The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

[250]

no no

God's forgiveness would have meant nothing if we sinners do not appreciate it.
if Adam, Eve stayed in Eden and being innocents, they wouldn't want God's forgiveness, because they did not know the difference between "Good" and "evil"

because we are sinners, and we intend to improve ourselves in order to be close to God, he forgives us. and his love is shown through all this process. without this process, God's love is meaningless

am I right? Yorick? Larry? Ladyzekke? Harris?

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by 250: no no God's forgiveness would have meant nothing if we sinners do not appreciate it. if Adam, Eve stayed in Eden and being innocents, they wouldn't want God's forgiveness, because they did not know the difference between "Good" and "evil" because we are sinners, and we intend to improve ourselves in order to be close to God, he forgives us. and his love is shown through all this process. without this process, God's love is meaningless am I right? Yorick? Larry? Ladyzekke? Harris?

Words of wisdom 250. Are you sure you're just a teenager?

------------------

"the memories of a man in his old age,
are deeds of a man in his prime"

[Jafin]

Originally posted by 250: no no God's forgiveness would have meant nothing if we sinners do not appreciate it. if Adam, Eve stayed in Eden and being innocents, they wouldn't want God's forgiveness, because they did not know the difference between "Good" and "evil" because we are sinners, and we intend to improve ourselves in order to be close to God, he forgives us. and his love is shown through all this process. without this process, God's love is meaningless am I right? Yorick? Larry? Ladyzekke? Harris?

I think you've pretty much got it.

-Jafin



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Arch-Mage of the HADB
Destroyer of the evil Bunnies
Guardian of Boo and best friend of Minsc

[Jafin]

Don't underestimate us teens Harris .

-Jafin

------------------

Arch-Mage of the HADB
Destroyer of the evil Bunnies
Guardian of Boo and best friend of Minsc

[Larry_OHF]

Adam and Eve had no choice but to leave the garden, because no unholy thing can exist in the presence of such a Divine being.
Our church actually believes God to be of a physical nature.
The new Testament states taht Jesus ressurrected, took his body up from the grave, then acended into Heaven. The body without the Spirit is dead, and the New testament states that Jesus was to die only once. Therefore, he took his body to Heaven with him. Now, if God(the Father) did not have a body, that would make Jesus having something God did not. When Judgement day comes, we will all ressurect into having perfect bodies. Then we will be judged. We do not lose those bodies after the judgement. We will be perfect beings, living with God the Father, and Jesus Christ.

------------------

Father of the wicked but cute child known as MaryBeth

Padre de una niña bien traviosa pero guapa
---------------------
Aisukuríimu ga tabetái desu.

[Larry_OHF]

I am not worming out on you guys, but I have to go to bed...it is 1:30am, and I have to get up early in the morning.
See ya later.
Thanks for the discussion...I hope you will leave me some bones to pick mañana!

------------------

Father of the wicked but cute child known as MaryBeth

Padre de una niña bien traviosa pero guapa
---------------------
Aisukuríimu ga tabetái desu.

[250]

Originally posted by John D Harris: Words of wisdom 250. Are you sure you're just a teenager?

thanks a lot
I learnt that from you guys today

[250]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: I am not worming out on you guys, but I have to go to bed...it is 1:30am, and I have to get up early in the morning. See ya later. Thanks for the discussion...I hope you will leave me some bones to pick mañana!

sleep well, and thanks for all that you shared

[Fljotsdale]

Ok people! Fljotsdale is postin’!

Well, we seem to have come a long way from the original question! I hope you don't mind me going back to it?

Couple of small corrections first to some of the initial posts - no big deal, but you know what I'm like about accuracy, especially of quotation!:
Dio: Adam and Eve were not ‘without work or toil, where Adam and Eve simply wandered and ate of the fruits of the earth’ No sir! Genesis 2:15 says they were to ‘cultivate’ and ‘take care’ of the Garden. And the account indicates it was a pretty big place, not a little orchard.
And it was not Adam And Eve who were to ‘eat dust’ but the serpent (Gen 3:14). Adam and Eve were to ‘return to the dust’ when they died (Gen 3:18,19).


