It seems like putting the cart before the horse to try to figure that out before settling whether Jesus lived in the first place.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Good luck waiting for a reply.
All these questions can be resolved when we realize that the story of Adam and Eve was only an allegory, not a true story, the anthropomorphic god of the Old Testament does not exist, and Jesus never rose from the dead.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
It is a common problem with a lot of those where it is obvious that they haven't bothered reading what they believe in. But are just going with whatever they believe is true, because they either heard it from someone who doesn't include all the questionable things or doesn't bother with the hard questions. So when they read something like what I wrote, they assume it is wrong. Which is why I always when needed try to quote verses. Because it is a lot more difficult to say that the Bible is wrong. Obviously he/she can disagree with my interpretation, but in that case, I think it is reasonable to ask for verses backing up what they are saying.Good luck waiting for a reply.
All these questions can be resolved when we realize that the story of Adam and Eve was only an allegory, not a true story, the anthropomorphic god of the Old Testament does not exist, and Jesus never rose from the dead.
I agree, that the story of Adam and Eve is probably best explained with it being an allegory, however, I think one can make a valid case that they actually believed it to be true, as the Bible seem to support it, they never talk about Adam and Eve (from what I know) as being anything but real. There is even a family tree where Adam is included, which would be odd if they thought it was an allegory. But for modern believers, I would probably still go with it being so regardless.
But even then that doesn't really change that the story and God are presented as being immoral.
It is kind of like the story of Job, where the story is clearly about the faithfulness of Job, yet God kind of forgets that all Job's kids are killed as a result of God making a bet with Satan, which God would already know how would end. So Job gets new children as if that would make up for those other ones. Maybe this made more sense for people back then than today.
So the story of Adam and Eve still does not show God from his best side
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Jimmy
King Phenomenon
That’s pretty weird
Jimmy
King Phenomenon
I agree
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Whatever. What seems reasonable to one person seems weird to another person.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I don't agree because I know @Nimos. We go way back.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
So, I just lost everything I had written when the internet went down and I panicked so now I have to write it again.
I think that Christians have read what is in the Bible but they don't bother to think about what it means since they simply accept the doctrinal interpretation, which makes God good and Adam and Eve sinners who caused the Fall of humanity.
So even if you quote verses that can say that your interpretation is wrong since they see what they see and you see what you see, and what they see is what they already believe from the church doctrine.
I don't know if the writers of Genesis believed that the story was true, but it sounds true because it is supposed to sound true. Where it starts to sound like an allegory is when a talking snake tempts Eve. But regardless of that, Christians have to believe those things in the story really happened because their entire belief system is based upon original sin, and that is the reason they believe we needed Jesus to die on the cross, to redeem us from that original sin. Without original sin we would have no need for Jesus to save us, or so they believe.
From the chapter called 30: ADAM AND EVE in the Baha'i Writings:
Question.—What is the truth of the story of Adam, and His eating of the fruit of the tree?
Answer.—In the Bible it is written that God put Adam in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and take care of it, and said to Him: “Eat of every tree of the garden except the tree of good and evil, for if You eat of that, You will die.” 1 Then it is said that God caused Adam to sleep, and He took one of His ribs and created woman in order that she might be His companion. After that it is said the serpent induced the woman to eat of the tree, saying: “God has forbidden you to eat of the tree in order that your eyes may not be opened, and that you may not know good from evil.” 2 Then Eve ate from the tree and gave unto Adam, Who also ate; their eyes were opened, they found themselves naked, and they hid their bodies with leaves. In consequence of this act they received the reproaches of God. God said to Adam: “Hast Thou eaten of the forbidden tree?” Adam answered: “Eve tempted Me, and I did eat.” God then reproved Eve; Eve said: “The serpent tempted me, and I did eat.” For this the serpent was cursed, and enmity was put between the serpent and Eve, and between their descendants. And God said: “The man is become like unto Us, knowing good and evil, and perhaps He will eat of the tree of life and live forever.” So God guarded the tree of life. 3
If we take this story in its apparent meaning, according to the interpretation of the masses, it is indeed extraordinary. The intelligence cannot accept it, affirm it, or imagine it; for such arrangements, such details, such speeches and reproaches are far from being those of an intelligent man, how much less of the Divinity—that Divinity Who has organized this infinite universe in the most perfect form, and its innumerable inhabitants with absolute system, strength and perfection.
