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The fall of man; Free will
- Thread starter waitasec
- Start date
Thief
Rogue Theologian
I don't mind tribute when due.
So has it been determined....
Have we fallen from grace? or made acquisition of what it takes to survive our pending deaths?
waitasec
Veteran Member
you averted the question....
only an abusive parent would be jealous of their children
only an abusive spouse would be jealous for their partners affection
remember; 1 cor 13: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres
　
you averted the question
what is god jealous of?
again jealousy is evidence of insecurity and FEAR
jml03
Member
#12 i said this...remember?
these forums are for debate not a conversion tool; if that is your PURPOSE to be here...
to trust in the lord is a hard thing to do, isn't it :yes:
this is a forum for debate, if you have forgotten. i am not so sure what you are so angry about, our last exchange was about the gospels, in this case, the transfiguration and the 2nd coming.... or is it something else, please be more specific so that i may address your frustration more accrurately
my comments have obviously fallen on deaf ears, i've been saying this all along...
"i don't think your god has wronged me
i believe the christian right has wronged humanity in general
with slavery, segregation, anti bi-racial marriages, sexism and heterosexism
all i'm asking is, were is your faith in the midst of these judgments and hunger for control over peoples private business...who appointed the christian right as mediator between our freedom of will and the laws of the god in your bible....
i believe we are all equal...you have your right to believe what you want to and so do i, the reason forums like these exist in the 1st place, is because the christian right/religious extremism infringe on our freedoms..."
if it is so boring then why do you keep coming back?
and in #12 again i said...
if you don't like this debate and get that upset about it talk to your pastor and ask him what you should do...
"should i stay or should i go"
ahhh looks like you have issues with pride...let it go
it's easier than you think, after all, your keyboard is feeling your wrath more than i and you might have to go to Best Buys and buy another one...
now you've got me smiling.
dmgdnooc
Active Member
What language was the OT translated from ?
Jealous of my free will?
Jealous of Adam's free will?
If it is not my free will, what is God jealous of?
All, yes ALL, those questions have been addressed.
　
You miss the point, again.
God is not jealous OF His children; He is jealous FOR them.
　
I understand it that, every human being on Earth is a potential child of God.
His jealousy is FOR those who acknowledge His parentage.
His jealousy is AGAINST those who undermine or seek to destroy that bond of affection with His children (the ones who acknowledge His parentage) the ones who love Him, and keep His commandments..
　
Love describes a 2way street, a relationship, a bonding force.
There can be no love-bonding if one party loves and the other hates.
The context of 1Cor 13 is the body of Christ, the Church, do you really suppose that the love therein described is a one-way street, a love in isolation?
　
'Vigilant in guarding' appears nearer the scriptural definition of jealousy than your modernistic attempts at a psychoanalysed definition.
It is an error of naivete in understanding to apply modern definitions to the English translations, without regard to the original meaning of the words used and without regard to context.
　
God is not jealous of, He is jealous for. An idea that you appear unable to comprehend.
I wonder if it is because you have never felt the emotion; having only felt the fear and insecurity that you describe as jealousy.
That may be 'jealousy' to you but please don't confuse it with the jealousy of God for His children.
And don't expect me to accept your misunderstanding as fact just because you've read a new-age self-help book that describes jealousy as a negative emotion centred on fear and insecurity.
　
waitasec
Veteran Member
huh? how are you jealous for your child?
explain this very bizarre logic you have...i gotta hand it to you though, you are very imaginative...
"A husband is jealous on behalf of his wife against a rival for her affections.
rival? the husbands rival...does the husband not trust his own wife...
pretty weak argument here
A wife for her husband also.
A parent for their child, the child for his/her parents.
this is absolutely crazy, i am a mother and i cannot fathom being jealous for my child...what does this mean? of what? for what?...you're reaching
what is god jealous for then?
jealousy is an emotion caused by FEAR AND INSECURITY
　
"Jealousy is a normal emotional default state in human beings.
It is an emotion that we share with God and is related to, an aspect of, intense love" you mean intense envy?
a parents love is unconditional
the god in your bible places conditions...
why would an all powerful creator feel insecure?
this makes perfect sense, because of god's insecurity his followers are in secure as well...faith isn't enough by the way they act out
i'm sorry you have to go through life this way...
there is nothing to fear but fear itself...
can't you just let it go and let god...or maybe your too insecure to take such a step
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waitasec
Veteran Member
i've been thinking, dmgdnooc...
why is it we cannot see eye to eye?
do you think we, in our western world, culture, modern times, have the same concept of the word "father" as as it was understood back then?
correct me if i am wrong, i'm sure you will try
but i think today, the word father means something completely different.
today a father strives to cultivate a personal relationship with their children
they are no longer stereotypes as the sole provider and disciplinary figure for their children...do you follow?
back then a father was just that the creator, the provider and the master of the house...
