Is it a sin to seek knowledge?

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Focus on the moral issues please.

Are you saying that learning what is good and what is evil is a sin?

Let's take rape.
Why would you not want to know if rape is good or evil and why is knowing which adjective to put to it it a sin?

Regards
DL

It means the point is to have disgust of rape. When it is regarded as fact that it is wrong, then emotions become irrelevant.

 

[ChristineES]

If you read your bible, you see where it says that Eve was deceived and only Adam disobeyed.

Strange that Eden is now a symbol of faith when Christians have used it to discriminate against women for so long with their ---- he shall rule over you.

Regards
DL

What does people discriminating against people have to with what we are speaking about? I thought we were discussing obtaining knowledge. I repeat, I don't believe it a sin to obtain knowledge and I don't believe the Adam and Eve story says it's a sin to obtain knowledge, just being disobedient.

 

[Windwalker]

You are what I call a long winded specialist, no insult intended, and I am a short winded generalist.

I wouldn't call you a generalist myself. Do you understand what I am saying? If you did, you could address the points in a generalist way. But I hear no response to the points.

Not a good combination for a discussion. I cannot get into your mind set and I don't know if you can get into mine or nor but it does not look like it.

Sure, your point of view is quite easy to see and understand for me. I am trying to point out it's too narrow, too superficial to address what are in fact more complex matters. If you are speaking from a generalist perspective, you should understand something of what I am saying, at least at a high level. Are you? But then again, as a generalist, you really aren't in a position to speak of this much in any depth, or of much real substance, if you are true to being a generalist. So this whole discussion is kind of moot as something worth deep consideration. You should instead listen to the specialists, which would make you a better generalist.

 

[Unification]

If you think that a human is the best human when he has no morals sense, and that gaining one is a fall, then we have nowhere to go.

You tell me not to judge while you show quite a poor judgement yourself.

All religions and philosophies try to find the best morals to live life with and that means making judgements that are way more intelligent than your.

Jesus did say judge not, and many use the prostitute scenario to show he did not, but forget that he did judge that she was a sinner.

Regards
DL

The best morals are to view every other human as yourself and an extension of you. As one and with no partiality. It's so simple. What we all have in common. Everything that divides and separates is from labeling and judging.

A human starts at conscious oneness and separates into duality. This is conscious involution.
After separation into duality, then the climb through conscious expeience in the physical plane. This is conscious evolution. The descent and then ascent. The death and then the resurrection. The ego and then the messiah. Finding conscious oneness again.

As many have pointed out. .Knowledge and wisdom acquisition has nothing to do with knowledge of good and evil. What if all was good and perfect the way it is? Evil to me has been all used for good, and I'm thankful for the conscious experience of suffering to become strengthened. I've reaped what I've sown. Fallen before rising. Failed before succeeding. At the time, while separated and living in top of my own throne in my ego, I was bitter and blamed, hardened, and labeled things as evil. Upon balance and oneness achieved, I realized evil was good for my benefit and experiencing cosmic/natural justice. A destruction of myself and having a desolate temple was necessary. My ego needed brought low. We choose our love and peace or we choose our hate and suffering.

It has nothing to do with acquiring knowledge. It has to do with judgement and labeling people and things as good or evil.

Living separated of mind, and in ego... Most knowledge acquired anyhow is deceptive and false and assumed.

People consciously know rape and murder and such are not wise choices, defining it with any amount of intelligence changes nothing or prevents. If the victimizer knew they'd be the victim one day, maybe they'd have an internal shift of conscious before choosing. We are mostly taught that we only live once and if we escape punishment, we are safe. This is a huge lie. One will pay every last penny.

 

[Greatest I am]

Yes and no. We need to direct our search away from evil intent completely, solely toward humanitarian and ecological endeavors.

Impossible.

How would you know who would not abuse any technology?

I E. What if splitting the atom would have been done by medical science for their x ray machines etc. instead of the military science.

How would you prevent the military from taking that science and using it for war?

In fact, was the use of the A Bomb evil when it was used to end a world war?

It may well be that more would have died over time if the U.S. had not scared the hell out of their enemies with their new weapon.

