• TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Even non-Christians know the rather tragic tale, The Fall Of Man. The story goes that Eve was enticed by Satan in serpent form to eat the forbidden fruit - most often depicted as an apple (malus domestica) - from the The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil. Eve did chomp down on and Adam followed suit. The rest is, as we all know, history.

    Now this story of Adam & Eve and their subsequent banishment from The Garden Of Eden is, seems to be, metaphorical but there are so-called Bible Literalists and it is in that I find lurking an intriguing possibility:

    We've all reenacted the fatal mistake Adam and Eve made that fateful day in Eden - we've all eaten apples. With each bite, we've taken into our mouths a chunk of apple, munched on it, felt the texture of its flesh, tasted its sweetness, felt its juice bathe the inside of our mouths. In other words, if we view ourselves as a scientific instrument, what we have in our mouths is a specimen/sample of apple - everything that is an apple (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) is being analyzed by our mouths, then the digestive system. Why is it then that we don't gain knowledge of apples in this process? We should be able to know the chemicals, their structure (I mentioned sweetness), the biological properties of the cells, their architecture, so and so forth; after all we do have a sample in our GI tract?

    What I'm getting at is a unique way of gaining knowledge - not by reading/listening to books/lectures but, dare I say it, by eating and touching and smelling, and so on.

    To illustrate: Just by touching a crystal, I could figure out it lattice structure, the molecules present, the forces at play, etc.. By smelling a gas, I could divine the chemical composition of that gas, its concentration, etc. You get the idea.

    Comments...
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    What I'm getting at is a unique way of gaining knowledge - not by reading/listening to books/lectures but, dare I say it, by eating and touching and smelling, and so on.

    To illustrate: Just by touching a crystal, I could figure out it lattice structure, the molecules present, the forces at play, etc.. By smelling a gas, I could divine the chemical composition of that gas, its concentration, etc. You get the idea.
    TheMadFool

    You seem to be suggesting that scientific approach gives insights into areas which religious forbids.

    I think central point in the story of "The Fall Of Man" isn't to give any secular insights, but rather spiritual ones. Insights which can't be empirically measured or proved.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    One aspect of your thread question on knowledge gained by smelling and touching etc is the aspect of sensory pleasure. The reason why I say this is because in the story of the fall of mankind in the Biblical account of Genesis, this is probably central. In a way, it is about the experiences of sexuality, but probably in connection with the whole range of pleasures of the senses and how they provide 'temptations', probably in contrast to rationality.

    Perhaps Kant's philosophy is relevant somehow because he speaks of a priori logic, and his whole philosophy was based on puritanical values. Recently, I was reading Nietzsche's view in 'The Dawn of Day' , that Kant developed his ideas about rationality to back up his own views about morality.

    But, in connection with knowledge, the sensory world comes with pleasure. William Blake critiqued this in his understanding of the philosophy of John Milton, who developed the myth of the fall of the angels.
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    What you describe is belief (as heuristic) by acquaintance and not knowledge (as algorithm), so ...
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    You seem to be suggesting that scientific approach gives insights into areas which religious forbids.SpaceDweller

    One possible interpretation, yes.

    I think central point in the story of "The Fall Of Man" isn't to give any secular insights, but rather spiritual ones. Insights which can't be empirically measured or proved.SpaceDweller

    Why not.

    :ok:

    What you describe is belief (as heuristic) by acquaintance and not knowledge (as algorithm), so ...180 Proof

    :ok:

    Update (to all posters above and below)

    It seems my post has multiple points of interest and please feel free to explore them all.

    My main objective though was to explore the different methods by which we could gain knowledge. Perhaps a short clip will get my point across than words. Vide infra:



    The woman in the scene is a terminator (T-X) and she sees a blood-soaked cloth on the floor. Scientifically, that's a sample/specimen. She then "tastes" it but what's actually happening is she's doing a chemical analysis of the specimen - actually a DNA analysis - and is able to identify the person ( John Connor) the blood came from. Couldn't we do the same? :chin:
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    Why not.TheMadFool

    Because that apple in the garden of Eden was just an ordinary apple, the act of physically eating those apples isn't what's wrong, instead it's disobedience toward God's commandment not to eat them what is wrong.