"our heavenly father" does not have the same meaning today as it did then.
i don't know if you are a parent but see, i will never fear being regarded as insignificant to my child because i love my child and i show my love for my child by what i do...i will never fear that my love will not be returned because i do not demand that from them. love trumps fear, insecurity
what would cause the god in your bible to be controlling by demanding obedience and servitude? fear of not being in control
and why the need for control? the fear of being insignificant.
and how does one acquire control? the use of fear.
all these attributes are examples of what the word "father" meant THEN
it does not apply to fathers TODAY
dmgdnooc
Active Member
You appear to be unable to get your head inside the scriptures.
Bowing down to other gods is a forfeiture of eternal life in the scripture.
God desires the largest family possible and is not willing that any should perish.
His jealousy (vigilance in guarding the bond of love that will bring His children into life eternal) is against those who would break the bond (scripturally) murdering His children.
If you are a parent you will understand the emotion; it is the enmity of a parent against the person murderering their child.
You should understand that the emotion is not rooted in enmity it is rooted in love.
　
If your child had a 'friend' who regularly did the hardest drugs and was continually trying to persuade your child to follow them into their habit, and you saw your child wavering, weakening, then, maybe, you would experience the (scriptural) emotion of jealousy.
And your jealousy would operate against the 'friend' and for your child.
　
The modernistic new-age view that fear/insecurity is 'jealousy' is incorrect when applied to the jealousy of God in the Bible.
Time, chance and the vagaries and limitations of the English language have labelled the 2 emotions with the same word.
This is not an isolated case, the English word love is indiscriminately used to describe 3 different types of scriptural love.
It usually only needs to be pointed out to a person once or twice before they catch on and the confusion is dispelled.
　
Don't worry your head feeling sorry for me.
I can't let go of God, I do not have hold of Him.
I love Him and desire to be His son in all things, and for that reason He will not let go of me.
His jealousy will continue to vigilantly guard the love-bond we share.
waitasec
Veteran Member
i am not going to turn my back on my child because he sinned against me i will always be therefore him...i will not create a consequence of being separated from my child.
your gods jealousy is compared to the LOVE a husband has for his wife...
in that culture men did not marry for love, did they? women were looked upon as property...that is why we misconstrued what gods love means... possession.
It is the thought of another man with HIS wife that is disturbing the husband. Does the wife REALLY belong to anyone anyway? I realize we are speaking of marriage, but, a choice was made. No one can control another persons choices. Here we see god as needy by demanding our servitude and it only confirms that god was made in the image of jealous men.
It is like keeping a bird locked up a cage unable to fly...and use it's wings
If you truly love something you let it go. We my FEAR a love that is unrequited but it is when we are IN FEAR do we CONTROL the OBJECT of our affections.
But even so, would the love that we desire be returned by force or by a threat?
punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
Sounds like a threat to me... what battered wife would attempt to leave with such a fear...
lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against
thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.
Doesnt that sounds like an abusive controlling husband.
dmgdnooc
Active Member
i've been thinking, dmgdnooc...
why is it we cannot see eye to eye?
do you think we, in our western world, culture, modern times, have the same concept of the word "father" as as it was understood back then?
correct me if i am wrong, i'm sure you will try
but i think today, the word father means something completely different.
today a father strives to cultivate a personal relationship with their children
they are no longer stereotypes as the sole provider and disciplinary figure for their children...do you follow?
back then a father was just that the creator, the provider and the master of the house...
"our heavenly father" does not have the same meaning today as it did then.
i don't know if you are a parent but see, i will never fear being regarded as insignificant to my child because i love my child and i show my love for my child by what i do...i will never fear that my love will not be returned because i do not demand that from them. love trumps fear, insecurity
what would cause the god in your bible to be controlling by demanding obedience and servitude? fear of not being in control
and why the need for control? the fear of being insignificant.
and how does one acquire control? the use of fear.
all these attributes are examples of what the word "father" meant THEN
it does not apply to fathers TODAY
I think that we cannot see eye to eye on the scriptures because we approach them in fundamentally opposing manners.