In fact, it is quite possible that the nuclear deterrent is what has given us world peace for so long and relegated war to small factions.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

I wouldn't call you a generalist myself. Do you understand what I am saying? If you did, you could address the points in a generalist way. But I hear no response to the points.


Sure, your point of view is quite easy to see and understand for me. I am trying to point out it's too narrow, too superficial to address what are in fact more complex matters. If you are speaking from a generalist perspective, you should understand something of what I am saying, at least at a high level. Are you? But then again, as a generalist, you really aren't in a position to speak of this much in any depth, or of much real substance, if you are true to being a generalist. So this whole discussion is kind of moot as something worth deep consideration. You should instead listen to the specialists, which would make you a better generalist.

I have and think, I am progressing quite fine, thanks.

You have to remember that you are not my target. You do not need to hear what I have to say. You do not need to be helped to think better. I come for the sick. Not the well.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

The best morals are to view every other human as yourself and an extension of you. As one and with no partiality. It's so simple. What we all have in common. Everything that divides and separates is from labeling and judging.

A human starts at conscious oneness and separates into duality. This is conscious involution.
After separation into duality, then the climb through conscious expeience in the physical plane. This is conscious evolution. The descent and then ascent. The death and then the resurrection. The ego and then the messiah. Finding conscious oneness again.

As many have pointed out. .Knowledge and wisdom acquisition has nothing to do with knowledge of good and evil. What if all was good and perfect the way it is? Evil to me has been all used for good, and I'm thankful for the conscious experience of suffering to become strengthened. I've reaped what I've sown. Fallen before rising. Failed before succeeding. At the time, while separated and living in top of my own throne in my ego, I was bitter and blamed, hardened, and labeled things as evil. Upon balance and oneness achieved, I realized evil was good for my benefit and experiencing cosmic/natural justice. A destruction of myself and having a desolate temple was necessary. My ego needed brought low. We choose our love and peace or we choose our hate and suffering.

It has nothing to do with acquiring knowledge. It has to do with judgement and labeling people and things as good or evil.

Living separated of mind, and in ego... Most knowledge acquired anyhow is deceptive and false and assumed.

People consciously know rape and murder and such are not wise choices, defining it with any amount of intelligence changes nothing or prevents. If the victimizer knew they'd be the victim one day, maybe they'd have an internal shift of conscious before choosing. We are mostly taught that we only live once and if we escape punishment, we are safe. This is a huge lie. One will pay every last penny.

"As many have pointed out. .Knowledge and wisdom acquisition has nothing to do with knowledge of good and evil".

They would be wrong because everything that I can think of is subject to those adjectives.

Try co come up with a few things that are not. You will see my point and the point of those who wrote Eden and that is why no one ever argues that wisdom can come from the knowledge of good and evil.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

It means the point is to have disgust of rape. When it is regarded as fact that it is wrong, then emotions become irrelevant.

Correct that disgust should be known and that means eating of the tree of knowledge. It seems we agree that A & E did the right thing.

Your last sentence is incoherent to me in the way you state it.

Regards
DL

 

[ChristineES]

I know that you Christians are conditioned to see yourselves as sinners thanks to the lie of Original sin.

Drop that for one moment and think like a parent.

Would you command your children to not educate themselves with knowledge and stay in ignorant bliss and be to stupid to even know they are naked?

Is that a command that you think your children would be well advised to follow?

Just answer as a parent and do not fear your prick of a God.

Regards
DL

All I can say to this that not all Christians fit into the mold you apparently put them in in this post.

 

[Vishvavajra]

I am not a Christian but that made no sense to me either. I left what you confused me with.

Your last I understand of course. The first. Not so much.

Expand on it please.

Regards
DL

The Eden myth belongs to a type. The closest analog that people might be expected to be familiar with is the myth of Prometheus & Pandora from Hesiod, but there are others from around the world. These myths express the feeling that people have that things used to be easier, and that as people have progressed or evolved, that evolution has come with a price. That does not mean that the evolution was a mistake, just that it had to be balanced with new hardships (or so the myths suggest) so that humans would not overtake the heavenly gods in power.

