God screwed Adam and Eve

[The Sum of Awe]

But if he's omniscient, he already knew what would happen, therefore negating the need for a test.

This paradox arises every time someone mentions something about God testing people. There's just no logical way to explain it, other than he's not omniscient (assuming he exists of course).

True. I keep forgetting that the biblical God is all knowing.

 

[lilmama1991]

In Genisis god tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the Treee of Knowledge of good and evil. He then gets mad when they do and kicks them out of the garden,why?

1) How were they suppose to know that eating from the tree would get them kicked out? how were they suppose to know that it was wrong to?

2) If god opened up the possibility of "free will" with this act, why didn't he just make humans like that from the beginning?

Someone told me oncer that it wasn't "wrong" for them to eat the fruit, but because they didn't listen to god, they were kicked out. If it wasn't wrong, why were they kicked out?

In genesis god told adam and eve that they could eat from every tree except the tree of knowledge so when they ate from that tree he had the right to get mad and kick them out of the garden of eden because they disrespected him.
1. he told them if they eat from the tree of knowledge they will positively die which they eventually did after they got kicked out and also when they ate the fruit they realize they was naked so they was trying to cover themselves before they sinned they didnt notice being naked as a bad thing because it wasnt so they knew what they had done was wrong.
2.humans didnt get a chance to get that type of treatment because they disobeyed him and since they did they messed all us up.

 

[PolyHedral]

In genesis god told adam and eve that they could eat from every tree except the tree of knowledge so when they ate from that tree he had the right to get mad and kick them out of the garden of eden because they disrespected him.

No, he didn't. He created absolutely everything in the garden. This includes, amongst other things, Adam and Eve's environment, the serpent, and most importantly, human psychology. There is absolutely no way to say it is their fault, because I can simply take the chain of cause and effect backwards a few more steps and pin the blame on God.

 

[*Deleted*]

The writers have their agenda and it can be seen if one looks hard enough. The old religion is turned on its head in Genesis creation and fall stories. Humankind is blamed, with particularly heavy blame on the woman. On both, I realize, but the woman is made to actually listen to the serpent (who didn't lie to her---she didn't die right then) and to eat of the fruit. Serpents and fruit trees were symbols of an older religion.

 

[RitalinO.D.]

In genesis god told adam and eve that they could eat from every tree except the tree of knowledge so when they ate from that tree he had the right to get mad and kick them out of the garden of eden because they disrespected him.
1. he told them if they eat from the tree of knowledge they will positively die which they eventually did after they got kicked out and also when they ate the fruit they realize they was naked so they was trying to cover themselves before they sinned they didnt notice being naked as a bad thing because it wasnt so they knew what they had done was wrong.
2.humans didnt get a chance to get that type of treatment because they disobeyed him and since they did they messed all us up.

Do you believe god is omniscient?

 

[kepha31]

Do you believe god is omniscient?

Yes, but God cannot be defined, or He wouldn't be God. The expressions of human language have limitations. "omniscient", "omnipotent", "omnpresent" are mere descriptions, not definitions, because God cannot be defined. A better description for God might be "Ground of Being by which all being is based".

One of the sophisticated concepts used by great Christian theologians is that of "The Ground of Being." This concept indicates not that God is the fact of things existing, but that God is the basis for the existence of all things. God is more fundamental to existing things than anything else. So fundamental to the existence of all things is God, that God can be thought of as the basis upon which things exist, the ground their being. To say that God is The ground of being or being itself, is to say that there is something we can sense that is so special about the nature of being that it hints at this fundamental reality upon which all else is based.

The phrases "Ground of Being" and "Being itself" are basically the same concept. Tillich used both at different times, and other theologians such as John McQuarrey prefer "Being Itself," but they really speak to the same concept. Now skeptics are always asking "how can god be being?" I think this question comes from the fact that the term is misleading. The term "Being itself" gives one the impression that God is the actual fact of "my existence," or the existence of my flowerbed, or any object one might care to name. Paul Tillich, on the other hand, said explicitly (in Systematic Theology Vol. I) that this does not refer to an existential fact but to an ontological status. What is being said is not that God is the fact of the being of some particular object, but, that he is the basis upon which being proceeds and upon which objects participate in being. In other words, since God exists forever, nothing else can come to be without God's will or thought; and since there can't even be a potential for any being without God's thought, all potentialities for being arise in the "mind of God" then in that sense God is actually "Being Itself." I think "Ground of Being" is a less confusing term. God is the ground upon which all being is based and from which all being proceeds. http://www.doxa.ws/Being/Being2.html</I>

 

[kepha31]

If I may cut in:
There are sub-topics between the lines of many of the posts:
1) the problem of evil
2) original sin

Evil happens when God's creatures make the wrong choice. Satan symbolized by the serpent, made his wrong choice in eternity. The consequences therefore, are eternal. That is why Satan cannot repent. Adam and Eve, symolizing the beginning of humanity, made their wrong choice too. Genesis is full of puns and inside jokes that only a Hebrew scholar would get, so it doesn't hurt to brown the Jewish web sites for greater inssights. After all, they wrote the book, we should give much weight to what they have to say. Strict literal interpretation of Genesis is divisive and senseles.

