Adam, Eve and the Forbidden Fruit

[Peregrine]

Oh yay, this is going to be a long one....

 

MORGOTH:

 

I was in fact referring to Peregrine. His statements do have the impression on me that he is looking at the bible from an entirely fundamentalist point of view, i.e. he takes bible passages absolutely literally and thinks that they are meant to be looked upon as both history and fact.

 

I do this for a few reasons:

 

1) Some people are that irrational, and insist on every word as literal truth.

 

2) The standards of truth/fiction are unclear and different for each person. Unless they clearly state which sections they consider to be true, there is no way to know.

 

3) The bible is the fundamental "truth" christianity is based on. For it to mean anything, a majority of it must be believed to be true. So for christians as a whole, it is more likely than not that a specific section will be believed to be true. Therefore in the absence of clear definition of beliefs, I assume belief in the bible as literal truth (or at least close to literal truth).

 

4) No official revision of the bible has been published to remove the questionable sections. If some "stories" are not true, why does the official bible fail to declare them as that?

 

I get the impression that Peregrine thinks the story of the fall of Man as told in the bible has actually happened and that he can therefore draw conclusion about God's nature (whose existence he denies... o.O) and religion in itself.

 

And you say it isn't true? What argument that you use to discard that story does not apply equally well to any other story? If you reject one story, why don't you do the same for that Jesus guy? Or is it that you just ignore anything that is inconvenient for your case?

 

Perhaps I have not got my point across that I do not deny that there are texts in the bible that are simply stories (the description of the creation of Earth would be one of them).

However, I did object to statements that claimed all texts in the bible are purely fiction.

 

Again, if you are willing to reject some parts, why do you insist on believeing in any of it?

 

 

DARNOC:

 

If you read the passage carefully, you will notice that god asks Adam and Eve after they have eaten what they have done and both want try to blame someone else (Adam his wife Eve and Eve the snake). Now some theologists argued that god would have forgiven them if they would have told the truth and said "I have done it" instead of blaming someone else. Note that at the point where they blamed someone else they were fully aware of their actions and knew what was good and bad, this means they blamed someone else for something they have done even when they knew that this is not right. And this is per definition sin.

 

You say it is merely blaming, but it isn't. Their statements are simple truth, if you trace the responsibility (considering the ignorant state before eating the apple). Without the snake's actions, the fruit is ignored. Without Eve's actions (potentially sin now that knowledge of sin exists), Adam doesn't eat it.

 

There you are right, Morgoth. Some texts of the bible are historical accurate (at least in some parts) and were proven to be correct by archeological findings. For example it is proven that the biblical texts must be very old and were always copied very carefully, because the scrolls of Qumran (some of them ca. 200 BC) are almost to the last letter the same as the today hebraic texts. Or that they have found Hiskias water tunnel from the Gihon well to the pool of Siloah beneath Jerusalem. Also several kings of the Hebrews were mentioned in other sources than the bible (e.g. some texts of assyrian kings on which is written about their conquerings). There are a lot of other examples which prove that the bible is at least in some parts very accurate.

 

Your point? None of this deals with the religious content of the bible. The fact that some historical details are included is a natural result of its origins. The authors would be expected to include facts of their society, just like a modern fiction author could easily use the name of a real leader. But that says nothing about the real content of the story. Where is the evidence for Genesis? There is none, and there is a ton of evidence to contradict it. Where is the evidence for Jesus' "miracles"? There is none. Where is the evidence for god and his actions? There is none.

 

AnOldFriend

 

And I would have to agree with the analogy of the baby (wich might not be a real good anaology considering we are said to be born sinners since A&E ate from the tree of knowledge) but nonthe less the closest thing we can get to to true inocence is a baby. How can you place blame on someone who does not know of what they are doing is right or wrong?

 

If we are born sinners, then that just shows even more clearly how immoral god's definition of sin is. Any rational system of morality does not assume guilt without action. Any rational system of morality considers a person entirely separate from their ancestors, and does not punish them for sins they had nothing to do with.

 

Now about how some of the passages in the bible are purely story is not tru if you ever been to a bible study of some sort you will learn that the bible is written by god himself. Maybe not physicaly but it is told by god to those that did the writting. so therefore the begining and ending of time as written in the bible have to be true atleast to a christian because it is in gods own words or atleast mostly.

 

Which is pure idiocy. If the bible is entirely literal truth, god is not even close to omniscient. God's level of understanding of the universe is slightly less than my dog's. The only way to salvage even the slightest bit of reasonable "truth" from the bible is to discard significant parts of it as human error.

 

So therefore the bible is a hostroy book of the past present and future and you can not deny that if you are a christian or even if you are not and know something about the christian faith.

 

The bible is a collection of primitive myths and superstitions created by human authors with far less knowledge of the world than we have today. No rational person can believe all of it as truth, and believing any of it requires blind faith in the impossible.