    This is confirmed later, Adam and Even hide them self in garden later when God come, not because they were poisoned by those apples or anything similar, but rather because of a shame and fear of what would Gad say or do now?

    That is the whole meaning of this story, painful and shameful apostasy from God because of disobedience, ex. who are you to tell me what to do? I'm know better than you, I don't need God.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Because that apple in the garden of Eden was just an ordinary apple, the act of physically eating those apples isn't what's wrong, instead it's disobedience toward God's commandment not to eat them what is wrong.SpaceDweller

    You mean to say it's just the act of defiance that God was angered by? Why choose that particular tree of knowledge of good and evil then? Why not something else? Your theory also seems to lead to rather dangerous conclusions - if God so commanded that we murder, rape, plunder, atrocities of all kinds, it would be wrong to disobey Him?
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    Why choose that particular tree of knowledge of good and evil then? Why not something else?TheMadFool

    In other words, why is Genesis written using imagery? why not just telling straight away what happened, why not just telling straight that Adam and Eve defied God and then God punished them.

    Those texts are thousands of years old, so what you're asking is why literature in that time was different from literature as we know today?
    Or why did God inspire holly writers to write using imagery.

    Your theory also seems to lead to rather dangerous conclusions - if God so commanded that we murder, rape, plunder, atrocities of all kinds, it would be wrong to disobey Him?TheMadFool
    IF God so commanded, but none of the God's commandment command such a thing as far as I know.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Why choose that particular tree of knowledge of good and evil then? Why not something else?
    — TheMadFool

    In other words, why is Genesis written using imagery? why not just telling straight away what happened, why not just telling straight that Adam and Eve defied God and then God punished them.

    Those texts are thousands of years old, so what you're asking is why literature in that time was different from literature as we know today?
    Or why did God inspire holly writers to write using imagery.
    SpaceDweller

    Why indeed?

    IF God so commanded, but none of the God's commandment command such a thing as far as I know.SpaceDweller

    That's debatable.

    Cheers!
  • Hermeticus
    181
    That is the whole meaning of this story, painful and shameful apostasy from God because of disobedience, ex. who are you to tell me what to do? I'm know better than you, I don't need God.SpaceDweller

    I have a very different understanding of the story. The apple is not an apple at all. The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil is just that - knowledge of "good" and "evil". Let's explore the key phrases relating to the matter and what "knowing" in this context may mean.

    “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
    but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.

    Not literal death is meant but knowledge of death - the awareness about our own mortality - something that holds a formative influence over ever human and our culture. The fear of death is a curse that operates simply through knowing it.

    Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
    Important to note that the two had no concept of shame before attaining the knowledge.

    “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

    The snake speaks truth. They became like God, capable of judging creation. As God's creation was already deemed and labeled good by God himself though ("God saw all that he had made, and it was very good"), it becomes clear that the human understanding of "good" and "evil" is not the same understanding as God has.


    Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
    This is displayed right here. They become conscious of their bodies that have been created by god - in the image of god(!) - and deem it as "bad", worthy of shame.

    Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

    But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

    He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

    They do not hide out of fear for punishment - but simply because they are ashamed. Because they became self-conscious, they do not want to be seen the way they see themselves.

    Now, at many places, the Bible is proto-scientific, attempting to explain the world in the framework it establishes. This is what happens when God deals out his "punishments". The punishments are simple facts of life. What is offered is an explanation why these things are the way they are.

    So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
    “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
    You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
    And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
    he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

    “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.
    Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

    “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
    By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”


    Last but not least, there is banishment.
    So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
    Banishment from the paradise of Eden is ultimately caused through the act of attaining knowledge. What does this mean? Life, Creation is very good, as God would say - but through self-awareness, through their consciousness, the humans notice and realize shame, fear of death and the hardship that is necessary to sustain life. Ignorance is bliss.
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    Why indeed?TheMadFool

    I'm not historian or literate to give answer to literacy or history of texts, but I know valid answer is given later by Jesus when disciples asked him, why does he speak in parables instead of telling what he means straight away so that everybody would understand his message. (Mt 13, 10-17)

    That's debatable.TheMadFool

    Indeed it is, and it wouldn't help much with you original post.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I'm not historian or literate to give answer to literacy or history of texts, but I know valid answer is given later by Jesus when disciples asked him, why does he speak in parables instead of telling what he means straight away so that everybody would understand his message. (Mt 13, 10-17)SpaceDweller

    Spoke in parables, eh? Why indeed? Was it a necessity or was it a preference? A lot depends on the answer.

