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some things are fairly obvious
It's only that your claim goes contrary to what almost all other Christians believe to be part of his omniscience.
You're not looking at it right then. That's what I'm here to do.
Actually, this is how I read it, and as someone who very much values the story. It's a beautiful look into our humanity in understanding itself all those years ago, which they captured in this classic story.
People who grow up in a Strict Parent (SP) home (as opposed to Nurturant Parent (NP) homes - these are terms from the Cognitive Behavior Sciences, BTW), will typically see that switch across their back, as "instructional", justifying the actions of the parent who uses physical force to "discipline" his child. Discipline and instructions in NP homes occurs in more loving fashions, as oppose to force which is then justified as love "for their own good".
I agree with this.
I'll approach this another way. Do you know what makes electricity flow over a piece of wire? Current, which moves from point A to point B occurs when there is an imbalance electrical charge. One side has a negative charge, and the other side a positive charge. The negative side is a deficiency of electons. There is an empty hole that needs to be filled.
I used a poor choice of words. I should have said, "overlooked" as in artistic license, like any great story where you see an inconsistency that may pop up in the story. You "overlook that" because it's a great story. Right?
OMG, this is the scientific method applied to finding God! How ridiculous.
Inconsistency happens when you magically turn them into fully Awakened Adults living in the Presence of God, yet, being tempted? That makes zero sense. Is God himself ever tempted to sin? No? Then why if they are Full, would they? If they were not One with God, then, they were incomplete, deficient, or "fallen", and that resulted in "sin," as it does in all of us who are not One with God. But when you are in the Presence of God, and God fills your soul, there is no temptation possible, for there is no lack in you. You are Complete.
But the rationalist is not reading the Genesis account that way. They are the ones who "debunk" the myth, because they too are reading it literally, just like you are. Instead however, read literally it makes no logical sense, and must therefore be false, and rejected - tossing the baby of truth about our humanity, with the inaccuracies of scientific analysis. Quite stupid, actually.
The way you just stated it, all that is is a "restatement" of the exact same literalist set of eyes reading the text. The "believer" reads its a factually true, and the "atheist" reads it as factually false. Neither understanding poetry.
Well, I don't think any believes we've reproduced the Big Bang in a lab. I hope not! That would pretty much put an end to us, like having 70 gazillion nukes going off in your pocket!
I actually don't see a problem with that. However it happened, it was God creating. Here's an interesting thought I'd like to share with you. It's how I see this.
I place my faith in the Presence of God. I don't place it in interpreting sacred texts. Those are not the true Foundation one should build their house upon. They are dependent on our ideas of truth, not Truth itself beyond them. The Presence of God alone is Truth.
My scientific understanding of creation is one thing. My spiritual understanding takes what that shows us, and understands it with the soul within faith. Faith should never contradict known facts. That's not faith, but fear, a lack of faith.
The literal approach has failed faith itself, the moment it has to deny science to fit one very specific interpretation of the text, one which a great many Christians themselves find a poor interpretation. It reminds of the Saul on the road to Damascus encountering Jesus where he tells him, "It is harder for thee to kick against the pricks". That's what science denial is. It's fighting against revealed truth.
note.....I have no religion
Yet your theology evidently can't account for your claim that god does not look ahead of the present. What do you do, just parrot its claims without justification?
I've essentially come to the realization that Hellenization with the silly "ideal forms" and such nonsense polluted biblical theology. Gods didn't work that way in the ancient Middle East. They weren't omni-anything.
Or, like many parents, having kids is more about the parent than the kids.
He threatens to kill off the majority of the world's population after Jesus supposedly fixed things. He's not THAT impressed.
If you protest something God is doing that is immoral, are you deserving of death?
When He chooses to live by that standard, He can expect us to.
You got the attitude right. It's wrong, but you characterized it quite well.
I would much rather say God is not all-knowing than to say He is but He chooses not to know. Do you think the parent is at fault if they say "I chose not to know my baby was in the car on the hot summer day"?
Yes, and that would be neglect. If He wants to avoid moral culpability, He should say He just simply didn't know.
Well, ratings are important.
Like how severe genetic anomalies are weeded out through miscarriage?
He sinned a LOT, though. He killed a fig tree when it wasn't supposed to be making figs just because a guy who can snap food into existence was hungry. THAT'S not selfish? (And really, REALLY dumb?)
He told ADAM. EVE was created later and the text never mentions she got the memo.
We don't consider nonhumans or certain humans to be able to consent or be informed. We still expect obedience despite the unlikelihood of it happening.
There are many reasons you ate the cookie. None of them thanks to some magic will. The fact you ate it despite knowing you were dieting proves the point that you are driven by biological drives.
On the contrary. She added "no touchy". She was not there to hear the rule. She gets it wrong.
People witnessed the cross part. No one saw the crown part. It's funny how the reward is always after it's too late.
I'm more of a "quality over quantity" person.
He says certain things are immoral and then does them. He IS disobeying Himself.
A. He and Eve technically weren't deceived as the serpent was the only one telling the truth.
In English. They are not portrayed as anything remotely resembling a mature adult human. They act like kids. God creates "earthling" and "life-giver", not "man" and "woman".
Aside from lacking that, there are many huge logical inconsistencies here (since we are applying literalism to the text we must therefore use a critical analysis to it and see if it stands).[/quote]
Before we invent our own biblical narrative, let's look at what the serpent said to Eve:
I didn't say a boy and girl, but children. I'm not imagining the authors characters as toddlers, which you seem to imagine I'm saying. Again, even if they were physically adults, their innocent nature, as well as naivety about the sufferings and hardships of life made them children.
