?
How about… any way but literally?
Ask yourself though:
Do I believe that Adam and Eve were the first people on earth?
Do I believe that God(s) made man in their own image?
what can I learn from these creation stories and what interpretation is the most useful to my life?
A very strict christocentric literal interpretation makes the snake evil and eve (the prophetess that the priests were trying to suppress) as being easily beguiled and will beguile man.
A mythical interpretation that allows you to apply the story to your life may be more useful.
Why did man disobey god?
Why did god tempt man?
Are women really to blame for all actions?
Can we be tempted from outside sources? or do we look to blame outside sources for our own mistakes?
let me tackle 4 to give you an example of what I mean.
The original story that this was taken from, the “tree of knowledge” was the “tree of life”
it’s clear with a mythological take that man’s common mistake when he screws up is to blame someone else… man blames the woman, woman blames the snake, god holds all 3 responsible.
later on in the story of cain, we find cain taking up the same behaviour… he has just killed his brother and asks the lord, “Am I my brothers keeper?”
To shrug off the responsibility of his action.
This goes back to my entropy statement… All to common we take the path of least resistance which means avoiding responsibility for our actions and trying to find a scapegoat. Even the sacrificial lamb of god, and jesus is nothing more than a scapegoat for our own transgressions.
I think you missed something.
There was no original sin. At least this wasn’t it.
Every father loves their children.
Good fathers know that one day they have to let them go.
To go and discover the world for themselves.
How would a father know when the time comes?
When they don’t obey his rules anymore!
lets say i create a robot and give him the ability to kill my family with chainsaws. i program into him that he should not kill my family.
snake pliskin shows up and reprograms him to kill my family, and he does.
what should i do? should i kick myself for allowing this dangerous thing to be so easily reprogrammed? should i kill snake for doing the reprogramming?
NO!! i should send that god DAMN robot to the fiery pits of hell for all eternity!!!
NO! i should make a new robot. a magical robot without the ability to kill and superpowers of healing and inebriating.
…AND THEN I WILL KILL HIM!!! and then i will repair him three days later. and then after 40 days i will turn him off and put him on the mini fridge on my right hand side for the next two thousand years. and then, as a direct result of these actions, robots created in the future will have their programming protected with a password.
im god, bitch! its not supposed to make any sense.
best post ever.
For note: In ME and Far East there are certain traditions involved with language.
In Arabic, it is called tawil.
In Hebrew, it is called midrash.
These traditions say that within the communication of language, and knowledge and experience as the basis(both physical and spiritual), there is a natural bias that occurs as the one with more knowledge and experience speaks at a level above the understanding of the one with less, hence, interpretation is the natural element to fill the gap created by the differences. So named as defined above.
The first versions of the Torah/Pentatuech/OT, were written either in Aramaic, or possibly Akkadian(relative dialectic of the former). Later when Hebrew developed, it was written again. Then I am quite sure everyone knows the procession into western languages. This creates a number of problems, only two of which I will list:
Eastern languages are pictograph based and any character has two components: picture and phonetic. Characters in those languages can look very similar, but it is the phonetic part of the character that decides the meaning. They do not translate directly for this reason, and the fact that the interpretation level inherent to the language is obviated, means it cannot be translated at all.
Add to this the fact that the Torah, in old times was always taught in conjunction with the Kabbalah(initially a verbal tradition, later a manuscript), “mysticism”, and that has all but died, even in the greater part of the Judeaic world.
The Western Christian model of the Creation story does not include the discourses of Sophia(from the Kabbalah), (french translation of the Hebrew word for “wisdom”), who was the “heavenly witness” to the creation of all things, and sat on the right of God during this time and gave accounts.
As was said before, you must translate it at a personal level, from within, and that interpretation must be individual and therefore is not particularly relevant to anyone but the individual. Yes, there are essentially understood components of the story, but the interworkings of it are personal. This was intended, as is in line with the traditions of the originators, from the perspective of the era and culture.
From my perspective, Adam was obviously the greater of the fools, as is in line with the fact that I believe the female is inherently more adroit, due to an evolution of intuitive intellect.
I found some success, in finding “contridictions” then exploring to find where I am flawed in my reasoning, to judge them as such. Kind of like setting out to prove yourself in error. I have had much success in doing this, and learned a whole bunch too.
Kind of like a “challenge” “argument”, or “disagreement”. You cannot really “lose”. If you “lose” you learn, if you “win” you help someone.
Unless you resort to violence or a gun and allow that to steal all the thunder.
It is a shame so many people are so scared of consequeces, that they are afraid to make decisions on their own, so higher ups do it, and when it goes bad, the little people still get the blame, and don’t get to grow and learn from it either, because it was someone elses order who cannot be wrong.
Kind of like the president of Ford, setting out strict rules for all the parts people, techs, and salesmen, rules to tell them how to handle every situation. What is going to happen??? 
i don’t think “original sin” matters. We humans with free will screw up enough on our own to then include some blame game. Love requires choice between “good” and “evil.” This choice requires the possibility of both disjuncts being actualised. Forced faith isn’t faith…and faith is all about faith.
We are not robots, or else we’re pretty damn good at not being robots.
If God is all-knowing, it’s funny how he would just leave a crappy little missinterporatation for us, if it contained the most vital truth known to earth.
http://bible-truths.com/lake2.html
In some ways this^ makes a bit more “sense” then “Christianity” [in general], but it is still utterly mad.
All I feel is frustration when I hear so many people preach this and that.
If there is a life form that created all things, and the bible is half true, then my best bet is that “God” just ran out of fuel after creating so much stuff, and he went to sleep. From then on we see the world going ape-shit, and God inactive.
[size=75]I’d rather be worshiping Symbeos…[/size]
=(