    Indeed it is, and it wouldn't help much with you original postSpaceDweller

    Why not?
  • GraveItty
    311
    I think it's indeed more appropriate to see the apple as being Satan-given, but with the knowledge of a moral system replaced by a system of scientific knowledge. Western religion is all about:trying to retain a pre-Satanic, pure, holy, Good, a moral system, as one likes, as unconsciously known to animals. in a conscious way, after the knowledge of good and bad was apple-given. And Satan knew: mankind will get into trouble because of this. Luckily, the Bible was given to lead people to the conscious knowledge of the natural, divine, pre-Satanic moral system (unconsciously present in the child, in a pristine form, and continuously attacked by the Devil, who has a share fair of admirers in our Earthly realm, adhering to the anti of the God-given moral) as God had intended.

    After this new apple was bitten (reminding of the famous quantum apple, which, once bitten, makes us guilty as hell, so some physicist once claimed), the knowledge of science imposes a birthing upon us. In trying to retain the perfect scientific knowledge, the same harm is done as after the biting of the moral apple, after having perceived a knowledge of what the good and bad mean (,so not the explicit incarnation, but the feeling of bad and good itself, which was supposed not to be present in mankind). All in an effort to know the science, as was not intended by God, but by Lucifer. The Bible, in this case, is replaced by books containing the scientific system.
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    Spoke in parables, eh? Why indeed? Was it a necessity or was it a preference? A lot depends on the answer.TheMadFool

    11Jesus replied, “Because they haven’t received the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but you have. 12 For those who have will receive more and they will have more than enough. But as for those who don’t have, even the little they have will be taken away from them. 13 This is why I speak to the crowds in parables:

    The fall of man in the garden of eden is man's first sin, as descendants we all inherited that knowledge of good and evil, which resulted in apostasy from God, Jesus comes as ransom of that fall, that is reconciliation with God.

    "The secrets of the kingdom of heaven" is that salvation from sin, from the fall of man. (apostasy from God)

    "For those who have will receive more", That is on top of inheritance of the old testament law and prophecies they are given the fulfillment of it (new testament)
    Old testament is nothing else but preparation to revert the damage done in garden of Eden.

    "For those who don’t have, even the little they have will be taken away from them."
    That is those who don't accept Jesus as ransom stay with the law (old testament), however since the law does not bring salvation, they now lost everything.

    This is the meaning of
    Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
    Jesus is the truth, that is, ransom for sins which started with the fall of man.
    And to "set you free" is freedom from sin that the fall of man introduced.
    To be free from sin means to return back to God. (not that we can't sin anymore)

    basically it all starts with the fall of man, and ends with salvation from that fall, that is what the message of the whole Bible is.
    Hence Jesus savior (Christ).

    Why not?TheMadFool
    Because we are talking about 1K+ pages that are subject to debate, framework of which I hopefully laid out above.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    From at least the time of Galileo, a division was introduced between what Wilfrid Sellars called the “manifest image” and the “scientific image” — between, that is, the phenomenal world we experience and that imperceptible order of purely material forces that composes its physical substrate. — The New Atlantis
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I don't treat disobedience per se a sin.

    Because we are talking about 1K+ pages that are subject to debate, framework of which I hopefully laid out above.SpaceDweller

    Then the matter is controversial enough to make your pronouncements very weak.
  • GraveItty
    311
    We've all reenacted the fatal mistake Adam and Eve made that fateful day in Eden - we've all eaten apples. With each bite, we've taken into our mouths a chunk of apple, munched on it, felt the texture of its flesh, tasted its sweetness, felt its juice bathe the inside of our mouths. In other words, if we view ourselves as a scientific instrument, what we have in our mouths is a specimen/sample of apple - everything that is an apple (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) is being analyzed by our mouths, then the digestive system. Why is it then that we don't gain knowledge of apples in this process? We should be able to know the chemicals, their structure (I mentioned sweetness), the biological properties of the cells, their architecture, so and so forth; after all we do have a sample in our GI tract?TheMadFool

