Are we prisoners of sin

You have really got me rolling on the floor laughing now... To which you replied: Call me crazy, but I don't think Joseph Smith is the Book of Mormon. You are really having difficulty admitting you are wrong on this, aren't you?

Neither was Paul. So did Paul, if by Christian teachings you mean Jesus' teachings. Neither did Paul have any eye witnesses to the event he claims happened to him.Yet to choose to believe one and not the other. Why the double standards?BTW, Smith did actually provide eye witness testimony for the golden plates, 8 witnesses IIRC, although most of them recanted later. That's still more than Paul managed.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

The account in the bible shows that there were other men who were traveling with Paul who witnessed the event of Paul being called to be a an Apostle.
Paul was struck with blindness and they had to lead him for the rest of the journey.Also from the account another disciple named Ananias was directed by Jesus to attend to Paul.

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Acts 9:7"Now the men that were journeying with him were standing speechless, hearing, indeed, the sound of a voice, but not beholding any man. 8But Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were opened he was seeing nothing. So they led him by the hand and conducted him into Damascus. 9And for three days he did not see anything, and he neither ate nor drank.

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10There was in Damascus a certain disciple named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision: "Ananias!" He said: "Here I am, Lord." 11The Lord said to him:"Rise, go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man named Saul, from Tarsus. For, look! he is praying, 12and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands upon him that he might recover sight."

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The NT is full of Pauline theology (as your references attest) which proclaims the atonement sacrifice of Jesus. What I've been saying all along is that Jesus himself, in the three direct accounts of his ministry, doesn't teach this doctrine or even brings it up, apart from the one brief instance you mentioned which is clearly a redaction. In fact, when directly and explictly asked what one needs to do to gain eternal life Jesus doesn't say "have faith in me for I'll die for your sins", he says "love God and your neighbour as yourself". Jesus not teaching such rubbish actually makes a lot of sense, as he was a devout Jew preaching to other Jews and the idea of Him as an atonement sacrifice is ridiculous on a number of levels, from a Jewish perspective. That's just self-fulfilling prophecy. You believe Paul to be empowered by God because he says he's the last one to perform miracles ?! This could equally be claimed by anyone at any time. It means absolutely nothing.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

If you don't know the difference between good and evil, which is what the tree was supposed to impart, then how could you know the difference between right and wrong? So it was an arbitrary rule? God didn't think it was wrong for man to eat of the tree? Why would he tell Adam not to and give such a bad consequence for doing so. It sounds like a very poor choice on god's part. It's reminiscent of me buying toys for a kid, telling that kid, "You can play with all the toys I give you, except for this nice, shiny, red ball, which I'll place right in front of you. If you touch that ball, I will gouge out your eyes and rip your arms off."Does that sound like the type of authority figure you'd want to follow? If so, I'm sorry. I have no belief one way or the other, I don't think it matters one bit. Which of my desires are sinful, and please, be specific.

But Adam didn't lose the relationship with god until he had made the choice, so when he made the choice, he still had perfect reasoning ability. If, in his perfect reasoning, it seemed right to break with god, then why would we, as imperfect reasoners, assume he was wrong? I completely disagree with this. Barring the question of free will, which I'm happy to get into on a different thread, how would an attentive parent turn people into a robot? If my kid is about to stick a fork in a light socket and I grab the kid's arm to stop him/her from doing it, am I really taking away the free will? I may be counteracting the free will in that particular action, but that would seem to be the right choice of a parent, rather than holding the concept of free will higher than the well being of a child.I wouldn't preprogram my kid's to believe my every word, but until they are able to reason independantly, I will try to make sure they don't make thre wrong choice. Even once they are able to choice on their own, I won't turn my back on them and just let them make any choice, I will still try and help them make the right choices. Even assuming this is true, I think it's god who chose to punish the people who DIDN'T make that choice rather than just the people who did. We don't inflict punishment on the children of law breakers, even less so on people who were no where near the choice being made. Making everyone suffer for the choice of one (or two) is just a bit of an overreaction.

Hello, Peg (and everyone else).Most of you know that I'm a Mormon. I served as a missionary in Taiwan when I was 19-20 years old.Mormons use the same Bible that any other Christian uses. We have our translation of the Bible (called the "Joseph Smith Translation"), which is inserted as footnotes and endnotes in the traditional KJV, and we have a system of indexes to help with topical scriptural study. Beyond that, there is no difference.I have read the Bible, cover to cover, almost as many times as I have read the Book of Mormon.Let that lay to rest the confusion about the Mormon canon. Now, continue with your regular topic.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

the tree did not impart anything.It only 'Represented' good & evil.'Good' by obedience to Gods law and 'Evil' by disobedience.When they obeyed they knew Good and when they disobeyed, they knew evil. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

If the tree only represented good and evil, what point was made by A&E eating from the tree if the tree didn't do anything?Edited by purpledawn, : No reason given.

hey Bluejay,Cheers for the clarification.What is the norm with using the bible in the ministry for mormons? DevilsAdvocate has said that the mormons he met had the bible, but the ones I met have not.Which is the preferred book in the ministry?

The Jerusalem Bible explains in a footnote, when he transgressed God’s commandment, man assumed a right that did not belong to him..."the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognise his status as a created being."So the point of the tree was to show that God has the authority to set the standards of right and wrong.Adam and Eve faced a decisionshould they accept his standards or should they follow their own? We know they chose to disobey God and to eat from the tree. In doing so they set their own standards of right and wrong. This was an evil act on their part because that sort of authority rightly belongs to God alone. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

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The Jerusalem Bible explains in a footnote, when he transgressed God’s commandment, man assumed a right that did not belong to him...

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"the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognise his status as a created being."

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So the point of the tree was to show that God has the authority to set the standards of right and wrong.

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Adam and Eve faced a decisionshould they accept his standards or should they follow their own? We know they chose to disobey God and to eat from the tree. In doing so they set their own standards of right and wrong. This was an evil act on their part because that sort of authority rightly belongs to God alone.

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But none of that has anything to do with the tree. Eve saw that the tree was good for wisdom. The point of the tree is that it imparts wisdom, just as the tree of life imparts life. Without that there was no reason for Eve to decide to eat of the fruit. Even the snake told them that after they ate of it they would be like God knowing good and evil.Now I know why Christianity doesn't present good Bible stories. They suck the life and the lessons out of them.Now that you've killed the A&E story, let's get back to the issue of sin and the Laws of God. Edited by purpledawn, : Back to sin

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

It does?Why?

it has everything to do with the tree because the tree was a physical representation of Gods authority. It was the writing on the wall. That is what the serpent told her and she believed it. But it gave her no wisdom, it did not bring her closer to God, it alienated her from God, gave her a bad conscience and saw her expelled from her Garden home. That cannot be considered wisdom, surely. Yes it did tell them that. How did they become like God?

If you own a home and you lease it out, you have the right to dictate the terms of the lease because you are the owner of the property.God was the owner of the property and Adam & Eve were its tenants. But they chose to live in the property by their own rules, this is why they were evicted.