Original Sin

morality is meaningless without choice. remember, your religion is fundamentally based on choice. god giving us commands, with us having no choice but to follow them is not morality. it's meaningless. we have to do it.rather, the presence and influence of god is contrary to morality. no, we don't. we can't even say he listened to his wife because the text never has her TELLING him anything. when he blames god, it sounds like he was tricked. adam DOES blame god, and loses.

quote:

---

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

---

quote:

---

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

---

read your bibles kids! what on earth are you talking about? no, you're thinking paradise lost, not the bible. let's get a few identities straight here.lucifer: the latin name for the planet venus half the year: the morning star. traditional title for the king of babylon.
ha-satan: the angel of the lord responsible for making choice meaningful in mankind by provided opposition. also tests and tempts mankind, ultimately serving the will of god.
the serpent: neither of the above, rather a real animal.there's no rebellion in the heavens, no fall of the devil, no "Devil" captial letter, that's ALL modern dogma and paradise lost. not the bible.

quote:

---

no, you're thinking paradise lost, not the bible. let's get a few identities straight here. there's no rebellion in the heavens, no fall of the devil, no "Devil" captial letter, that's ALL modern dogma and paradise lost. not the bible.

---

{Fixed above quote box - AM}2 Peter 2:4 Isiah 14:12 There is also a passage that says 1/3 of the angels went with him, but I can't find it at the moment.This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 01-09-2005 11:57 AM

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Who do you listen to besides your own internal wisdom? Can't you see that even if the scripture was referring to the king of babylon, that King had a spirit upon him that was not of God. There are two spiritual realities. God is not just our own little conscience.It is one thing to take the Bible critically and interpret it in light of historical secular context. It is another to realize that the entire book is about a character..the character of God and God incarnate and how this God intercedes in humanity and how this God tells us that a spiritual war is reality in everyday life.When you used to be atheist, you knew that human wisdom was your only source. If you now claim to be a believer, why do you not allow God to speak to your heart and show you what the book says instead of remaining an intellectual scholar who is showing how the Bible is un necessary to have an interpretation of God. What else do we have?
Paul, in his struggle with sin, said Now if Paul is to be taken seriously as a man who knew God, his struggle is familiar to all of us who also know God and who struggle with our own wills and intellects. Do you somehow see the interplay between the Holy Spirit and humans in a different way, Arach?This message has been edited by Phatboy, 01-09-2005 16:23 AM

Holy Land PhotosShe's cute. Look at her fruit!
Some say they're ova, some say bull balls
Me, I think they're apples
Eat some and fall

To a believer, it is obvious that there is a struggle between flesh and spirit every day. You cannot be a casual christian who sees a good humanist philosophy written about a prophet who once lived long ago. A Christian believes that Jesus is living.
The Bible need not be literal from cover to cover and word for word, but the ancient struggle and the need for a living Savior is as real and true today as it was when written.Christians are not mere humanist philosophers. Christians need Christ and believe that He is alive. This is what cancels out original sin.
No amount of good works can allow a human to raise up to the level of a good man.

Phatboy That is untrue.God could just as easily given any amount of knowledge in any field to allow Adam and Eve to see the full extent of the consequences of actions they take and allow them to make an informed choice.And if that choice was not what god would have liked well that is to bad for him is it not? Why all the anger and rage? Is god not above the pettiness of human emotional venting? He has absolute power, can set up any situation he so chooses,but if his creation rebels against him then he can only direct that anger at himself.To do otherwise demonstrates a staggering lack of maturity and control.As for moral choice please inform me of what gods' source of morals amounts to? I have known children with greater sense of tolerance and caring. If we do not have any clear understanding then the meaning is pretty much up for interpretation and therefore one is as good as another.Why would the writers feel it necessary to be vague and confusing? It would be no problem to adjust the story to reflect one of any number of meanings and make it directly apparent just what is meant.Sorry but this is not a good arguement in my view. Threats do not amount to force in your view? It was also no choice since they {Adam and Eve}cannot have any understanding of the consequences.Remember they did not merely end up dying {spiritual or otherwise} None of this was made clear to them so this arguement also fades under review IMO LOL! How can you make a conscious decision of that which you are not{an unknown} conscious of? Eve and Adam could not have known good since the progression of the storyline specifically prohibits this.Adanm and Eve were innocent of the understanding of good and evil until after the eating of the fruit, whether literal or figurative. But with a creator that has no evidential reality and personal experience found to be capable of distortion for a thousand different reasons including grief, terror, lust,social need for acceptance etc.,I can find no basis IMO for making a commitment towards a belief despite such a scenario being emotionally satisfying.
I also do not think it is a this vs. that condition but,rather,a critical thinking objective look at the support for belief as removed from the emotional.In this way it is,IMO, the proper way to determine if such a belief is to amount to more than wishful thinking.After all iI would think that a REAL god would be as apparent as the earth we walk on and not be a doubtful fit of the imagination full of distortion and paranthesied by only faith. Not at all.We are not told if he rebelled at this point{Eden} If evil is created by god {in the creation} then was godwill somehow absent then? Rebellion is evil? Your nation was founded upon rebellion was it not?Just what do you mean by alternative reality?Are you shifting the goalposts? God created evil.He wields it and uses it many times in the bible.
Are you implying that I am evil because god has no place in my thoughts? That is ludicrous in the extreme sir.A person can be full of thought about god and be "evil" in action. I am not sure the direction you were going here.Could you elaborate?