    We all have reenacted a fatal mistake of eating an apple? Have lost the innocence of not knowing how it tastes? If felt just as innocent after I had smoked my first cigarette, an act unconcieved of in Paradise. I think you lost innocence after you were served the scientific apple. Giving rise to the pretty disturbed picture of an apple, and viewing ourselves as a scientific instrument. What a devastating influence that apple had. Oooh blissful ignorance! Free us from our sins....
  • theRiddler
    260
    I just think maybe it's just a story to explain the difference between man and animals, but it's a little...contrived? Like, I don't believe there was a tree and a serpent.

    If the knowledge of good and evil is the original sin, then belief in sin is itself the original sin.

    Somehow this would be connected to the advent of language, which could be the fruit. But, like, animals don't experience the mental anguish we do at being able to describe our emotions. A fleeing gazelle may feel fear, but makes no higher judgment of it's being unpleasant.

    Similarly, the lion is innocent of being a cold blooded killer.

    So really I think it's just the somewhat artful tale of the ascent of man rather than the fall of man.

    I do believe we should disavow the knowledge of sin, perhaps, as that which separates us from God. But we can't return to being wild unevolved animals either who simply experience and make no judgment and aren't aware of death.
  • theRiddler
    260
    I don't know, though, maybe it's a true story.
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    We all have reenacted a fatal mistake of eating an apple? Have lost the innocence of not knowing how it tastes?GraveItty

    loss of innocence sounds sensible, however it can't be subject to anger God, for example, before Adam and Eve committed their sin God told them to procreate which involves los of innocence (and discovery of pleasure)

    Nowhere does God blame people for loss of innocence but rather for committing sin and disobedience.
    For example building the tower of babylon angered God, however there is no shame involved, no secret knowledge etc. the only thing that both stories have in common is commandment violation.
    God commanded not to worship other God's, the motive of babylonians however was to raise a temple for other gods.

    Then the matter is controversial enough to make your pronouncements very weak.TheMadFool

    What you call controversial I call comprehensive or broader context, my pronouncements are abstraction of that broader context.

    The central topic here is the garden of Eden, don't you think knowing broader context is essential to unlock the garden of Eden? Isn't that reasonable?

    I don't treat disobedience per se a sin.TheMadFool

    Fine but, how does that fit into the rest of the scriptures?
    It's obvious God was angry because his commandment wasn't obeyed (Gen 3,17-19):

    To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

    God didn't curse (throw them out) for obtaining the knowledge but rather because of commandment violation.
    Violation of commandments is what angers God trough out the rest of scriptures, rather than people learning and exploring.

    Take it other way around, God knew knowledge of good and evil would hurt people, so he didn't want them to be aware of it, but snake being enemy of people and God wanted to destroy God's plan, Adam and Eve made their choice to listen to snake rather than God.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    What you call controversial I call comprehensive or broader context, my pronouncements are abstraction of that broader context.

    The central topic here is the garden of Eden, don't you think knowing broader context is essential to unlock the garden of Eden? Isn't that reasonable?
    SpaceDweller

    Fine by me. To each his own I suppose but I wouldn't call disagreement comprehensive or broad with respect to knowing what happened in the Garden of Eden.

    commandment violation.SpaceDweller

    You might want to read Kant and this seems relevant :point:

    And then, also, there are those more than abstract — in fact, transcendental — orientations of the mind, such as goodness or truth or beauty in the abstract, which appear to underlie every employment of thought and will, and yet which correspond to no concrete objects within nature. And so on and so forth.
    — David Bently Hart

    Morality has an other-worldly feel to it! The laws of nature are not aligned with morality. In fact morality goes against the grain - why is being good liking walking uphill? Unnatural! Nonphysical! Kant might be relevant.

