How can you be a True Christian™ if you don't take the Eden story literally?

[IndigoChild5559]

So, every president who runs for a second term is "selfish"?

I said no such thing.

I said that Biden, SPECIFICALLY, was selfish to run. I say this because all the polls showed that the American public did not want him to, largely because of our concern over his mental capacity. Biden, however, doesn't give a hoot what Americans want, or whether he has the capacity to be the President. That's selfishness.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Are you using that word because you think Biden should step down because of his age, his competence, or both?

All the polls show that Americans do not want him to run again, due to concerns over age related problems. But does he give a hoot what Americans want? No.

 

[lukethethird]

For those of you who don't take the story of the Fall literally. Adam, Eve, Tree, Serpent, etc, how do you envision the Fall of Man happening? And if it didn't happen, what use is Jesus?

As a true Christian I can tell you that Bible stories are allegory, not meant to be read literally. Adam, Eve, God, Jesus, allegory. Having said that, some Christians do read The Bible literally.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

All the polls show that Americans do not want him to run again, due to concerns over age related problems. But does he give a hoot what Americans want? No.

That's different. I thought you were saying that YOU didn't want Biden to run again, which is why I asked several questions about your reason for dissatisfaction with him and offered a few possibilities that you might mean such as incompetence, ensuing dementia, and death in office. I wish you had addressed that post, but you didn't. Your comment above doesn't answer any of those questions unless you are arguing that not acceding to popular opinion makes Biden unfit for the job or selfish for thinking he can still do it well and not stepping down.

Why should Biden step aside if he feels that he's able to do the job? People can express themselves at the ballot box. Democrats are free to run against him in the primaries and people can choose a different nominee if they like. And Americans in general can vote in the general election. My guess is that he wins both.

The problem with popular opinion is that it is so easily manipulable by the media, and not just by conservative indoctrination media but by anybody trying to vie for market share including the likes of CNN. Dissatisfaction and unrest sells better. There is always danger at the door. But Joe is steady, strong, rational, compassionate, and doing a good job, and that's not sexy and doesn't sell.

In my opinion, Biden had a sensational first two years while the Democrats held both houses of Congress, and has performed admirably since as well, yet his popularity fell even among Democratic voters in that period. Those aren't people thinking for themselves. I don't really understand how it happens, but it does, and I see it right here on this thread. Where is the specific criticism of Biden? Point to facts and evidence that support these opinions if you have them. That's where I went to formulate the opinions I just expressed, not media editorial judgments.

So give me a reason to agree with you if you have one, or recognize that you don't have one if you can't produce one. I've given you reasons to agree with me, but you didn't comment on them. If you do the same for me, I'll give you a carefully considered, sincerely believed, and constructively offered response to that. Isn't that how we should decide these matters?

 

[wellwisher]

For those of you who don't take the story of the Fall literally. Adam, Eve, Tree, Serpent, etc, how do you envision the Fall of Man happening? And if it didn't happen, what use is Jesus?

The human brain has two centers of consciousness; inner self and ego. The inner self is older and the source of consciousness that all animals have. The inner self is based on DNA and evolution and internally defines species, such as the human animal, and his innate behavior that we call human nature.

The ego secondary is quite new and consolidated in the time scale of Genesis; 6000 years ago. Adam and Eve symbolized the ego consolidating in a human man and woman. They had human DNA, but had an upgrade in terms of neural processing, based on a new secondary center.

The stories of how Adam and Eve appear is deliberately done in a way that is not natural or biological. Adam forms from the dust of the earth and Eve forms from one of Adam's ribs like making a clone via bone marrow stem cells. The children of Adam and Eve, Cain, Abel and Seth are all biological children with human DNA. But Adam and Eve form in an unusual way not connected to sex.

Adam and Eve; ego, form within the brain; neural update, not by biology or DNA. It sort of suggests something like a computer becoming conscious; secondary appears; AI. The human brain is a proven neural matrix that can support consciousness. The story of Adam and Eve tells us it can support more than one center for a more stereo optic view of reality. Two eyes or two centers of consciousness, can see in 3-D; rise of civilization.