And a couple of comments:
1. Melusine: You can blame men (obviously!) for the idea that ‘woman is the principle of evil made flesh’! It sorta goes back to the religious teachers of pre-christian biblical (and some pagan) times; but it was really souped up by Catholicism. They decided to turn men (especially priests) off women big-time, and some really vitriolic stuff was written about women. Some of it puts blisters on your eyeballs!
If you ever read ‘Name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco, you will have some idea how the clergy were made to feel about women. Here are some less vitriolic comments:
Tertullian: "Woman, you ought to go about clad in mourning and rags, your eyes filled with tears of remorse, to make us forget that you have been mankind’s destruction. Woman, you are the gate to Hell."
Thomas Aquinas: "Woman is a rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains maturity more rapidly only because it is of less value, and nature is engaged less in her making. Women are born to be eternally maintained under the yoke of their lords and masters, (who are) endowed by nature with superiority in every respect, and therefore destined to rule."
Origen: "Matrimony is impure and unholy; a means of sensual concupiscence."



2. Some of you have said that the fall was part of ‘god’s plan’ for mankind.
But to suggest that is stunningly blasphemous, imho, and I am not even a believer!
It is simply a way of shoving all the blame for mankind’s ills onto god, just as Adam did when he said “The woman YOU gave me…” etc.

‘Ok, fine, its all your fault, god, your plan, you got us into this mess, you get us out of it…not OUR responsibility’


Ok. On to Adam and Eve in Genesis:
So what is this account? Fact? Fiction? It is fashionable to see it as fiction, an allegory, because it doesn’t fit in with our perception of evolution. But the bible treats it as fact, (Jesus treats it as fact, and he should know!) and bases the need for Christ solidly upon the account of the fall. If the events in the Paradise of Pleasure (Garden of Eden) are merely a story, albeit allegorical, then the very foundations of belief in Jesus are removed and the validity of his sacrifice negated. Imho.

So let’s treat the story as fact. (Laugh if you like! No skin off my nose, lol!)

Here is the basic outline:

After creating everything else -
God made man
Put him in a big garden with everything he needed and said ‘it’s yours, look after it’.
There were two special trees in the garden – the tree of Life, and the tree of Knowledge of Good & Bad.
God told Adam to lay off the tree of Knowledge or he was a dead man the same day. (Hm. A Tree of Life and a Tree of Death!)
Adam got fed up ‘cos he had no mate like the animals.
God made Eve for him.
Everything in the garden was lovely.
Nothing bad in the entire universe. The devil had not yet manifested himself. Only one easy law to obey. Life was easy.
How long this situation lasted is not stated.
And then – wait for it -
This serpent started chatting to Eve.
Was she surprised? No! She chatted right back. Musta been used to talking animals. Or maybe she just saw it as one more new thing. And she was used to new things.
Anyway, this serpent was a real smoothie (pun intended) and worked to convince her that she wouldn’t die if she ate the fruit, she would instead be like god and ‘know good and bad’.

Problem for Eve, and Adam wasn't anywhere nearby. She was on her own. Eve had no idea of what a lie was. No such concept had ever entered into the Garden. So, she had two opposing statements, one from god, (apparantly via Adam, cos no prior record of god speaking to Eve) and one from this amazing serpent:
Eating fruit = death the same day
Eating fruit = being like god, knowing good and bad.
What is she to do?
Being like god sounds very tempting, huh?
But god said no.
Well, maybe just a little taste won't do any harm..

So she ‘began taking its fruit’.

{Notice the phrasing here: ‘began taking’. This implies a continuous action, not a one-off event. Maybe she just tasted it the first time? In any event, it would seem from the phrasing that she ate more than one fruit of the tree, and possibly several over a period of time. (Pure speculation, of course!)}

And the fruit had no ill-effect on her.
But she did not get to be like god, knowing good and bad, either.
But something NEW HAD entered into her life:
She had not died, so what god said was 'not-True'.
She had not become like god, so what the serpent said was 'not-True'.

She needed a third party to check it out.
So she gave some to Adam.
He didn’t die either.
But AT THAT POINT, (not before, when Eve ate), ‘the eyes of both of them were opened’ and they understood 'good and bad', thus becoming, in this respect, 'like god' just as the serpent had told her.

Eve must have been one very confused woman.