We must reflect a little: if the literal meaning of this story were attributed to a wise man, certainly all would logically deny that this arrangement, this invention, could have emanated from an intelligent being. Therefore, this story of Adam and Eve who ate from the tree, and their expulsion from Paradise, must be thought of simply as a symbol. It contains divine mysteries and universal meanings, and it is capable of marvelous explanations. Only those who are initiated into mysteries, and those who are near the Court of the All-Powerful, are aware of these secrets. Hence these verses of the Bible have numerous meanings.
He then goes on to explain the various allegorical meanings which you can read on the link above. He also explains that original sin is not what what Jesus saved us from. Jesus did save us and he explains what Jesus saved us from.
I am sorry to ask you to present that again, but since I lost what I had written above and had to rewrite it I don't have time to go back and read what you wrote to @jimb. Can you summarize why you think that the verses in the story depict God as immoral?
I am sorry, I don't know the Bible as well as you do, so I don't know the entire story of Job. Suffice to say, i don't think Job deserved to go through all of that suffering even if he did get new children later. Not to say I suffered as much as Job, but it is kind of like me losing so many cats and suffering to the point where I did not know how I could go on. I did get new cats for which I am very grateful, and I think God played a part in that even though I put forth much effort to find them. Had I not gotten those cats when I did I cannot imagine where I would be today without them.
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Brian2
Veteran Member
They knew that God had told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that if they ate from it they would die.
God knew that A&E would eat the fruit and to help them not to eat it, He told them not to eat it or they would die.
I suppose that He wanted him to say where he was.
I would say that God does not experience all of what He will ever feel at the same time. He experiences disappointment or anger or whatever, on seeing humans do wrong all the time and obviously felt like getting rid of them all at that time. It certainly helps with telling the story to say God's reaction in Himself to what humans were doing.
This does not mean that God did not know everything, it just means that the story is telling us God's reaction to human being evil.
God can do everything that can be done.
To stop humans from sinning God maybe would have had to not create humans. Maybe He could have created robots who did what they were programmed to do.
If you think that God is immoral for not stopping human sin then you are speaking out of ignorance of what was possible for God to do and still be what He is and allow humans to be what they are, free to choose.
The Son is not the Father.
God could have walked away from us humans and let us do to each other and to the earth etc what we see that humans are capable of and are doing.
But no, God loves us and sent His Son to suffer and die.
There are various explanations of the atonement and how it works, but it seems that it was necessary for God to cover all the bases and actually get rid of evil from Him universe. And the story is still going and will end when Jesus returns to complete it all, judging all humanity and bringing His Kingdom to fruition on earth.
God sent His Son to suffer and die and He did not have to do it, but did it because He loves us.
Jesus, being the creator of the universe and being perfectly good and innocent as a man put up with ridicule and shame and torture and death so that He would be obedient to God.
I guess people think of Jesus as more than human, and that is true, but while He was on earth He lived and felt like we do, He was then and is still a man. We don't really know what was sacrificed but it seems that God saw it as something worth doing.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
Agree, we are all raised with a common idea of how to understand the bible, even if you are not a believer. Questioning the morality of God is not really going to happen unless someone actually reads it and the stories in it, because I don't think these are focused on when it comes to the general idea of God, if that makes sense.
It's not like you go to church and the preacher says:
"Welcome everyone, today to are going to look at how the teachings of God can help us make for more lawful and equal societies.. so I'll read a verse from Deuteronomy 22:28-29
28 - “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found,
29 - then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.
Amen!!"