---

A centipede was happy quite, until a toad in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?'
This raised his doubts to such a pitch
He fell distracted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.

actually, most of the prophets seem to think that the exile was god's way of punishing the sons of israel. that would indicate that it was very much the will of god, not any other spirit.how quaint to think everything we like is god's will and everything we don't like is the devil. nebuchadnezzar was on the throne by god's authority. well, one. that's not true. there are books in the bible that just aren't about god at all (a few fail to even have him as a character, and one fails to mention him at all).and two. even the ones that are about the character of god... well, they differ a lot. you have to realize that these are different books and say very different things, even if they are about the same basic belief. because god created me with a brain, and i would like to honor that gift by using it. god does speak to my heart, and he says "study more." if the bible is all we have of god, it is a sad day for religion. he is not. paul is a rather screwed up person, with huge guilt and self-loathing problems, and his brand of christianity has inflicted similar guilt complexes on millions. i know, because: *I* am intimately familiar with this so-called struggle. why is christianity about guilt? christ came, told us to try to do our best for everyone around us, and then died to remove our guilt. god is not punishing us, why must we punish ourselves?god's law does not tell us that we are all damned. that's just not the kind of god he is. it does tell us that we were made imperfect, which is difficult enough to deal with. but destined to be punished eternally by the god who created both the rules and us? no. rather we are taught that man is capable of perfection, often dangerous enough to status of god that he punishes us for being TOO perfect (see babel). we are told of people called perfect, yet they sin.it is not presented as a war of good versus evil for the souls of mankind, and it is not presented that man in inherently evil. evidently, yes.

and angry? masturbate and it makes baby jesus cry? or swear and god kills a kitten?yeah, it's obvious to any believer that there is a struggle between flesh and spirit -- we're force-fed this beliefe every sunday in church. having examined it, both theologyically and biblically, i've found this sort of pauling doctrine to be completely baseless. actually, i'm having serious religioun problems with the need for a saviour. to the point that i am considering rejecting christianity and becoming a secular jew. if david can be called perfect and loved by god after committing adultery, and sins are traditionally atoned for in other manners... well. you get the idea. maybe this is the problem: christ was. see how many times you find perfect men in the bible. i can name four off the top of my head: david, enoch, job, and well, jesus. and the first one of those sinned at least twice that i can recall. so that idea is plainly wrong.

quote:

---

2Pe 2:5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth [person], a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly

---

quote:

---

Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they [were] fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

---

quote:

---

Isa 14:4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

---

quote:

---

Rev 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

---

that one maybe? that's revelation -- END times. not beginning. as in it hasn't happened yet (at the time of the writing). although i think the book is largely metaphorical, a form of coded message to the church in rome, regarding nero.but you're piecing together a story that isn't there. and people have done it before. the isaiah verse has nothing to do with any devil, it's JUST talking about the king of babylon. if anything, it's talking about the very same thing the tower of babel story talks about: a failure on the part of nebuchadnezzar. peter is talking the noah/enoch/flood story. and revelation is probably not talking about anything spiritual at all.

I would like to get back to the topic of original sin. I was particularly interested in the dialogue about whether Adam, Eve or God was ultimately responsible for OS. Looks to me like God was most at fault for proposing this silly test about a tree in the first place. What was he thinking? Can we speculate?The only explanation I can think of would be that God was bored and decided to put a little spark into the lives of these dreary, robotic, do-gooding airheads. After all, he needed for them to have kids (sons, to be exact, births of daughters are never mentioned in the bible), didn't he? Since they hadn't been married, and everyone knows that having sex outside of marriage is a sin, God had to have some way to get them to start thinking about getting their freak on.And thus we have original sin.

---

Keep America Safe AND Free!

Sidelined, sidelined, sidelined!
You are always one of my favorites to debate with! I have never forgotten your view of the great dance of life! God does have a place in your thoughts, or none of these questions about the Bible would have any interest for you.
I am only implying that you do not yet know God because your understanding is external literalism and not internal impartation. You are quite correct that many people claim to be full of god and are in fact quite evil. I have yet to see a Christian who is truly Spirit filled (by our definition, naturally) be overtly evil.I don't know you...but I am sure you are human...and if you yell at your wife one day, you may do some ugly things, but I would not call you evil. I WOULD say that my belief says that you will not finish your "dance" on this planet before you will get the opportunity to meet God.

Was?Arachnophilia, do you see any reason why Jesus Christ is NOT alive today? Do you not see Him as different from the other three "perfect" guys that you mentioned?This message has been edited by Phatboy, 01-10-2005 05:06 AM

And what is the kings problem? Who is he dealing with metaphorically if not actually? Surely God would not punish them unless there was a reason. What did they do? (Who or what did they allow in? Metaphorically or otherwise)

Lets look at ourselves, today. Many of us are not religious. Many of us get our "freak on" on a regular basis. We have kids. We get old. We someday die. God was and is responsible that we all do not know Him automatically. Indeed, some of us think Him a myth! Silly humans!
Looks like we were set up to have a conscious choice.