Well, if this was all part of god’s plan he should have been well-pleased with Satan, shouldn’t he?

Was he heck! What was the first thing he did?
He cursed the serpent
Then he cursed Eve
Then he cursed Adam
Then he made clothes for them and chucked ‘em out of The Paradise of Pleasure forever.

Doesn’t sound like he was pleased. Doesn’t look like it was all part of ‘the plan’.

But suppose it was? If that is the case then he was in cahoots with the devil and the plan was pretty sick. He also betrayed the devil by cursing him for doing what he wanted done. IMHO.

BUT from THAT POINT ON, a plan DID swing into action. A contingency plan. A plan called Jesus. Which only works, imho, if you believe the Genesis account as factual.

Just my take on the event, you understand!


------------------





[This message has been edited by Fljotsdale (edited 09-09-2001).]

[Tobbin]

Originally posted by Fljotsdale:
Ok people! Fljotsdale is postin’!

Well, we seem to have come a long way from the original question! I hope you don't mind me going back to it?

Couple of small corrections first to some of the initial posts - no big deal, but you know what I'm like about accuracy, especially of quotation!:
Dio: Adam and Eve were not ‘without work or toil, where Adam and Eve simply wandered and ate of the fruits of the earth’ No sir! Genesis 2:15 says they were to ‘cultivate’ and ‘take care’ of the Garden. And the account indicates it was a pretty big place, not a little orchard.
And it was not Adam And Eve who were to ‘eat dust’ but the serpent (Gen 3:14). Adam and Eve were to ‘return to the dust’ when they died (Gen 3:18,19).


And a couple of comments:
1. Melusine: You can blame men (obviously!) for the idea that ‘woman is the principle of evil made flesh’! It sorta goes back to the religious teachers of pre-christian biblical (and some pagan) times; but it was really souped up by Catholicism. They decided to turn men (especially priests) off women big-time, and some really vitriolic stuff was written about women. Some of it puts blisters on your eyeballs!
If you ever read ‘Name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco, you will have some idea how the clergy were made to feel about women. Here are some less vitriolic comments:
Tertullian: "Woman, you ought to go about clad in mourning and rags, your eyes filled with tears of remorse, to make us forget that you have been mankind’s destruction. Woman, you are the gate to Hell."
Thomas Aquinas: "Woman is a rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains maturity more rapidly only because it is of less value, and nature is engaged less in her making. Women are born to be eternally maintained under the yoke of their lords and masters, (who are) endowed by nature with superiority in every respect, and therefore destined to rule."
Origen: "Matrimony is impure and unholy; a means of sensual concupiscence."



2. Some of you have said that the fall was part of ‘god’s plan’ for mankind.
But to suggest that is stunningly blasphemous, imho, and I am not even a believer!
It is simply a way of shoving all the blame for mankind’s ills onto god, just as Adam did when he said “The woman YOU gave me…” etc.

‘Ok, fine, its all your fault, god, your plan, you got us into this mess, you get us out of it…not OUR responsibility’


Ok. On to Adam and Eve in Genesis:[/b]
So what is this account? Fact? Fiction? It is fashionable to see it as fiction, an allegory, because it doesn’t fit in with our perception of evolution. But the bible treats it as fact, (Jesus treats it as fact, and he should know!) and bases the need for Christ solidly upon the account of the fall. If the events in the Paradise of Pleasure (Garden of Eden) are merely a story, albeit allegorical, then the very foundations of belief in Jesus are removed and the validity of his sacrifice negated. Imho.

So let’s treat the story as fact. (Laugh if you like! No skin off my nose, lol!)

Here is the basic outline:

After creating everything else -
God made man
Put him in a big garden with everything he needed and said ‘it’s yours, look after it’.
There were two special trees in the garden – the tree of Life, and the tree of Knowledge of Good & Bad.
God told Adam to lay off the tree of Knowledge or he was a dead man the same day. (Hm. A Tree of Life and a Tree of Death!)
Adam got fed up ‘cos he had no mate like the animals.
God made Eve for him.
Everything in the garden was lovely.
Nothing bad in the entire universe. The devil had not yet manifested himself. Only one easy law to obey. Life was easy.
How long this situation lasted is not stated.
And then – wait for it -
This serpent started chatting to Eve.
Was she surprised? No! She chatted right back. Musta been used to talking animals. Or maybe she just saw it as one more new thing. And she was used to new things.
Anyway, this serpent was a real smoothie (pun intended) and worked to convince her that she wouldn’t die if she ate the fruit, she would instead be like god and ‘know good and bad’.