    Commit the most heinous crime imaginable and you will, at no point, violate the (physical) laws of nature. No wonder God!
    TheMadFool
  • GraveItty
    311
    loss of innocence sounds sensible, however it can't be subject to anger God, for example, before Adam and Eve committed their sin God told them to procreate which involves los of innocence (and discovery of pleasure)SpaceDweller

    I was merely responding to the image thrown up in the post.Lucifer made Eve aware of good and evil. Especially
    the evil was loved by that devilish SOAB. But isn't the knowledge of the good a gift of God? What if Eve hadn't bitten the apple? Wouldn't the Bible be superfluous an mankind be reduced to a collection of amoral beings? I meant that if the apple is bitten, and in the place of knowledge of good and bad we get the kinda knowledge as is contained in science, wouldn't that distance us from a more divine kind of knowledge? If we have lost that child-like innocence, that child-like purity of knowledge, to be replaced by a Luciferian kinda knowledge, as I see western scientific knowledge, we are all guilty by birth, after Eve would have eaten it. Different knowledge systems could then free us from our sin.
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    Morality has an other-worldly feel to it! The laws of nature are not aligned with morality. In fact morality goes against the grain - why is being good liking walking uphill? Unnatural! Nonphysical! Kant might be relevant.TheMadFool

    Why not using same perspective toward this problem but from different angle, imagine 2 extremes:
    1. Doing everything as God commands
    2. Doing everything the opposite, defy God in every aspect

    Which one of these 2 extremes would be natural?
    Complete anarchy, madness, pain and destruction vs opposite of that.

    why is being good liking walking uphill? Unnatural! Nonphysical!TheMadFool
    Same as it's so much harder to build the house vs taking buldozer and raze everything to the ground.

    If I'm not aware of good and evil, then do I have to believe building is harder than razing? yes I do because if I do the opposite and raze what will happen?
    I will know what I did was wrong, but it doesn't stop here, the consequence of that is my house is now razed and it will take a lot of work to build it again, and my knowledge of good and evil won't help me at all except to realize what I did. the snake tricked me.

    Morality doesn't distort physical laws, but in this allegory it does, something is physically destroyed because of evil.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Why not using same perspective toward this problem but from different angle, imagine 2 extremes:
    1. Doing everything as God commands
    2. Doing everything the opposite, defy God in every aspect

    Which one of these 2 extremes would be natural?
    Complete anarchy, madness, pain and destruction vs opposite of that.
    SpaceDweller

    You're begging the question. You're assuming God's commands will always be good. I'm not making that assumption and hence reserve the right to defy Him.
  • GraveItty
    311
    If I'm not aware of good and evil, then do I have to believe building is harder than razing? yes I do because if I do the opposite and raze what will happen?SpaceDweller