[hyperk1]

I dont want to go into anything else but about adam and eve i would have to agree with this part that peregrine said

You say it is merely blaming, but it isn't. Their statements are simple truth, if you trace the responsibility (considering the ignorant state before eating the apple). Without the snake's actions, the fruit is ignored. Without Eve's actions (potentially sin now that knowledge of sin exists), Adam doesn't eat it.

 

The reason that they did that was because of the snake, which the snake is supposed to represent satan, which brings sin. So they would have not touched it if it where not for the snake. And if Eve didnt convince adam fo touch it, he would have been fine, its like a virus, spreading to each person it gets to.

 

I dont have anything else to say about this.

[Maquissar]

In my opinion, the Bible's purpose is not to narrate facts that actually took place.

It's not an historical book, although there are still people nowadays who believe

in every single word of it. The Bible's role was to provide a good moral

model for those who read it during those times - or rather, to those it was

read to during those times - and this model (although it transmits some

values that are still valid nowadays, especially in the New Testament part) is no

longer a valid one in the 21st century. Therefore, even fervent Christian believers

should read the Bible with a grain of salt, interpret it, and adapt it to our times'

way of thinking. If Christian believers were to use the Bible as a moral guide in

its every single part, then they would have to slaughter entire tribes in the

name of God as Moses did --- oh, wait, they did :)

[Malchik]

Yes, Maquissar, I entirely agree. Those with sense in ancient times, saw that society falls apart and gets overrun without organisation and that to remove anarchy there must be laws. However, as human beings won't accept another human being's laws unquestioningly, they say they have come from a higher power (Moses and the ten commandments would be a biblical equivalent).

 

Analyse each commandment and you will see it is designed to cement a cohesive society. This was particularly important at a time of persecution. Even the bit about having only one god is there to prevent internal conflict. We can all see the catastrophes of sectarianism within a faith.

 

It had it's purpose then, and the thought processes behind it are as valid today. Many of these commandments are enshrined in law even now and their concepts underpin all of the major faiths. It should be poined out however that they pre-date christianity and were not this religion's invention.

 

Since then, whenever people wish things were different (to change outdated practices or to reverse such changes) they make their own cults/sects - the Wesleys, Joseph Smith, George Fox, Charles Taze Russell, John Smyth, Mary Baker Eddy and so on. Some sects die out, those mentioned earlier continue. But each involves a personal re-interpretation of 'orthodox' teaching. This is why it is hard, in my view impossible, to divorce a faith as practised, from the texts in which it believes.

[Morgoth]

1) Some people are that irrational, and insist on every word as literal truth.

 

And just because some people behave and think that stupidly, you have to do the same?

 

 

3) The bible is the fundamental "truth" christianity is based on. For it to mean anything, a majority of it must be believed to be true. So for christians as a whole, it is more likely than not that a specific section will be believed to be true. Therefore in the absence of clear definition of beliefs, I assume belief in the bible as literal truth (or at least close to literal truth).

 

The fundamental problem is that people do not believe in the bible. The bible is a collection of texts, if you want to belief in a book, you can belief in Macbeth as well as the bible. People believe in God, not the bible.

 

 

4) No official revision of the bible has been published to remove the questionable sections. If some "stories" are not true, why does the official bible fail to declare them as that?

 

What about the fact that there is no "official bible" (with the exception that canon is a clearly defined collection of texts)?

 

And you say it isn't true? What argument that you use to discard that story does not apply equally well to any other story? If you reject one story, why don't you do the same for that Jesus guy? Or is it that you just ignore anything that is inconvenient for your case?

 

The existence of "that Jesus guy" as you use to call him is proven fact - look at Tacitus, Flavius Josephus and other non-Christian sources and you'll see that your statement has no fundament.

Maybe your point of view would profit from leaving a position as it would suit the first millenium after Christ. A fundamentalist view on the bible has been dismissed as impossible by most theologists for some time by now. You may have missed its existence, but there is a so-called historical-critical method to deal with the bible which - simply put - does not regard the bible as written by God (of course it isn't, it's written by human beings) and tries to evaluate the authenticity of texts and researches the sources, redactional changes and other influences of the texts.

[Maquissar]

Just a little note, Morgoth. You said that people believe in God, and not in the

Bible: but which God are you talking about? The Christian and Jewish God?

Allah? Vishnu? Buddha the enlightened? Or just a nameless entity who created

the world and wrote the laws of nature?

 

If you are speaking of the Christian God, there is no way you could have known

of him without having read the Bible, or without anything else having told you

of what is written in the Bible. Jesus's existance in history has been proven, you

said, but that does not necessarily mean that he was the son of God. All that

we know about our religion comes, directly or indirectly, from the Bible. And the

Bible has been written by men. Would you still believe in the same god had you

been brought up as a muslim, or as a pagan?

[Darnoc]

@Maquissar: Here you mention a very hot topic. Are all gods the same? How do I know of the christian god or any other god than from the books in which there is written about them?