Ok, I don't mean to sound blasphemous myself here, but I'd like to add my two cents as well: Satan/Devil/Snake, whatever you want to call this entity, IMHO, came before Adam & Eve. It is my belief that Satan was the first creation towards mankind that GOD attempted. Satan didn't turn out exactly how GOD had wanted, so therefore decided to make another attempt. He/She did not destroy SATAN because GOD loved his creation (he/she was pretty lonely at this time. Besides, how many people like to destroy their very 1ST creation living or not?) Since God knew that Satan had the capacity for evil, he created the garden as a test for his newer creations. Up until now, good and evil were only concepts and not factual, but being GOD, he/she grabbed all of this ether and manifested it into a tree.

Problem for Eve, and Adam wasn't anywhere nearby. She was on her own. Eve had no idea of what a lie was. No such concept had ever entered into the Garden. So, she had two opposing statements, one from god, (apparantly via Adam, cos no prior record of god speaking to Eve) and one from this amazing serpent:
Eating fruit = death the same day
Eating fruit = being like god, knowing good and bad.
What is she to do?
Being like god sounds very tempting, huh?
But god said no.
Well, maybe just a little taste won't do any harm..

So she ‘began taking its fruit’.

No matter how it was that the fruit was taken, it was in the capacity to transfer BOTH good and evil into mankind. God being as he/she was, had given the tree that ability to hold the concepts so that mankind would be able to prosper. God knew that his new creations had the capability to partake of the fruit and also knew that by partaking of the fruit, the people that they were, would cease to exist. Therefore God had not lied to his creations. Only that his creations had not realized his true meaning. In any event, evil came to be a part of mankind. That is why it is stated that you are born of sin. Because the concepts transfer to you when you are born/created.

{Notice the phrasing here: ‘began taking’. This implies a continuous action, not a one-off event. Maybe she just tasted it the first time? In any event, it would seem from the phrasing that she ate more than one fruit of the tree, and possibly several over a period of time. (Pure speculation, of course!)}

And the fruit had no ill-effect on her.
But she did not get to be like god, knowing good and bad, either.
But something NEW HAD entered into her life:
She had not died, so what god said was 'not-True'.
She had not become like god, so what the serpent said was 'not-True'.

She needed a third party to check it out.
So she gave some to Adam.
He didn’t die either.
But AT THAT POINT, (not before, when Eve ate), ‘the eyes of both of them were opened’ and they understood 'good and bad', thus becoming, in this respect, 'like god' just as the serpent had told her.

Eve must have been one very confused woman.

Well, if this was all part of god’s plan he should have been well-pleased with Satan, shouldn’t he?

Was he heck! What was the first thing he did?
He cursed the serpent
Then he cursed Eve
Then he cursed Adam
Then he made clothes for them and chucked ‘em out of The Paradise of Pleasure forever.

God did throw Adam & Eve from the Garden, because they could not learn anymore from the garden at that point. As for Satan, God changed his/her form so that mankind would better recognize him/her if they should come across him/her again. IMHO, GOD knew exactly what was going to happen, and gave mankind Jesus in attonement for his/her action of not destroying SATAN.

Doesn’t sound like he was pleased. Doesn’t look like it was all part of ‘the plan’.

But suppose it was? If that is the case then he was in cahoots with the devil and the plan was pretty sick. He also betrayed the devil by cursing him for doing what he wanted done. IMHO.

BUT from THAT POINT ON, a plan DID swing into action. A contingency plan. A plan called Jesus. Which only works, imho, if you believe the Genesis account as factual.

Just my take on the event, you understand!

My apologies to you Fjotsdale as this was not meant to "pick apart" what you had said, but that you had stated your opinion in a very straightforward manner that I could use to explain mine. I would like to add that I am very impressed by how you could summarize everything in such a short fashion.

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Protectorate of the OHF
Death Waits 4 U ALL

[This message has been edited by Tobbin (edited 09-09-2001).]