    If you are not aware of good and evil, you know what will happen too, when razing down or building up. There are different kinds of building though, and the scientific way is evil. It came into being after Eve bit the Luciferian apple. Lucifer gave her the knowledge not of good and bad, which would be ridiculous, as good is regarded then as a gift of that sneaky fallen angel too. To be counteracted upon by the moral system of the Bible. That moral system won't help you in constructing a house, while the Lucifer-given knowledge of the scientific construction of a house (evolved of mental images of houses of a future in a Luciferian-driven scientifically constructed society, possessing weird structures like connectivity to a 5G global system, electrical structures to create light and give power to all kinds of realty detached structures, possibilities to store huge amounts of material products, including that for a car, animals, food, equipment to make you move your body move in the most strange ways, a television and computer to investigate the external world, garbage containers, guidance structures for water and electricity, spaces to put water in and have fun in (swimming pools), structures to enjoy the kids ((toys), equipment spaces to cook, rooms built for personal hygiene, containing the weirdest stuff imaginable, sleeping rooms to contain stuff of which a difficult choice has to be made between the particulars it contains ("Gucci or Lagerfeld? Fluorid tooth paste or naturally based? Lemon shampoo or seasalt? Green leather shiny boots or black plastic ones? How big a TV shall we choose? What brand of car shall we put in the garage? What medicin shall we buy to put in the medicin closet? What art shall cover the walls? Magritte, with his abstract philosophical view on reality, Mondriaan with his abstract linear formal system, abstract color explosions, hyper-real photographs, being just as abstract, etc. etc. Embedded in a nature depleted society having left Nature long ago, to be replaced by a world that fights that very base of its existence, waiting for total destruction by its own means or Natural disaster. Where Nature is tortured and considered an enemy, or at most ignored. Where Nature is questioned endlessly and knowledge applied for material gain. Where diseases are fought bases on an abstract and detached and distorted image of people and people the.selves are reduced to machines or vessels containing selfish genes and memes with a desire to procreate. Where the universe is looked back upon until a Planck second after creation. Where God is absent and the whole of mankind must conform to the ways of science. Placing other domains of knowledge within fenced terrain. Where people get mental health problems and animals are confined in cages. Where you can't take a walk without noticing its influence, except in the dark of the night, and even then artificial light pollutes or satellites spy above us. And on and on I can go...Blah blah blah, as Iggy Pop sung. Venus in furs). Satan rules suppreme. And his churches are forced stuff for the newly born, the new arrivals. "How glad should they be and rejoyce that Beëlzebub gave them this opportunity", so propagate the grown-ups and wise mainly men. Segregation, division, compartimenalization, integration and differentiation, problem-solving, formal systems, reduction, linearalization, patternization, atomification, mathematicalization, programmation, artification,
    ratification, justification, argumentation, objectivication, standardization, metrification, abstraction, discretization, framing and fencing, identification, materialization, creativity, instrumentalist, falsificationism and provability, statistics, knowledge gathering, spacification, determination, moralization, systemization, axiomization, mass-communication, iteration, valuation, information, rule suppreme and are imposed by institutions of the scientific knowledge. The imposed system is guided by abstract law systems, working in a holy concordance and synchronicity with the powers of enslavement. A holy duality forming a holy trinity with the institutionalized bodies of the knowledge-gathering and knowledge-applying structures. Moral is reduced to an abstract notion. Yes. Satan rules suppreme. Good and bad shrink into insignificance, when compared to the new orthodoxy, which considers different views superstitious, non-real, self-deceptive, fairy tales, aberrant, ridiculous, psychotic, wrong, subjective, or irrational. Now there is nothing wrong with that, but people all around the globe are forced to dance scientifically. By means of the fruits hanging scattered in the tree of science, to be picked, normally prematurely, and used in Satan's attempt to impose his wicked game of the scientific approach. People just can be good or bad. That's a fact. Good and bad cannot exist without each other. The biblic Satan (or the one supposed in the Tora or Khoran) the envious fallen angel must have given Eve, besides the sense of bad, the sense of good too. Let us, as her descendants, defend humanity from the True Evil that's done by that Evil Devil playing that self-righteous game of his. What's so important about being good or bad? It's better and more humane to let them both exist than trying to create a world in which the bad is non-existent. So let's all pray. Seems to be the only way to escape the modern, global, science-based panopticon. Let's pray people can
    act (or non-act!) in time. The clock is near-twelve, and when the damage is done, there is no turning back, except in some very limited situations. In principle it is so easy,. But in practice, the simple solution is hindered by forces defending the status quo. When we have succeeded in the short time.e left, Paradise can be reclaimed (though in an impoverished form), after having been lost for centuries, the lost having its origins in ancient Greece.
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    You're assuming God's commands will always be good. I'm not making that assumption and hence reserve the right to defy Him.TheMadFool

    Not necessarily assuming,
    If definition of God is "omnipotent, omniscient and all benevolent", then there is no reason to assume God would command contrary to that definition.

    Considering garden of Eden, if God could give evil commands then there was no need for the snake to harass man, that same task could have be done by God instead.

    I think the real problem here is something else, that same God which wanted good to Adam and Eve is the same God that wages wars later right?
    Therefore you change the definition of God to just "omnipotent and omniscient" excluding "all benevolent"

    Even if you're able to somehow prove that theory it still won't fit in because of same question again, what's the role of the devil then?
    A God that is not all benevolent would raise many questions impossible to answer.
  • SpaceDweller
    503

    I don't think modern day science can be given same significance as knowledge of good and evil.

    Science as we know it was born around 16th century and it still develops today.

    Religion (written one) on the other side started 3000 years BC and ended 100 years AD.
    Therefore taking completely unrelated time spans into account, one has nothing to do with the other, Religion does not deal with science neither does science deal with religion.