You would never hear a preacher read a verse like this and try to justify it as being good. Because it is not the image anyone wants to associate with God, it's close to insanity, that a woman that has been raped should be forced to marry her rapist. And clearly, the woman is being treated more like an animal than that of a human.
These things are either not talked about or are dismissed using various excuses such as it is the OT.. or Jesus abolished the law and therefore these things don't apply anymore etc.
But to me, that completely misses the point, the issue is that a God that is claimed to be all good can reach a morality like this. Had it been humans that had been credited for this, then there wouldn't have been any issue, because our morality can be pretty screwed up. But God can't really use such an excuse, because he is the authority of morality itself, he is the final judge.
And as I said, it doesn't seem to me that a lot of Christians know about these things and therefore just neglect them as being true, because that is not what the general teaching we are growing up with focuses on. But for all the things people like about God and Jesus and what they have said there is also a lot of immoral stuff.
Again, I don't know.
But for me at least, I think one has to look at the bible from different perspectives. A human reading the Bible today looks at it completely differently than they would have back then. I don't think they would see a talking snake as being something amazing in the realm of God. There were a lot of different religions all over the place. Think about Eqypt and their relationship with animals etc. A lot of their gods had close relations with animals.
Animals played a much more complex role in Egyptian society. While some animals were worshipped, others were hunted, killed, or sacrificed. Some were thought to have divine connections, while others had evil associations that needed to be controlled. Many animals were domesticated and kept as household pets.
So I think it was common to look at these things differently back then. Which I think makes sense if these religions developed from more primitive ones, where animals/nature and spirits etc. were more in focus.
But it is difficult to know for certain because the bible doesn't contain critical thinking in the sense, that they go back and analyze the story of Adam and Eve or even talk about the meaning of it. Especially in the OT, it is almost irrelevant, besides just being the beginning of the bible, there is nothing really supporting the idea of original sin in the OT. That is something that comes with the NT.
This again makes the story of Adam and Eve a bit strange, because how is it supposed to be understood? Maybe it is merely trying to explain, why we as humans need to "suffer" and have to struggle so much to make a living. Which they would have been wondering about as well back then. Why would their God do this to them?
But again I have no clue, just examining different ideas, but I think one has to be careful looking at it from a modern understanding, that these people back then didn't have.
Looking at it from a modern view.
If a person punishes a baby for doing something they don't know what is or understand, that would be considered immoral.
Imagine you didn't know the difference between right and wrong, because I hadn't told you. And then when you end up doing something I consider wrong and I know you will do it. Rather than blaming myself for not preparing or preventing it, I decide to punish you for it. And not only that, I punish everyone else for it as well.
This doesn't put me in a great light, even if I later say that I am really good and just.
And even if it didn't happen and I used it as an example of telling how good and moral I was, then no one would buy it, because I'm trying to justify blaming you for something that you couldn't possibly be guilty of, since you had no clue.
I think Job is meant to be a story, even back then given how it is written. So I think it was used to show that you should always believe in God and then good things will happen to you, said in a very quick way
.But to sum up the story as it is a bit long, so obviously read it all if you want.
Job 1:1-2
1 - There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
2 - There were born to him seven sons and three daughters.
To me this sound very much like how you would introduce a story.
Job 1:6-8
6 - Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
7 - The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
8 - And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
12 - And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
Here they make the "bet"
Job 1:18-19
18 - While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house,
19 - and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
22 - In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Satan kills his children, and obviously Job doesn't blame God. Keep in mind that God is watching this happening. But this story is about Job, so who cares about the children
Then it goes on and on about Job being tested.
Job 42:10-13
10 - And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
11 - Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.
12 - And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.
13 - He had also seven sons and three daughters.
Then obviously the happy ending he gets a lot from God and notices he gets new children, so clearly everything is good again
But it doesn't really justify all the other people who had to suffer due to God wanting to have a "bet" with Satan.