The inner self is old and innate and is based on long term internal programming written within the DNA; tree of life. The ego learns from the outside, by culture and education; tree of knowledge. If you base your life on external knowledge, the inner self often becomes repressed, and the ego starts to feel detached from natural or a sense of inflated self. The inner self is still there, but hidden.

Jesus comes along and speaks of the inner man; inner self. Buddha also spoke of the inner man. The inner self can return one to the paradise, that was once led by the human inner self, before the ego appears.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil is externally learned morality, ethics and law. One does not automatically know these things at birth.These things are part of our cultural training. It has a harmful affect on the natural brain in that knowledge of good and evil creates two conflicting emotions connected to rest is good and fear is evil. The result was repression and the formation of what I call the Satan Subroutine, between the ego and the inner self. Doing away with law or the division into good and evil, is needed to reverse the Satan Subroutine, so the inner self can come back to focus unobstructed by a third virtual center.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

That's different. I thought you were saying that YOU didn't want Biden to run again,

I am part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who does not want him to run again, and I gave the reasons why. Perhaps you should go back and read my answer.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Whether the report of Jesus and the Moneychangers is true or not, where it goes completely silly for me is that (a) the moneychangers were going about their business lawfully and (b) if Jesus had any argument about what they were doing, it was not with the moneychangers but the temple authorities ─ they were the only people capable of changing the practice.

Jesus never goes to the appropriate places to fix anything.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I am part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who does not want him to run again, and I gave the reasons why. Perhaps you should go back and read my answer.

I must have missed that. It's a long thread. I just went back about two weeks and didn't find those reasons. Nevertheless, I gave an argument that would be a rebuttal to your argument for why Biden should not run. Did you want to repeat or link me to your reasons, or address my argument? It's fine if you don't.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Can you point out where it says Jesus is yelling?

What’re the exclamation points for?

 

[lukethethird]

Whether the report of Jesus and the Moneychangers is true or not, where it goes completely silly for me is that (a) the moneychangers were going about their business lawfully and (b) if Jesus had any argument about what they were doing, it was not with the moneychangers but the temple authorities ─ they were the only people capable of changing the practice.

Luke omits that scene, he has Jesus come back every day and preach and the people loved it but the priests plotted to kill him.

 

[lukethethird]

Jesus “yelled”? Where does it say that in these accounts?

In John, I just read, “To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!’ ”

In Matthews account, it says, “ “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ “

Can you point out where it says Jesus is yelling?

I’ve known you up til now to be an honest individual, so from what I’ve learned about you, it surprises me that you would misrepresent the text here. Why?

“Uncontrolled”?
I see perfect control, considering the power Jesus is described as having. He always used it to help other humans, never to hurt.

And being perfect doesn’t mean you can’t get angry. Jehovah God has gotten angry at times.

Is God imperfect, then? Hardly.

(Having “fits of anger” implies losing control. Never is that good behavior. And never has God - or Jesus - “lost control”.)

In reflection, the Bible…in revealing Jehovah God’s loving actions and also His acts of vengeance….should help one to appreciate its candor.

Jehovah doesn’t hide His behavior.

One of the gospels has Jesus going at them with a whip., and turning over tables and chairs.

 

[F1fan]

I said no such thing.

I said that Biden, SPECIFICALLY, was selfish to run. I say this because all the polls showed that the American public did not want him to, largely because of our concern over his mental capacity. Biden, however, doesn't give a hoot what Americans want, or whether he has the capacity to be the President. That's selfishness.

I think you have a case here. I agree that it is a mistake for him to run again. I have not heard any expalanation of his thinking. It is a gamble either way. He might win again, and live all through the second term and not lose any more mental acuity, and then live to be 100. Jimmy Carter is still hanging in there. Or he could fail and pass away in 2025. But that is why we have vice presidents as running mates.

I don't know his thinking, perhaps he sees that he is succeding in getting things done, and is a good foil for Trump, who he beat once already. With all the media attention on Trump's criminal problems, and coverage of how citizens are pretty much split on Trump/Biden, there is little room left for what Biden is getting done. I think once the election cycle gets going there will be ads that explain what Biden has been doing and how much better the USA is with an experienced public servant is over a criminal authoritarian.

 

[F1fan]

All the polls show that Americans do not want him to run again, due to concerns over age related problems. But does he give a hoot what Americans want? No.