I would say that we both have baggage, we are human beings, but I have learnt to leave my baggage at the door when reading the scriptures.
　
I think that modern and classical understandings of the term 'father' are fused in the scripture.
God walked and talked with the Edenic pair, allowed them privacy and freedom of action.
He gave them direction, not directives, and encouraged them to develop at their own pace.
The God of the Bible is a leader that seeks the cooperation of those whom He leads.
He is not the aloof and imperious dictator of the popular mythologies that surround Him.
　
None of which should make us forget that He is the creator of the heavens and the earth and all that therein dwells and has a certain status and prerogatives that must be respected.
　
BTW and quite off topic.
I think that the changes that we observe in family structure have more to do with
1. the philosophy of 'total war' that took fathers into the armed forces and put mothers into the factories supplying their munitions etc to meet the needs of WW1 and then WW2.
and
2. the economics of consumerism that put demands on families for a 2nd income just to make ends meet.
　
As a generalisation, I could say.
There was a time when a father worked 40 hrs a week, was paid for 40 hours work and could keep his family in comfortable circumstances
Now father and mother both work 60 hours a week, are paid for 35 hours each and struggle to keep house.
That's progress, that's the expansion of wealth and leisure that has accrued in the western economies.
And it appears to me that our children are not well served by the new arrangement of things.
waitasec
Veteran Member
i was referring to the ancient hebrew world, where the terms father and husband do not apply for today...look at the middle eastern world TODAY
their definition of a HUSBAND is not like ours and then you will see that is the type of husband god is to his church
dmgdnooc
Active Member
God does not turn His back on His children, it happens, though, that they turn their backs on Him.
When they turn away from Him, He is in the position of the father in the parable of the 'prodigal son' who finds no rest, constantly scans the horizon, until his son returns, with or without the inheritance he had in hand.
　
God's love for Israel is compared, starkly and vividly, with the love between a husband and wife.
And although Israel whored about with the other nations He did not give her a bill of divorcement to put her away from Him.
He took her back, when she returned, and loved her no less.
　
You assume that it is exclusively 'the thought of another man with HIS wife that is disturbing the husband'.
The wife may be entirely uninterested in the one trying to seduce her, have no desire for anyone other than HER husband, and yet the man (confident of faithfulness) will (should) still be jealous because the love-bond is being attacked.
It is the love-bond that is important, not the prospect of infidelity,
If infidelity ever became an issue of significance then that would be a demonstration that the love-bond had already been damaged (or was less than it is meant to be in the first place).
　
A husband and wife are a bonded pair.
'Let us make man .... male and female created He them'
The battle of the sexes is a modern concept, scripturally, a human is a bonded pair, male and female.
Each half of the pair contributes their unique strengths and weaknesses to the single human being that their pairing has formed.
There is little room in that structure for concepts of ownership. The left hand has no ownership of the right hand.
That's how it was 'in the beginning' and that is what is sought in Christian marriage.
If you must apply concepts of ownership then; husband and wife own each other.
　
You must realise that the junior clerk serves the senior clerk, the senior clerk the office manager, the office manager the branch manager, the branch manger the .... you get the picture.
There is a hierarchy in the natural world (that I suppose you are comfortable with - unless your a fundamentalist anarchist - and you think that the hierarchy of the Bible (spiritual hierarchy) is a reflection of that.
I can see (in the other mirror) that the hierarchy of the natural world is a reflection of the spiritual hierarchy. And assert that with every bit as much conviction as you assert the opposite.
　
God did let those Edenic birds go, they made their own choices.
But He never left them, that's a feature of omnipresence.
He accompanied them on every journey, comforted them in the dark and lonely places in which they dwelt.
Sometimes they knew He was there, other times not,
I take comfort in the thought that God, in the ultimate, is 'in control'.
All He does is motivated by love and because of that I can trust Him to do the best thing possible in every circumstance.
　
That your characterisations of God are solely oriented towards fear, abuse. insecurity, etc is more telling of your personal orientations than of God's.
I suppose you have suffered much at the hands of the self-righteous to be so filled with despite that you are completely blind-sided to God's love in the Bible.
Is there nothing in the Bible that attracts you?
　
waitasec
Veteran Member
god created hell...