In the Eden myth the humans eat of a magical fruit that grants them discernment that most creatures in the garden don't have (excepting the snake, apparently). It's compared to the knowledge that the gods have, which is why they say that the man and woman "have become like us." They then express their fear that the humans will eat of the tree of life and become immortal, eliminating the line between human and divine, so they saddle the humans with difficulties to keep them in their place (e.g. having to work the land in order to eat, difficulty in childbirth, never being able to conspire with the snake or his kind again).

In the Greek myth Prometheus tricks Zeus so that humans get the better part of each sacrifice, so Zeus tries to balance that benefit by removing fire from the earthly realm, for fear that with it humans will have too easy a time and will challenge the status of the gods. Prometheus steals fire back for humans, allowing them to develop technology, etc., so in order to balance that benefit the gods create the first woman and give her a jar full of hardships to unleash on the world, so that people will have to work the land to eat, they will get sick and die, men will have to marry and be bedeviled by women in order to reproduce, etc.

In both cases the humans are advanced beyond their animal state by the acquisition of something that previously only belonged to the gods, and in both cases the gods felt the need to make life harder for humans to compensate for that benefit. Whether cursing mortals in this way was fair was completely beside the point when those myths were set to writing. They're not meant to express a belief in cosmic justice; they're meant to express the human experience that life is hard, yet unlike other animals we can imagine a world in which it isn't, and that causes us to suffer even more, though we have godlike faculties that other creatures do not.

 

[Kolibri]

Is sex not good in some cases and evil in other cases?

Yes it is.

That means that A & E could not have known of sex as the knowledge of it would have been in the tree of knowledge and they had yet to eat of it.

You are putting the cart before the horse.

You also say that Jesus was the other perfect man.

He knew good and evil and Adam did not.

How then, being so different, can you say they were both perfect?

Regards
DL

"To know" is relative. When we come to know a person, we become intimately acquainted with him/her.
Likewise when it comes to knowing the contrast between good and bad, one can have a superficial knowledge without being intimately acquainted with it.

Adam and Jesus were the same as humans. Jesus was even called the "last Adam". (1 Corinthians 15:45)

What was different was their attitude towards Jehovah's sovereignty. And that is all the tree of knowledge of good and bad symbolized - respect for/rebellion from Jehovah's ultimate authority.

"I cannot do a single thing of my own initiative, Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is righteous because I seek, not my own will, but the will of him who sent me."
- John 5:30

 

[paarsurrey]

Is it a sin to seek knowledge?

For the material,physical and secular matters knowledge of sciences and arts is the source, while for ethical, moral and spiritual matters Word of Revelation is the source.
There is no sin to seek knowledge from both the sources to understand life in its complete picture and perspective.
Truthful Religion encourages one to get benefit from both.
Regards

 

[Greatest I am]

All I can say to this that not all Christians fit into the mold you apparently put them in in this post.

You likely do or you would have shown your difference.

There is a word for that.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

The Eden myth belongs to a type. The closest analog that people might be expected to be familiar with is the myth of Prometheus & Pandora from Hesiod, but there are others from around the world. These myths express the feeling that people have that things used to be easier, and that as people have progressed or evolved, that evolution has come with a price. That does not mean that the evolution was a mistake, just that it had to be balanced with new hardships (or so the myths suggest) so that humans would not overtake the heavenly gods in power.

In the Eden myth the humans eat of a magical fruit that grants them discernment that most creatures in the garden don't have (excepting the snake, apparently). It's compared to the knowledge that the gods have, which is why they say that the man and woman "have become like us." They then express their fear that the humans will eat of the tree of life and become immortal, eliminating the line between human and divine, so they saddle the humans with difficulties to keep them in their place (e.g. having to work the land in order to eat, difficulty in childbirth, never being able to conspire with the snake or his kind again).

In the Greek myth Prometheus tricks Zeus so that humans get the better part of each sacrifice, so Zeus tries to balance that benefit by removing fire from the earthly realm, for fear that with it humans will have too easy a time and will challenge the status of the gods. Prometheus steals fire back for humans, allowing them to develop technology, etc., so in order to balance that benefit the gods create the first woman and give her a jar full of hardships to unleash on the world, so that people will have to work the land to eat, they will get sick and die, men will have to marry and be bedeviled by women in order to reproduce, etc.

