You Guys Need to Communicate! (thoughts from an ex evangelical Christian)

Hi Ophir. A hearty welcome to EvC. I hope you enjoy the site. It sounds like you're a sensible thinker. Too bad you aren't into the prophecies so as to stabilize your faith in the scriptures.That aside, nobody knows exactly how the lives of Adam and Eve would have played out had they not sinned. It's sort of like would Jesus who had never sinned have died had nobody killed him.Note the wording in Genesis 2:17: "ASV: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Note the phrase, "in the day." Of course the text clearly shows that Adam lived over 900 years before physical death. What it appears to be speaking of is a spiritual death or separation from God where the Holy Spirit of God moves out of Adam and Eve, leaving them spiritually dead. Thus Jesus in the NT spoke to Nicodemus who asked how to get into his kingdom, told him that he needed a new spiritual birth via the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, i.e 'born again' or literal Greek, 'born from above.'It was after this sin of Adam that the sacrifical death of an innocent animal had to be offered for the covering of sin until the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus who is referred to as the 2nd Adam being a life giving spirit man whereas the 1st Adam (Genesis) was a living soul man. With the life giving Adam, Jesus, the dispensation of Levitical Temple worship and sacrifice ended and men/women could then become spiritually reclaimed back into spiritual fellowship with the Father, Jehovah via the baptism of the Holy Spirit, i.e. the new birth, i.e being born again from above. 1 Corinthians 15:45 (American Standard Version)
American Standard Version (ASV)
Copyright © 1901 Public DomainI Corinthians 15:45 "So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit."
And of course, the same context clarifies that Jesus is a spiritual lifegiving 'man.'It appears that what you needed was not to dump the fundie fundamentals of scripture, but to get deeper into them so you would become apprised as to how it works. Don't expect to ever know all the details or even to understand it fully. We just are not given those details and after it's OK for God to be God all knowing creator and men to be men, limited in knowledge. Edited by Buzsaw, : Add and i to stabilize. Missed that in preview

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

Perhaps some may see the problem of no death in that eventually humans would overpopulate the planet. We know that Enoch in early creation never died but was taken up alive to God's place wherever that was so this may be a clue that righteous sinless people would have been at some mature period removed by God alive, and transformed into spirit beings capable of celestial existence, had Adam remained sinless, not having taken of the forbidden tree. Edited by Buzsaw, : Eliminate word, change title.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

Ophir: "Now cognitive dissonance has won out and I have abandoned the fundies."Jar: "Good. There is no God to be found in any Fundie sects."Two Non-Fundies who reject the written fundamentals of God's scripture.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

Make that Jehovah, the Biblical god's scripture. It is the only scripture with Jehovah's signature on it's pages, over 6000 signatures, that is.

Mmm....Bickering about constitutional authority....If the Constitution has authority, isn't it logical and in fact needful that debate and dialog is good so as to be sure that the authority of it is not abused/altered/missused? And what if dialog and debate about it's authority were forbidden?

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

Jar, me olde friend, what other scriptures/holy books even mention the name Jehovah? As for the signatures, i.e. naming Jehovah/YHWH, check out the ASV (American Standard Version), the most literal translation of the oldest manuscripts in existence.ABE: Jar, me olde friend, I gotta say, the more you do to me, the better you make me look. Glad you're back! Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

I pretty much agree with much the Harris quotes you've cited and appreciate that you've posted them. One of the exceptions is that moderates allegedly make it a taboo to criticize Christians, Muslims and Jews. From what I see here at EvC who's majority of theists are moderates to far left liberals, moderates side in with the liberals in continuous criticism of fundamentalist Christians, leaving themselves (moderate & liberal Christians), the Jews and the Muslims pretty much the ones whose faith is beyond criticism. It's obviously open season on fundamentalist Christianity worldwide, with the world body looking the other way from horrendous genocide presently happening in nations like the Sudan. The way (Abe: some) folks act here at EvC one would not be surprised that when the severe persecution begins in America, the Christian fundies will be the victims here as well. It's not an 'if.' It's 'when.' Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

LOL! Jar is by no means a Christian moderate. He's by all means a radical liberal who appears to regard most of the Bible as either inaccurate or myth/fable, denies that the death of Jesus is relevant to salvation and regards about all religions as acceptable to God except book fundamentalists which allegedly leads to condemnation by the gods of the respective books.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

I'm not aware that writings outside of Jewish scripural cannons of Orthodox Judiasm are regarded as bonafide scripture. As for the Aprocrypha you may have a valid point there as I'm not aware whether YHWH is in the manuscripts of it as I have no interlinear of it.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

The name is in the scriptures obviously to be read. The taboo about using the name claimed by later less devout clerics was superstious taboo not justified within the texts of scriptures themselves which have nothing in them suggesting the taboo.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

The kiddies are getting the education, corrupted as it is. The violence practiced by Mohammed and laced/injected into his scriptures is regimented and programmed into the minds of the students from kindegarten on up. For example, in Palestine there's no Israel on the school maps and the kids are trained up to extol and emulate the bombers and to hate the US and Israel in particular.In this, Harris is right, implying that it's the fundamentalists who really follow the respective scriptures as written. At least that's how I read him in the quotes. Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

Bonafide scripture is existent so far as mainline orthodoxy goes, with some variation but having definite perameters. In Islam, for example, it pretty much boils down to the Koran, the Haddith and the Sunnahs; in Christianity, possibly inclusive of the Apocrapha so far as Catholicism goes.