Americans are so confused and dissatisfied about most everything these days I don't think they would agree on any candidate in a majority. I think those days are gone, at least for a while. When I see Biden approval numbers of 40% to my mind that really means 75-80%, because conservatives don't really count, they disapprove of Biden because he beat Trump. The number that counts is the non-conservative. That he has that high of an approval is good to my mind.

What democrat would rank better than Biden? I doubt Americans would approve of anyone running. This is a crucial elelction, one arguably that is about the future of the USA. I don;t think any other candidate would perform better than Biden because I think at this point citizens need to vote against Trump, assuming he gets the nomination, which isn't certain yet. Right now the focus should be on making sure Trump, and a few other republican candidates, do NOT win in 2024. That is all that matters. Is Biden too old for a secong term? That is less a problem than Trump winning the Electroal College, which could happen even if he loses by 7 million popular votes.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Americans are so confused and dissatisfied about most everything these days I don't think they would agree on any candidate in a majority.

I am almost tempted to go back and read through the thread so that I might understand how it managed to drift from "True Christians" and the Garden of Eden to confused and dissatisfied Americans and the swamp of Washington D.C.

 

[Twilight Hue]

For those of you who don't take the story of the Fall literally. Adam, Eve, Tree, Serpent, etc, how do you envision the Fall of Man happening? And if it didn't happen, what use is Jesus?

By acknowledging there never was a fall of man and Jesus was just another demigod in ancient Roman and Greek mythology.

 

[ppp]

The human brain has two centers of consciousness; inner self and ego. The inner self is older and the source of consciousness that all animals have. The inner self is based on DNA and evolution and internally defines species, such as the human animal, and his innate behavior that we call human nature.

Citation needed.

 

[ppp]

The fall of man notion isn’t dependent on a literal reading of the text (although those who claim to read it 'literally’ actually mean read it according to what they think it says, a literal reading would be something else entirely). If you read the story as an actual description of events, you have 2 people eat an apple on the advice of a talking snake/dragon, and this suddenly equips them with some sort of altered awareness, the so called fall. If you read it as a symbolic representation of whatever the fall is meant to be, you still have the fall. How you read it has no connection to whether or not there was some fall of man, in the different readings there’s only a difference of opinion as to whether the fall is described literally - as the result of eating an apple - or if the description is symbolic.

What in your opinion was the literal event, or series of events, that the Fall is a symbolic representation of?

 

[Tomef]

What in your opinion was the literal event, or series of events, that the Fall is a symbolic representation of?

Well, various parts of it appear in earlier written narratives and other mythologies from around the world, so it could be an allegory for some commonly experienced event, like the transition to settled agriculture. There is or was at some point a broad rabbinical consensus (or so I read somewhere) that it’s basically about the transition to adulthood. Another book I read more recently suggests it’s about the beginning of human agency, of people taking responsibility for their own lives and decisions, regardless of the consequences. Given that stories of that sort seem to go way back in oral traditions it’s possible it could have roots in the first experiences of self-awareness among early humans, going from the state of ‘innocence’ other animals live in to the more advanced kind of sentience we have.

 

[ppp]

Well, various parts of it appear in earlier written narratives and other mythologies from around the world, so it could be an allegory for some commonly experienced event, like the transition to settled agriculture. There is or was at some point a broad rabbinical consensus (or so I read somewhere) that it’s basically about the transition to adulthood. Another book I read more recently suggests it’s about the beginning of human agency, of people taking responsibility for their own lives and decisions, regardless of the consequences. Given that stories of that sort seem to go way back in oral traditions it’s possible it could go all the way back to the first experiences of self-awareness among the earliest humans, going from the state of ‘innocence’ other animals live in to the more advanced kind of sentience we have.

You seem to be approaching this from the Judaic concept, rather than the Christian appropriation of the story. Which would make Jesus superfluous, no?

 

[Tomef]

You seem to be approaching this from the Judaic concept, rather than the Christian appropriation of the story. Which would make Jesus superfluous, no?

Only one of the possibilities I mentioned is Judaic. Jesus only becomes relevant after he’s read into the text much later on, whoever put the Genesis texts together had no idea there would be someone called Jesus a new religion would be based on. Whatever they had in mind doesn’t necessarily match up with what we think.