Adam & Eve to be blamed, or god!

Phatboy responds to me:

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And the snake was right. They became as gods precisely as the snake said they would.

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So now, we need to define "gods". The Bible apologist would imply that God does not equal "god or "gods."

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But they would be mistaken. The original Hebrew is quite clear that when god says, "Behold, the man has become as one of us," he really means "as us." God is talking about gods.

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We could reinterpret ye shall be as gods.

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Not and remain intellectually honest. You must take the statement as it comes and in the context in which it is presented.

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Just because they would become as gods does not mean they had a desire to do so.

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No, they merely had a desire for freewill.

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I thought they already had free will. After all, that's what sin is: Choosing freely to do what you know to be wrong.

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Perhaps they disobeyed, but is obedience contrary to freewill?

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No. Obedience, however, is contrary to innocence. In order to obey, one must know good and evil. This is different from compliance. If you want me to go down a certain path, I can do it because you want me to do it or because I want to do it. Those are not the same thing.

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Pre KGE Adam lacked only one thing. the desire to be. The desire to exist without holding Daddys hand.

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But then he wasn't perfect as you claimed.And I claim that not only did he not have this desire, he didn't even know what that desire was because he didn't have that knowledge.

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BTW, we can only guess at the pre KGE mental state since we all are post KGE mental states.

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No, we merely have to look at children, observe their behaviour, and ask them why they did what they did.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Not quite. They did not realize that disobedience was wrong. They had no concept of what "wrong" was. All they knew was that God did not approve of it. After, seeing the resulting consequences such as:
1)Awareness of nakedness.
2)Shame.
3)Getting booted from the Garden
They then became as we are now. Aware of sin, free will, and decision making processes...yet being unsure of God.

Phatboy responds to me:

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I thought they already had free will. After all, that's what sin is: Choosing freely to do what you know to be wrong.

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Not quite. They did not realize that disobedience was wrong.

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But that's my point! I'm not saying that they didn't do something "wrong." After all, they ate from the tree which apparently they were not supposed to do. They even did so willingly and deliberately. It isn't like somebody sneaked some of the fruit into their dinner or they were knocked unconscious and force-fed it.What I am saying is that they didn't sin by eating from the tree. They weren't disobeying when they ate. Those things require comprehension of good and evil and they didn't have that yet because they had not eaten from the tree.

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They had no concept of what "wrong" was.

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Precisely.And since they were doing wrong things all over the place (they were running around naked), why is god so upset over this wrong thing compared to the others?

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They then became as we are now. Aware of sin, free will

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I thought they already had free will.Nobody forced them to eat from the tree. Nobody told them to eat from the tree.

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yet being unsure of God.

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Why would they be unsure of god?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Just as many skeptics are unsure of God today...of who or what He is...of which God is the real one...all of the controversy that is now wired into our human thought process since that Original Sin/multiple choice option became human....before KGE, there was NO doubt who God was, yet there was also no awareness of the dualistic realm.

Phatboy responds to me:

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Why would they be unsure of god?

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Just as many skeptics are unsure of God today

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But doubt requires knowledge of good and evil...especially when it comes to things like obedience. But Adam and Eve don't understand good and evil because they haven't eaten from the tree. So why would they be unsure of god?You seem to think that Adam and Eve should have known that they were supposed to follow god's word. Why? Why would they hold god's comments as any more worthy than anybody else's? What makes god such an authority to one who doesn't know what good and evil are?

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all of the controversy that is now wired into our human thought process since that Original Sin/multiple choice option became human

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But Adam and Eve don't have that burden. They were innocent. Why on earth would they be unsure? That requires comprehension of good and evil which they didn't have because they hadn't eaten from the tree yet.

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before KGE, there was NO doubt who God was

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Precisely. That's my point.There was no doubt about who god was because there was no comprehension of what god was.

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yet there was also no awareness of the dualistic realm.

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Precisely. That's my point.So how on earth could they sin? Sin requires knowledge of good and evil. That doesn't mean an innocent can't perform an act that would be considered evil. It means that they are not sinning when they do it because they don't understand what evil is. To sin, you have to do something which you know to be evil. If you don't know what evil is, how can you sin?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

As far as we can tell. I might remind you that our current mental and ethical state of reasoning may not be able to comprehend exactly how pre KGE thought processes worked,however. Good point. I suppose at that point that sin=disobedience. Sin=separation.
You are saying, from what I gather, that a pre KGE Adam and Eve are not responsible for this sin, since they know nothing. From our post KGE reasoning standpoint, your answer is logical. Still, we do not know what pre KGE thought processes even feel like. Rrhain, you are even beginning to sound like a theist!This message has been edited by Phatboy, 08-22-2004 06:33 PM

Phatboy responds to me:

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There was no doubt about who god was because there was no comprehension of what god was.

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As far as we can tell. I might remind you that our current mental and ethical state of reasoning may not be able to comprehend exactly how pre KGE thought processes worked,however.

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Incorrect.We merely have to look at children and see how their behaviour changes as they progress from having no concept of right and wrong to developing post-operative logic and a moral framework through which they view the world.I should also point out, however, that you're ducking. You're saying that the Bible doesn't say something, so therefore it must mean what it doesn't say.

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So how on earth could they sin?

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Good point. I suppose at that point that sin=disobedience. Sin=separation.

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But with no way to connect to the goodness of god, that must mean that Adam and Eve were constantly sinning as they were constantly separated from god. So if Adam and Eve were doing nothing but sin, why is god so upset over this particular one?

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You are saying, from what I gather, that a pre KGE Adam and Eve are not responsible for this sin, since they know nothing.