It is you inserting "boy and girl" into the texts of my words. They aren't there. Children is, but in the sense of innocence, not physical maturity. Again, you seem to think that when Jesus says unless you become as a child, that would mean a form of mental retardation. Again, this is the problem with literalism.
Boy isn't, which I never stated. Child is, based upon reading what they were like. They were "as children" in the Garden, like what Jesus said you and I should be like. Right?
I've been encouraging you to read this as poetry. Oh well, let's go ahead and rape it with a critical analysis.
It seems you do not understand an important aspect of how the human mind works. Do you think that the ideas of truth and reality, of right and wrong, of good vs bad, etc, just magically appear in humans innately? If so, then why does the bible say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it"?
No. Children have free wills too. With maturity, comes responsibility, not with free will. With understanding, comes responsibility, not with "choice". Did Adam and Eve truly understand? I do not believe so. How could they have, as they had no knowledge of what good and evil actually meant?
A toddler has an overwhelming abundance of free will! Does he receive responsibility with it? I can imagine a conversation from this imaginary parent now. "Now Tommy, here's a lighter I told you about, and there's the gas oven. Remember what I told you about not playing with these. Now don't burn the house down while I'm out with my friends for the evening. Have a good night alone! Remember, since you have free will, that means you can be responsible now."
Well, he gave us access to the tree of good and evil, and we apparently weren't responsible enough for that! Think of it like giving someone high level clearance access to nuclear weapons. Even though we may be responsible in other areas of life, that does not mean we are put in charge of things requiring higher levels of clearance access. We have to be vetted first, and there would need to be an actual reason why we should have access!
While I love this verse, I think you are confused that this has anything at all to do with being responsible. It does not. It has to do with humility, not responsibility. I can learn to be humble with the gifts God has given me, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for access to the nukes.
Never said the mind of a toddler. It is you injecting things into my texts. I said the innocence of a child. And I stand by that.
I'm looking at the circumstances and the actions of Adam and Eve, as well as the expectations of God portrayed in the story. I see adults as children at play in the garden, naked in their innocence, unashamed, like children, unaware of existential terrors like death and disease. I see a child's innocence before the day, unaware of the tragedies the adult in the story is aware of. I see them choosing to grow up, and take that red pill and find out what the "real world" is, like Neo in the Matrix.
First of all, I'd say the number of "true adults" living in the world today is far fewer than hundreds of millions! I'd say that most adults are actually just operating as children in adult clothes. We still have those temper tantrums and cries of "that's mine!", except we do it with more "dignity" and airs of "maturity".
I have a fruitful one.My goodness, you certainly have an active imagination!
No it's not. I read that as the serpent saying, "Did he really say that to you," meaning, they knew his words, but he was planting the seeds of doubt that God may not have been telling the truth about the consequences. You don't see that?
Haha! Aside from you equating me with the serpent, which is absurd, I never said he created them physically as children. Eve was Adam's wife. Toddlers don't have husbands and wives. But they were "as children", like Jesus said we too should be in order to see the Kingdom of God.
No. It. Is. Not. Period. What I hear here, is you saying, "Please don't challenge how I've been thinking of these things, as for me to change how I think puts me at risk of losing my salvation! Get thee behind me Satan!". Fear. All the way up, and all the way down. This is not a godly faith, but fear.
I've been looking at it the whole time.
Because he didn't given chipmunks and squirrels responsibility with the keys to the nukes. He gave that to humans, who were clearly not ready for that.
We were doing just fine in the Garden. Why did God place a nuke in it? We had free will, and responsibility. But we were too innocent and naive to handle the keys to a weapon of mass destructions.
On the face of it, it reads exactly as I said, if you choose to apply critical thought to it. Otherwise, I'm happy reading it as a mythology instead. It's you who insist it's literal. All I'm doing it pointing out the inconsistencies if it were read that way. Why did God leave a nuke in the living room? What was its purpose in it being there? Why? Can you answer that rationally? As a test?
Do you see children as emotionally and spiritually mature? I don't. Yet, I see them as inherently good. So does God. He tells us we should be like them, in their goodness, not their maturity level. Jesus doesn't encourage us to be immature in order to see God. Just be good, like a child is.
I agree. But there are levels and degrees of responsibility. Cleary they weren't ready for that level of responsibility, the power over good and evil. They weren't ready to deal with knowing to distrust what others said. They instead innocently trusted a liar and were deceived. Why did God give a predator access to them when he would have known they were still vulnerable, not yet knowing the difference between good and evil, like a child?
That is completely false. We all are driven by instincts. Everyone of us. That we can choose to say no to these instinctual impulses is a matter of learning self-discipline, through trial and error, as well as the teachings of others. Did God give them the tools to know when to distrust others? Do you see that in the narrative? When did he say, "Don't listen to the snake. And by the way, don't ask me why I put it in the garden with you."?
Well, that's not true at all. First, of course we have instincts for survival. And yes, we can survive without a religious belief in God. Do we "thrive" as well without God as with God? Oh, this is way too complex a topic to unravel here. I'd say we can be just as much in accord with nature as any of the rest of creation by listening to the instincts of our bodies, and not letting our "thinking" interfere. But when it comes to a spiritual awakening, that requires a higher light to the mind of humankind. I'll leave it at that for here.
Or, it can be unfolded into new and higher meaning. I think you may be hiding your faith under the rocks of beliefs here, which is you injecting those into scripture.
Why should I? I never claimed that.
What you do not understand is that the narrative, "as written" can be read in a myriad of different ways. That's what makes a good mythology. Too bad you insist on assigning it one meaning only.
Yeah, something like that, but God gave everyone a chance to live no matter how defective we are.