　
submission to his WILL
since men were to rule over women and i can give you hundreds of passages portraying the subjection of women... and even if there was only 1 then that is 1 too many
women were viewed as 2nd class citizens just above slaves...you will find that same view of women in the middle east today, in regards to the traditional extremists...
that is the image of marriage between god and his church
　　
i am saying the projection of god as a father/husband that we conjure up comes from our experience with a loving relationship with our fathers/husbands or the way our fathers/husbands should have been...
　
1 Cor 13:4-7
god told eve man was to rule over her
if my memory serves me well, the consequence was death right? so why did god throw that on to eve...she was to be mortal now...that was the consequence.
the posture here is women are to be ruled over...the basis of this is not love it is ownership; MY wife MY church
in the book of Hosea, god tell's him to marry an adulterous women
why? if he knew she was unfaithful why marry her?
he cannot demand her love and she will not give it to him the only thing she can give is her SUBMISSION
it's the same story of the fall of man all over again
where is the freedom?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.
This puts everything...and the consequences...in your hands.
You will be dealt with as you dealt with others.
You are free to choose.
This has been with Man...even at the beginning.
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waitasec
Veteran Member
i agree with that wholeheartedly
i think that in and of itself speaks volumes about being born into freedom
however,
you show me where in the OT god says do unto others...
and as far as i can see he only speaks to men...
women were considered to be 2nd class citizens...you cannot deny that
dmgdnooc
Active Member
Hell is the hole in the ground where a corpse is interred.
I have no belief in a place of eternal punishments and find no such idea in the scripture.
The idea of eternal torments was widely current in Greek and Persian religion and I suppose the idea to have been forced onto the Bible by the Church.
The God of the Bible is not a torturer; people die, they stay dead or are resurrected to life.
　
'submission to his WILL' is a strange idea to get from the parable of the 'prodigal son'.
How do you reason that?
　
It is as I explained, that a human is a bonded pair, male and female together as a single being.
A man is to lead his wife by example, not force, by laying down his life for her, not take comfort to himself by making her life an oppression.
A woman is to accept the lead by love, not fear.
And also not without the input of her advice and admonition.
I strongly suspect that the hundreds of passages that you might cite to prove oppression, I would cite to prove the bonds of love.
　
Women, in the scripture, are often depicted as of higher worth of character than men (consider the role of women in the Gospels) and men do themselves a service by taking heed of the things they have to say.
　
I am saying that our projections of God as a father have nothing to do with it.
Our projections should be aligned with how the scripture projects the concept of God as the Father.
　
God told Eve that her husband would rule over her, that he would have the final say in their joint decisions. There was no licence given for oppression.
　
Adam and Eve were mortal in the garden, death was not something that was put onto them as a punishment.
So, she was not 'to be mortal now'; she always had been.
The consequence was that now death would have to be experienced before a way to the tree of life was made open.
　
Adam, when Eve offered him the fruit, was faced with a mind numbing, heart wrenching dilemma.
Should he eat, knowing that death would ensue, or should he separate from his wife and distance himself from her fate.
He chose to suffer death with her rather than live without her.
Fact is (scripturally) Adam's rule over Eve was a result of the decision he made - to stay with her no matter what the cost.
That decision was made, imo, because he loved her more than life itself.
　
But you think that he was not motivated by love.
What then was his motivation in choosing death?
　
Hosea's wife was a figure for Israel; Hosea for God.
vs 1,2 'take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms:
for (because) the land (its inhabitants, ie Israel) hath committed great whoredom'
If you had only read on to the end of the verse you would have had the answer to your question.
And the marriage in Hosea is to be, in the ultimate, 'in righteousness, and in judgement, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies .... and in faithfulness' 2.19,20
　
The freedom is as described in 1 Cor 13.
waitasec
Veteran Member
i'm glad to hear that...
　
the prodigal son is not a good metaphor for the fall of man...
because this has to do with choice; freedom of will
　
gen 3:16
　
read the OT, there is plenty to choose from and you know it...
in dt. if a woman is raped by a man and she is not pledged the rapist's punishment is 50 pieces of silver to the girls FATHER and he then has to marry her BUT if she is pledged to another man he is to die
her WORTH has to do if she is married/or pledged to a man...if she is OWNED
　
that's a good one, i like that actually, very romantic
HOWEVER, ultimately she is to be ruled by man...
i thought the consequence was death, not to be subjected to man
　
hosea 2;19 speaks of the hope of her love to be returned
in short, hosea was an idiot