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Incorrect.I am not saying they know nothing. They are not stupid. They are innocent. Those are not the same thing.If I were to ask, say, Stephen King to tell me his opinion about Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metricization of Infinitely Differentiable Reimannian Manifold, I doubt I'd get a coherent reply. It isn't that Mr. King is stupid. It's that he doesn't know what that is.It is unfair and inappropriate to demand someone take responsibility for something they do not know anything about.

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From our post KGE reasoning standpoint, your answer is logical.

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Even pre-KGE, it is still logic. Logical things remain logical no matter that comprehension level of those around you.

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Still, we do not know what pre KGE thought processes even feel like.

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Again, incorrect.Just watch a child and you'll see what it's like to have a pre-KGE thought process. Every human being goes through this. Morality is something that needs to be taught.

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Rrhain, you are even beginning to sound like a theist!

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What makes you think I'm not?Just because I don't believe in your god doesn't mean I don't believe in any god.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Websters defines innocent thusly. I maintain that Adam and Eve were free from guilt or sin,{Pre KGE) Yet the potential actions which they could cause made them capable of harm and bad intent.(both pre and post KGE) They were legally free of legal guilt or responsibility pre KGE, but were judged post KGE. Dare we judge Gods intentions? We do not know what the overall intentions are, but we had best strive for a full relationship with the Creator.

What about the last part of the 1st meaning of innocent?

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innocent \-sent\ adj [ME, fr. MF, fr. L innocens, fr. nocens wicked, fr. nocere to harm] 1 : free from guilt or sin : blameless

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I'm not sure you can pronounce folks as "free from guilt" and not also say they are "blameless." This statement doesn't mesh with the 2nd meaning of innocent.

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2 : harmless in effect or intention

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Are you saying even with their state of innonence(pre KGE) both Eve and Adam were capable of doing harm? If so, then I agree. Eating from the tree caused them both harm but through harmless intentions.Before eating from the tree, neither Adam nor Eve can grasp what makes an action good or evil. What would be the thought process behind them creating a bad intent? Does it stem from desire? Though desire they could form plenty of intentions:I desire food - I intend to eat.
I desire water - I intend to drink.
I desire sleep - I intend to sleep.What about this intention?I desire wisdom - I intend to eat from the tree.Did they desire wisdom? I gather from Gen 3:6 that at least Eve did. I don't consider the desire for wisdom to be bad but Eve doesn't know if this desire is bad or not. She cannot judge herself yet. She also cannot judge her intention to fulfill this desire as good or bad either. Can she honestly restrain herself from embracing KGE? Are you saying any sin they would have unknowingly done pre KGE would not have been judged? And they would only be judged for sins committed post KGE? Where does eating the fruit fall? The action of eating the fruit is the cause of their knowledge gain. This action (eating) comes before the effect (KGE). Hmmm, if we do not know what the overall intentions are then how can we judge Gods intentions?You are correct that we do not know God's intentions when he punished Adam and Eve. His intentions are never mentioned in the account. His actions, on the other hand, seem unjust in light "that Adam and Eve were free from guilt or sin" when they committed their crime.thanx
PM1KPS: What's your opinion on whether Adam and Eve were capable of love (or any other emotion) pre KGE.

You bring up some good points, and I will admit that I do not understand why God allowed KGE to happen. There is a parable or perhaps a warning for future generations in the story. If love is a mere emotion as opposed to an action backed by emotion, I maintain that pre KGE people would be clueless yet automatically empowered. I really don't know how they felt. There is some deep analogies connected with the pre/post KGE event. All animals became mean and naturally predatory. An entire planet now belongs to Satan, who previously did not control the spiritual atmosphere. Perhaps humanity can be found guilty yet blameless for Original Sin. The point is not that it was our fault.
The point is that there is a solution.

Phatboy responds to me:

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Websters defines innocent thusly.

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And thus showing the reason why you don't go to the dictionary for proscriptive declarations of definitions. This is the same problem that creationists have when trying to claim that evolution is "only a theory." They insist on using the definition of "theory" meaning "educated guess" rather than the definition of theory of "analysis of a set of facts."The definition of "innocent" you provided contains the one we need: Ingenuous, unaware, harmless in effect or intention.It is clear that this is what the Bible means since Genesis 2 pretty much says it flat out:Genesis 2:25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.They were doing something wrong, but they had no maliciousness in them. They were running around naked not to flaunt their willfulness or to spite god but because they didn't know any better.

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They were legally free of legal guilt or responsibility pre KGE, but were judged post KGE.

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But the action for which they are being judged was carried out pre-KGE.It is inappropriate, even evil, to judge somebody's actions ex post facto. We even have that generally codified into US law. Adam and Eve committed evil acts before. Why are they being made examples of now? There was no way they weren't going to eat from the tree of knowledge. You don't put a Mhing vase on a rickety pedestal in the same room as a toddler...no matter how much you tell the toddler not to touch.

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Dare we judge Gods intentions?

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Since we are as gods, knowing good and evil, yes.Why on earth would we not dare to use the faculties which we have? If you refuse to use your abilities to distinguish between good and evil, how do you ever hope to make sure you refrain from doing evil?

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We do not know what the overall intentions are, but we had best strive for a full relationship with the Creator.

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Doesn't that include knowing when the creator screws up royally and showing him the same mercy and forgiveness he's supposed to be showing us?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Phatboy writes:

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All animals became mean and naturally predatory.

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Incorrect. Animals are not mean now and the only ones who are predatory are the ones who need to eat other animals to survive.Which brings up the question: Are you seriously saying there were no carnivores before the fall? How on earth did lions manage to survive without eating meat?

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An entire planet now belongs to Satan

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Says who?Remember, the serpent in the garden was not Satan.

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The point is that there is a solution.

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Yep.And it resides in god, not humans. It starts with an apology. God has done it before (qv. Noah)

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!