1) the problem of evil

First, evil is not a thing, an entity, a being. All beings are either the Creator or creatures created by the Creator. But every thing God created is good, according to Genesis. We naturally tend to picutre evil as a thing&#8212;a black cloud, or a dangerous storm, or a grimacing face, or dirt. But these pictures mislead us. If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and he is to blame for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is. But is just as real. It is not a thing, but it is not an illusion.
more at The Problem of Evil by Peter Kreeft

"In the Beginning...."
A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall
excerpts from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)​

Starting at the 4rth paragraph:

One answer was already worked out some time ago, as the scientific view of the world was gradually crystallizing; many of you probably came across it in your religious instruction. It says that the Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such. It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it. One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it. Anything else is an image and a way of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings. One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed. The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time -- from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities. And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring. Thus Scripture would not wish to inform us about how the different species of plant life gradually appeared or how the sun and the moon and the stars were established. Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world.

The world is not, as people used to think then, a chaos of mutually opposed forces; nor is it the dwelling of demonic powers from which human beings must protect themselves. The sun and the moon are not deities that rule over them, and the sky that stretches over their heads is not full of mysterious and adversary divinities. Rather, all of this comes from one power, from God's eternal Reason, which became -- in the Word -- the power of creation.

All of this comes from the same Word of God that we meet in the act of faith. Thus, insofar as human beings realized that the world came from the Word, they ceased to care about the gods and demons. In addition, the world was freed so that reason might lift itself up to God and so that human beings might approach this God fearlessly. In this Word they experienced the true enlightenment that does away with the gods and the mysterious powers and that reveals to them that there is only one power everywhere and that we are in his hands. This is the living God, and this same power (which created the earth and the stars and which bears the whole universe) is the very one whom we meet in the Word of Holy Scripture. In this Word we come into contact with the real primordial force of the world and with the power that is above all powers. [1]
I believe that this view is correct, but it is not enough. For when we are told that we have to distinguish between the images themselves and what those images mean, then we can ask in turn: Why wasn't that said earlier? Evidently it must have been taught differently at one time or else Galileo would never have been put on trial. And so the suspicion grows that ultimately perhaps this way of viewing things is only a trick of the church and of theologians who have run out of solutions but do not want to admit it, and now they are looking for something to hind behind. And on the whole the impression is given that the history of Christianity in the last 400 years has been a constant rearguard action as the assertions of the faith and of theology have been dismantled piece by piece. People have, it is true, always found tricks as a way of getting out of difficulties. But there is an almost ineluctable fear that we will gradually end up in emptiness and that the time will come when there will be nothing left to defend and hide behind, that the whole landscape of Scripture and of the faith will be overrun by a kind of "reason" that will no longer be able to take any of this seriously.
Along with this there is another disquieting consideration....
More at Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Commentary on Genesis 1-3 "In the Beginning...."

Sorry for the long quotes but it's worth the read.

 

[ellenjanuary]

In Genisis god tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the Treee of Knowledge of good and evil. He then gets mad when they do and kicks them out of the garden,why?

1) How were they suppose to know that eating from the tree would get them kicked out? how were they suppose to know that it was wrong to?

2) If god opened up the possibility of "free will" with this act, why didn't he just make humans like that from the beginning?

Someone told me oncer that it wasn't "wrong" for them to eat the fruit, but because they didn't listen to god, they were kicked out. If it wasn't wrong, why were they kicked out?

This is Moses telling backstory. Like in literature, these characters were created to illustrate a moral paradigm.

 

[rockstarwife628]

I'm not trying to be a smarty pants, lol, but I don't read that much into the narrative, because I don't take it literally/don't believe it actually happened.... I think the narrative was merely meant to explain the ideal (represented by the Garden) that man will always be trying to get back to, a one-ness with God, Shalom. I think it's also meant to introduce us into the Divine context, and to explain the way things were that they couldn't explain at that time. But I don't believe it was ever intended to represent literal, actual people who ever actually walked the earth....

 

[kepha31]

Agreed, RockStarWife


Properly understood, Genesis gives us insights into the problem of evil that is unmatched. Atheists have no consistent definition of evil.

 

[rocketboy]

No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice.

This does not in any way solve the problem of evil. Why does God allow people to choose the wrong thing? Remember, free will does not preclude this. There are many different good things I may choose to do at this moment, many more neutral things, and many evil things.
Why am I able to do evil things?
If God is good, sees everything, and can do anything, why would he not stop me?

 

[kepha31]

You admit you have the power to choose, but ask why God would not stop you in making evil choices. It's because God cannot do everything, he cannot violate your right to make choices, or impinge on your free will. If God stopped you from making a wrong choice, you would be a robot.