 

It is generally believed in science that also religion had some kind of revolution. From primitive ghost-believes (similar to those of the indian tribes and tribes in Africa), to polytheism (like in Ancient Greece and Rome) to monotheism (like Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

 

But some very interesting facts are ignored in this "theory", all of them mentioned in the book "Eternity in their hearts" by Don Richardson (I recommend to read it in order to study this matter). Don Richardson acctually proves that the this "evolution of religions" never existed at all and that a lot of so called "primitive" tribes do not only believe in a purely spiritual allpowerful being, but also have a high standard of moral and other laws dictated by this being.

 

Don Richardson brings a lot of examples in his books. First he mentions the Incas (which believed in a invisible allpowerful god called Virracocha, before they switched to worship Inti, the sun), the Gedeo of Ethiopia, some tribes of Central Africa and some tribes of India which all believe in a allpowerful spiritual being. After that he moves to the region between Thailand, Burma and Laos were a lot of tribes live which not only believe in such a being but also have the believe in a holy book which their ancestors lost long ago and that some day this holy book should be returned to them. Interesting fact is that those tribes didn't have any kind of scripture when they were discovered. All those tribes not only believe in a similar being as the christian god, they also have legends very similar to those of the bible (the fall, great flood, building of a great tower and seperation of men into different tongues; some tribes in Central Africa even believed that this spiritual being sent his son to save the world), they also had laws similar to those of the Hebrews.

 

Don Richardson creates a new theory: All those believes of one god come from one origin far in mists of the past of humanity. He calls these religions the "primal religions", because he believes that not only they originate from one origin but that this religion was the original religion of man itself. He states that later on this religion was forgotten and new religions came into being (mostly in "civilized" regions), only people far away of other people kept this "primal religion". Of course this "primal religion" changed and varitions in different regions came into being but the common origin is still visible. Another conclusion is also that Judaism was one of the variations of the "primal religion" and that in the time when Judaism came into being still a lot of them existed (Melchisedek, king of Salem, who was a Canaanite and believed in a allpowerful invisible god called "El" had no problem accepting Abraham's "Jahwe"; this, so says Richardson, proves that at the time Judaism came into being the primal religion was still common in many regions and variations weren't so great then so that they were almost the same). Judaism survived and changed into Christianity and later on in Islam so the "primal religion" survived in these three world religions.

 

Following this theory, polytheism came into being in the great civilizations like Egypt or Sumer. Probably the primal religion was the religion of the hunting nomads and as soon as humanity settled down religion changed to become the polytheistic religions. This is supported by the fact that the primal religion mostly survived in hunting tribes in the wildnerness (often jungle). So the primal religion, the believe in one allpowerful invisible spiritual being, is the original religion of men and later on changed into the polytheistic religions of the first great civilizations, only surviving in remote tribes and in Judaism which changed to Christianity and later on Islam.

 

When this theory is true this would mean that a lot of people have in fact the same religion. At least all those religions originate from one common origin. It should be easy for humans to get back to their origin. Interesting is that this often happened. Inca Pachacuti changed the believe in Inti, the sun, back into the believe into Virracocha, for example. Echnaton revolutionized Egypts religion in changing it into a monotheistic religion where the sun is worshipped. Netzayalcoyotl, king of Texcoco, built himself a temple for an invisible god and began to write songs for this god. The greeks built altars for "the unknown god" in Athens in order to fight against a pestilence. And of course the most famous example is Mohammed who changed the polytheistic religion of the Arabs into the monotheistic believe in Allah (of course greatly influenced by Christianity and Judaism).

[ohGr]

this may seem completely out of topic, its just a curious question, and if people think im joking about this question then grow up.

 

so, you choose to take this serious enough to say...follow the bible exactly as it tells one to do, or do you choose to live in a world ignoring it?

 

it might sound like a joke question, i am not trying to offend anyone, nor am i trying to spark something.

 

 

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

 

 

whilst your on the subject of gods, if every god is to be from one god, then what is this whole thing where certain races believed in several gods, the greeks had a god for almost everything, ranging from adultery to alcohol, even the aztecs, if my memory serves me right after studying on the occult, the aztecs believed in a god named "Mictian" the god of death.

so if one person is to believe that all gods are really one, can that be classified as his opinion or several opinions combined into one?

[Maquissar]

:huh: Uh... er... forty-two!

 

I didn't really get your question, could you try to make it any clearer? Sorry,

I just took a Medieval English Literature exam and I haven't had lunch yet so

my brain is working on emergency power ;)

[Malchik]

If, ohGr, you are referring to everyone, I think you must allow for the fact that there will be other faiths than christianity and atheism present on this forum. As I said earlier, much of the ethical code incorporated in the bible (and pre-dating it as Darnoc has pointed out) is still valid today. As such, I adhere to similar ethics to christianity (which are indeed the same in most faiths). But because I concur with this it does not mean I am following the bible. From my experience I would say I, as an atheist, have a much stronger belief in the rightness of the ethics than many who profess to be devout christians but whose intolerance, prejudice and bigotry beggar belief.

 

If the reply misinterprets your question it is because, as Maquissar points out, it is not entirely clear!