    There are different kinds of building though, and the scientific way is evil. It came into being after Eve bit the Luciferian apple.GraveItty
    You think there is a secret knowledge that Adam and Eve obtained.

    I'm open minded to hear that wisdom.
  • GraveItty
    311
    Not necessarily assuming,
    If definition of God is "omnipotent, omniscient and all benevolent", then there is no reason to assume God would command contrary to that definition.
    SpaceDweller

    You mean that God is OOB, or that He posseses these three qualities? I assume the last, as assigning these qualities to our own species doesn't make us God. If defined as such he can never command contrary to that definition. Which makes Him non-OOB. How can He escape? If OOB, you expect He could. But how?

    Considering garden of Eden, if God could give evil commands then there was no need for the snake to harass man, that same task could have be done by God instead.SpaceDweller

    There would be. The snake could propagate, by means of the apple, the mores to disobey any order given by God. Act contrary all the time, especially in relation to God.

    I think the real problem here is something else, that same God which wanted good to Adam and Eve is the same God that wages wars later right?
    Therefore you change the definition of God to just "omnipotent and omniscient" excluding "all benevolent"
    SpaceDweller

    IWrong. Partially. It depends on the war. It's generally Satan who is responsible. Like the Stones musically explain. God will be partially BOO. Because Lucifer's evil devil, satanic play. You could make God interfere in wars, if He's omnipotent, but that destroys the war itself and shows no mercy to those happily waging it.

    Even if you're able to somehow prove that theory it still won't fit in because of same question again, what's the role of the devil then?
    A God that is not all benevolent would raise many questions impossible to answer.
    SpaceDweller

    Lucifer's, when God is OOB, is, as I explained, to induce disobedience. Go being not all benevolent, or even all malevolent would raise many questions impossible to answer indeed. But many answerable too. So what's the point here? If God orders bad things to be done, can't He turn them into orders to do good? Yes. He is omnipotent.
  • GraveItty
    311
    I don't think modern day science can be given same significance as knowledge of good and evil.SpaceDweller

    No indeed. It has even greater importance.

    [
    Science as we know it was born around 16th century and it still develops today.SpaceDweller

    Wrong. It was born in ancient Greece.

    Religion (written one) on the other side started 3000 years BC and ended 100 years AD.
    Therefore taking completely unrelated time spans into account, one has nothing to do with the other, Religion does not deal with science neither does science deal with religion.
    SpaceDweller

    Did written religion ended 100 years after the birth of Christ? The original writings, accompanied by the scribs, maybe. We'll never be sure. There are more bibles and holy Khoran books than ever though.

    You think there is a secret knowledge that Adam and Eve obtained.

    I'm open minded to hear that wisdom
    SpaceDweller

    Yes. A natural knowledge. Satan ordered, by means of the apple, to divert from it, with all horrible consequence.
  • SpaceDweller
    503
    You mean that God is OOB, or that He posseses these three qualities? I assume the last, as assigning these qualities to our own species doesn't make us God. If defined as such he can never command contrary to that definition. Which makes Him non-OOB. How can He escape? If OOB, you expect He could. But how?GraveItty

    Good point but doesn't such wisdom lead to "If God is omnipotent let him make stone so heavy it won't be able to raise it again"?

    Both available solutions make God not omnipotent nor in possession of such quality, which is not helpful to analyze the garden of Eden.

    Yes. A natural knowledge. Satan ordered, by means of the apple, to divert from it, with all horrible consequence.GraveItty

    According to book of Enoch, Satan rebelled against God in an attempt to be grater than God, his failure to do so resulted in God throwing him out of his kingdom.

    Satan doesn't stop or repent, his hatred continues distorting God's plans and attacking God's creation.
    Garden of Eden depicts Satan's attack on God's creation which is Adam and Eve.

    According to church teaching (which btw. makes my statement about disobedience toward God less accurate), knowledge of good and evil is before all proper to God, knowledge which God didn't want people to know, that is essential.

    First if you want to draw any conclusions about secret knowledge you need to start wondering why differentiating good and evil should have been better kept as secret.
    And secondly, what ever conclusion you come out with, it should not oppose scriptures because this only makes it less credible.
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