What is the materialist creed? Modern materialism denies that we have a soul and reduces us to a mere body. In doing so, it assumes that all our actions are determined by physical forces, and therefore denies that we have free will. It therefore declares to be unreal our everyday experience of freely choosing this or that action, and in doing so, removes the possibility of moral action. It reduces love and hate, courage and cowardice to chemistry, and makes of human adventure and human history predetermined paths marked out from the beginning by the laws of nature. And finally, based upon the notion that the universe is a great self-winding, law-driven machine, materialism declares that miracles are impossible and God does not exist.
Fairy stories don't allow such nonsense. They are built upon the everyday experience that we do, in fact, make free choices, and it is the common-sense recognition of the reality of free choice that shatters the entire materialist myth... more:

Is Christmas a Fairy Story?

 

[ellenjanuary]

Agreed, RockStarWife


Properly understood, Genesis gives us insights into the problem of evil that is unmatched. Atheists have no consistent definition of evil.

That's because there's always a new "fundamental Christian" illustrating evil like never before... and Falwell died, so...

 

[waitasec]

You admit you have the power to choose, but ask why God would not stop you in making evil choices. It's because God cannot do everything, he cannot violate your right to make choices, or impinge on your free will. If God stopped you from making a wrong choice, you would be a robot.

if i may,

yet god can take away my responsibility and culpability?

btw, i don't believe we have free will. did you choose your parents and where you where born...?
these 2 very important aspects of life where indeed precluded...so according to your logic, we are robots designed to sin...ex 8:21 every inclination is evil...
which is simply an all out lie.

 

[ellenjanuary]

btw, i don't believe we have free will. did you choose your parents and where you where born...?

Yuma, to George Cantor and Gwyneth Paltrow... I is eleven; historical record be damned.

But that is a matter of will; ain't nothing "free" about it.

 

[kepha31]

if i may,

yet god can take away my responsibility and culpability?

No, he can't do that either. The justice of God is a problem for funnymentalists who cannot reconcile that with His mercy. The reformists invented "Justification by Faith Alone" to eliminated the need for purification after death. If I throw a rock through your window, I can repent and be forgiven but Jesus doesn't pay for the window. That is my responsibility. If I hade a mental illness then my culpability would be diminished. Some people go balistic over the term "purgatory" but the concept appeals to reason. It has nothing do with forgiving sins, but the consequences of sins. Purgatory simply put, cleanses us from all the metaphorical broken windows of our lives that we never got around to paying for. God is a God of Justice and Mercy.

btw, i don't believe we have free will. did you choose your parents and where you where born...?

External circumstances have nothing to do with free will. Before you existed, you had no will.

these 2 very important aspects of life where indeed precluded...so according to your logic, we are robots designed to sin...ex 8:21 every inclination is evil...
which is simply an all out lie.

I said if God removed our right to choose, if God stopped us from choosing evil, we would be robots. I did not say we are robots designed to sin. I did not say "every inclination is evil". Please post the quote. And you are correct, "every inclination is evil" is a lie. It is a reflection of the doctrine of Total Depravity of Man which is a lie. John Calvin wasn't a liar, he was just wrong.

 

[Watchmen]

According to God we were already like him. The FALL is the thing that made us like him.

Since we were like him....according to God....we could no longer eat from the tree of life. SO he kicked us out of the garden. So according to the bible your little theory isn't holding up very well.

My theory holds up just fine. We were like God in that we now understood good and evil, but that doesn't mean we had all the knowledge and experience and triumph over sin and death that God has had.

 

[blackout]

God screwed Adam and Eve

God is Bisexual.

 

[waitasec]

No, he can't do that either. The justice of God is a problem for funnymentalists who cannot reconcile that with His mercy. The reformists invented "Justification by Faith Alone" to eliminated the need for purification after death. If I throw a rock through your window, I can repent and be forgiven but Jesus doesn't pay for the window. That is my responsibility. If I hade a mental illness then my culpability would be diminished. Some people go balistic over the term "purgatory" but the concept appeals to reason. It has nothing do with forgiving sins, but the consequences of sins. Purgatory simply put, cleanses us from all the metaphorical broken windows of our lives that we never got around to paying for. God is a God of Justice and Mercy.


External circumstances have nothing to do with free will. Before you existed, you had no will.


I said if God removed our right to choose, if God stopped us from choosing evil, we would be robots. I did not say we are robots designed to sin. I did not say "every inclination is evil". Please post the quote. And you are correct, "every inclination is evil" is a lie. It is a reflection of the doctrine of Total Depravity of Man which is a lie. John Calvin wasn't a liar, he was just wrong.

the ultimatum has been presented... it is a threat... to manipulate a certain response by gaining total control... you are right, robots was probably the wrong word, god would rather have us to behave more like those trained animals one would find in a circus