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Nimos
Well-Known Member
Yes, but they would have no defence against the snake, or even associating not doing what you are told as being wrong. Again, they had no concept of what good and evil is. There would be no reason for Eve to think that the snake was doing anything wrong, it would have been like everything else.
Besides that, the snake didn't actually lie. Because they didn't die and they assumingly became able to know good and evil just as the snake said.
Genesis 3:3-7
3 - but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4 - But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 - For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 - So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
7 - Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Obviously, that is not the common understanding, but that is what the bible say, how else would you interpret the verses? God didn't kill them, he expelled them from the garden.
And it is clear that they didn't have eternal life before this:
Genesis 3:22-24
22 - Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”
23 - therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
24 - He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Because that is what God is worried about afterwards, that they also eat from the tree of life and then live forever. So maybe they would have lived a very long time, in fact, they or at least Adam already did according to the bible, as he died at 930 years old.
You could possibly get by with that explanation if God was claimed to not be all-knowing. At least one could claim that God probably wasn't especially clever, but at least it could be excused.
But if God is said to be all-knowing, then he would have known that they would eat from it, even after telling them. So he could have planted the tree in another place, or gotten rid of the snake. Whatever would have prevented Adam and Eve from eating from it.
Maybe, or because God wasn't supposed to be all-knowing from the start. That would explain a lot about why things happened the way they did.
Obviously that isn't possible, because that would make God capable of being wrong and a lesser God, even though that is what the OT seem to support.
He might not experience it, but if he knows the future, then he would see that this would end the way it did. And if he allowed it, then there wouldn't be anything to regret, because he already accepted it. So it wouldn't surprise him.
It would have made more sense, had God said, "I have changed my mind, I no longer wish for this to happen." Still, it doesn't really support an all-mighty God with the attributes from the NT. But at least I think it would be slightly easier to defend, rather than God regretting something, because that speaks for someone who lost control or had no oversight.
Whereas "I changed my mind.." at least put the decision with God and shows that he alone can do whatever he thinks is best.
You have to look at it from the perspective of God. God is only good, so you could argue that he has less free will than humans do following that logic.
Yet, that doesn't seem to be a problem for him, so why would it be for humans? No one, looks at God as being a robot either or having no free will? So clearly if God is capable of not being seen as such and still having free will, humans could as well.
So why would humans be considered robots and not God, under the same limitations?
Besides that, it is very clear, that God despises anything that he considers evil, having no free will, is never mentioned as being evil. In fact the quite opposite. When people use their free will, that is often when they get punished for it.
I agree, that Jesus is not God. I think there is close to no support for this in the bible.
But a large group of people believe in the holy trinity and that these are part of the same.
How on earth does causing his innocent son to suffer show us that he loves us?
I have never heard of anyone wanting someone to express their love for them, by causing an innocent person to suffer. Unless we are talking about someone mentally ill.
Accepting that humans were to blame for the fall, couldn't God simply have forgiven us? Isn't that one of the main teachings of the NT? Maybe God could have improved our abilities to distinguish between good and evil, that would seem like that would have worked a lot better because clearly the world is filled with bad things and humans clearly aren't very good at figuring out the difference between these two, even after the sacrifice of Jesus?
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a) Again, your writing is nonsense.
b) I have read the Bible many times and, unlike yourself, understand what it says.
c) I will respond as I see fit.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
How can you say that it is nonsense, especially when I have quoted the verses?
Is what I quoted written in the Bible or not? Yes, it is!!
I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but you make no argument at all, you just claim that this is not what the verses mean, yet show nothing to support otherwise.
It is not unreasonable to expect or demand that you back up what you are saying. And if you have read the bible so many times as you claim and fully understand it, it should be easy for you to show me where I'm wrong. Because even scholars have problems figuring out and understanding the Bible, so you even have an advanced over them.
Anyone (including Satan) can extract verses out of context to "prove" a point.
I do not have to explain to you what I wrote simply because you can't understand it.
What's the correct meaning to take from them, then?
