Is Genesis to be taken literally Part II

I edited and clarified your post. Basically, you said: Many of your ideas are Biblically based. God (Jesus) IS coming back for a Bride.I would think, however, that a Creator by definition is more complex than just having two parts.(Knowledge and Life) My theory on all of this was that I used to define the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as the Tree of the Knowledge of Either/or. In other words, before the tree was sampled and became an intrinsic part of human nature, there never was a world of such paradoxes as you describe.(technology=efficient killing)Some have argued previously that God=evil because God knew that we humans would choose evil(knowledge of either/or reality) The either/or reality by definition is the ability to choose God (Truth) or our own choice(Paradox)One point: God NEVER created an evil Satan. God created a freewill Lucifer who chose (and thus allowed) evil to exist. Evil by definition = rebellion from truth.Once humanity became infused with a dualistic thought awareness
(Listen to God or have freedom to choose otherwise) we then began to slaughter each other. In the OT, (which was written by humans) when it says that God orders so and so to kill the whoeverites, the perspective is from an unenlightened Jew who honestly feels that they are hearing from God.It would be as if, say the Bible were written today, the words would say
"God saw the sins of the Sadaamites,and said to the leader of the Americites
to wipe out every man in the army of 100,000 and to occupy their land."In reality, as far as we know today, God never told America to do that. The leaders felt as if they had a mandate of "fairness and necessity" however. (Sorry...I am wandering off topic)This message has been edited by Phatboy, 04-07-2005 11:36 AM

This brings up a good issue. Some say that the Bible is written through human inspiration, while others say Divine impartation.
The N.T. authors were filled with the Spirit on the day of pentecost, while the O.T. authors were writing under the wisdom of God as well. The question to me at least is this:
How much of the time were these authors writing under the Spirit vs writing out of their own human motive?Perhaps only Believers can understand where I am coming from, but I believe that there are certainly times when any Christian says something hat is influenced by the Spirit of God versus our own vain and limited imagination. The question is how often? Not always.In a similar sense, the authors of the Bible were all inspired SOME of the time in my belief, but I have a harder time believing that every single word was inspired.

Jar, I read your link and it suggests that Original Sin is still very much a part of the human condition. To wit: However, you then ask us the question: Yes, and I suppose that you mean to imply that Jesus wiped original sin out, right?If so, what do we need to be saved from? The way you look at it, Jesus has already saved everybody without them having to do anything.This would make sense if we were expected to keep our own self wills. No man can serve two masters, however. Just because Jesus died and rose again, we have the salvation by grace through faith. Our faith must be a choice, however. Faith in Him working through us or faith in our own internal wisdom and perception of divinity. You can't have both.

Jesus alluded to the fact that Satan was booted out of Heaven. In order to have even been in Heaven Satan must have been good at one time.

Well..what is your point? Do you not believe in the fact that life as we know it has two basic choices...
1) The Holy Spirit
2) All the others

OK...topic was....Genesis...literal or not?Backatcha.....

well....good point! Without meaning to sound "enlightened" how can I describe to you what I mean? Hmmmm..Ok here goes:The best way that I can give an example of this type of impartation is for you to listen to people whom I hear the wisdom from and let you be the judge.Two good preachers who are NOT fake and goofy like the TBN ones on T.V. are these guys:http://www.calvarygs.org/radio/online.htm Raul RiesListen to Dr. Michael Youssef Sermons - Leading The Way Radio Michael Yousef.Maybe you can't sense the impartation of wisdom beyond mere dogma.If not, perhaps it is I who need to understand you better.

Hey I am with you on this one! I do not follow any particular preachers per say. I DO agree with much of what certain preachers preach. I believe that there is a remarkable synthesis of belief among the more enlightened Christians..(sorry..don't mean to sound arrogant) and yet I find myself disagreeing with the majority on several issues.I agree that Jesus is God. I have never understood the importance of Trinitarian belief and the rejection of oneness pentacostalism, but I am definitely a monotheist. I don't believe that Jesus was created by God. I believe that Jesus is Gods character...an impartation of the imagination of God. He was not created as He was always Gods character.I reject much of organized religion. I won't debate whether the Holy Spirit and Jesus were or were not in Genesis...if God was there, so were they as all three aspects of God are God.I DO think for myself, but I am also smart enough to realize that I am not only not perfect but am prone to raise up and be godlike rather than acknowledge God as my superior source. This is why I caution intellectual approaches to spirituality...they end up being whacked out like Bishop Shelby Spong. Professing some sort of pantheistic god in all all in god sort of gnosticism.Thats all.

Then again, in this meeting with the "Herder", he may take a look around and proclaim that we have indeed become idolators and worshippers of human achievement. He may not change his mind but instead judge us by our vibes and not our knowledge. We may not impress him with our latest science, but we would scare him by our cultural acceptance of what we value.This message has been edited by Phatboy, 04-09-2005 08:15 AM