That's right. You can choose to leave mistaken understandings uncorrected. It's your call.
Brian2
Veteran Member
They were moral beings even before eating the fruit. They knew that they should not eat the fruit. Whether they called it "evil" or not is unimportant.
The snake lied because they did die, both spiritually and physically. Humans die, A&E died. Why is it that atheists say that the snake did not lie when it said "You will not surely die."
True, but that does not mean anything.
The tree was there for a reason. I would say that God was slowly introducing A&E to the concept of good and evil and were being taught to resist evil and that is why the tree was there and why they were told not to eat from it and were told the consequences.
Then the serpent came along and not only told them that they would learn stuff by eating the fruit, but also told the lie, that lie being that they would not die.
Yes that is what satan said, "You will not die". It was a lie and satan told it because he knew it was a lie and he wanted to kill them.
God did not change His mind and humans are still on the planet.
But yes God had already accepted what would happen and knew that He would grieve over what humans in general and individual humans were doing, and in this sense God is said to regret, because He did not want humans to be doing those evil things.
God is not limited to being good, God chooses to be good. If God did not choose good then it would not be good.
In the same way, God wants people to choose good and not be limited to only one choice.
I'm a trinitarian. Maybe you have the wrong concept of "trinity".
You make it sound as if the God forced His Son to suffer and die, but that is what Jesus wanted to do for us and because He wanted to do the will of His Father.
You seem to think that better education will work. But we do what is wrong even when we know it to be wrong.
I suppose a short way to explain the atonement is that sin caused human death. God could not allow us to just go on living forever and continuing to be evil so we weren't allowed to live forever. As humans we all eventually sin and so we are under God's condemnation as sinners.
God can be merciful and wants to be but we have sinned and we should die because we will that is just what we are, sinners who also do good things.
Jesus takes our death sentence away by taking our place and dying in our place. He did not deserve death at all and so His death pays for all of us because He is worthy. That is the justice side of it and so allows God to give us mercy.
But there is also the problem of us going on and on forever being sinners. But this problem is dealt with in that those who become Christians must repent of evil and allow God to work in them to change them into people who want to and who do what is right.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
They didn't die, God expelled them from the garden, because he was afraid that they would eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.
This makes no sense, first of all, that is not what the story says.
If they didn't have any idea or concept of what good and evil are, then they can't be introduced to it. We are not talking about a skill like math here.
You could compare it to saying that God introduced a blind person to seeing. If the person is blind they do not see.
Besides that, if we go with the idea that God wanted them to learn, then he should have let them eat from the tree and then explained it to them when they knew what it was.
He did change his mind because he saw how corrupt these people had gotten and he killed all of them except Noah and his family as we know. That is what God say in the verses I quoted.
I think I got it correct?
The Holy Trinity is the belief that God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in the same. Each of them has a role and exist as three entities, but they ultimately comprise one main entity.
That doesn't change that it is an odd will the father has. That this was supposedly the best solution, we have to assume that.
If that is the case, then maybe humans haven't been taught well enough by God and that might be the issue, rather than getting Jesus crucified, which didn't seem to have solved anything, people still do bad things, there is nothing to suggest that people were worse than before the crucifixion.
The problem as I see it, is that God wants us to aim for being good, yet doesn't seem to be particularly interested in giving us the tools for doing so. And if the Bible was that tool it clearly doesn't work, because a lot of evil is and has been done by believers.
The crucifixion had/has one purpose: to pay the required penalty for all sin forever. So, the "problem" of sin has been solved.
It is a requirement that each person accept Jesus' sacrifice as the required "payment" for their sin. People do "bad things" because they are under the power of sin and there is only one way to escape the inevitable punishment for their behavior. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13)
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
The problem of sin has not been solved because people still sin.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
As @Trailblazer also pointed out. What sins have been solved? people still do things that are clearly against the law of God, which is considered to be a sin according to the bible.
Do you mean that God doesn't care about it anymore or won't punish for it, or how is it supposed to be understood?