In both cases the humans are advanced beyond their animal state by the acquisition of something that previously only belonged to the gods, and in both cases the gods felt the need to make life harder for humans to compensate for that benefit. Whether cursing mortals in this way was fair was completely beside the point when those myths were set to writing. They're not meant to express a belief in cosmic justice; they're meant to express the human experience that life is hard, yet unlike other animals we can imagine a world in which it isn't, and that causes us to suffer even more, though we have godlike faculties that other creatures do not.

Your is a possible view but I do not think that Christians had that in mind.

We all do as much as we can in seeking knowledge. The problem for unfortunate Christians is the perception of the terms knowledge and truth.

The idea of Jesus dying for us was created to produce a sense of indebtedness that the population is supposed to feel.

The idea of the fall was created to have people interpret the scripture in a way that makes them think that seeking knowledge is a sin.

This makes it easier for Christians to pushed to become unthinking sheeple that can be easily manipulated, --- just as the re-writers of the bible and interpretation biased preachers want.

Christianity can thus profit from fear and indebtedness in this manner.

In the end, knowledge and truth are for our own enlightenment. Seeking untruth is a form of transgression and that is what priests and imams try to produce. Priests and imams are quite skilled in helping people lie to themselves.

Conditioning that some would call indoctrination or brainwashing when pushed to it's present extreme.

Strange that our own governments give tax credits and exemptions to organizations that basically spend their time lying to people. You and I subsidize this legalized fraud by paying the tax shortfall.

We are thus all paying for priests and imams to lie to the gullible and vulnerable.

There aught to be a law against that.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

"To know" is relative. When we come to know a person, we become intimately acquainted with him/her.
Likewise when it comes to knowing the contrast between good and bad, one can have a superficial knowledge without being intimately acquainted with it.

Adam and Jesus were the same as humans. Jesus was even called the "last Adam". (1 Corinthians 15:45)

What was different was their attitude towards Jehovah's sovereignty. And that is all the tree of knowledge of good and bad symbolized - respect for/rebellion from Jehovah's ultimate authority.

"I cannot do a single thing of my own initiative, Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is righteous because I seek, not my own will, but the will of him who sent me."
- John 5:30

Wow, quite the character you show in where you stopped quoting.

John 5:31 If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.

You deflected everywhere to avoid recognizing that A & E could not have known of sex before eating of the tree of knowledge.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Is it a sin to seek knowledge?

For the material,physical and secular matters knowledge of sciences and arts is the source, while for ethical, moral and spiritual matters Word of Revelation is the source.
There is no sin to seek knowledge from both the sources to understand life in its complete picture and perspective.
Truthful Religion encourages one to get benefit from both.
Regards

How do you reach that failed conclusion when Christians call gaining knowledge from the revealer himself, God, as a fall?

Regards
DL

 

[ChristineES]

You likely do or you would have shown your difference.

There is a word for that.

Regards
DL

Yeah, it's called "You haven't got the slightest idea what I am like since you never met me". You don't even know me and how I worship God or how I follow my faith. Good day, sir.

 

[viole]

What does people discriminating against people have to with what we are speaking about? I thought we were discussing obtaining knowledge. I repeat, I don't believe it a sin to obtain knowledge and I don't believe the Adam and Eve story says it's a sin to obtain knowledge, just being disobedient.

Is obtaining knowledge a good thing or a bad thing?

Supposing it is a good thing, as it seems implicit in your post, is disobeying an order that tries to prevent the acquistion of knowledge a good thing or a bad thing?

Ciao

- viole

 

[leibowde84]

It means the point is to have disgust of rape. When it is regarded as fact that it is wrong, then emotions become irrelevant.

Our understanding of "right" and "wrong" are in constant evolution. The more we learn about societies and how they function, the more we realize that our notions of these things might have been tainted by our own assumptions. I think you are correct here, as "disgust" of rape is what should be focused on. Whether or not it is objectively "wrong" (which I don't think is a real possibility given the nature of the term) is not important. It is, however, important to understand why one is "disgusted" by it.

 

[viole]

It means the point is to have disgust of rape. When it is regarded as fact that it is wrong, then emotions become irrelevant.

Well, disgust is also a fact, isn't it? It concerns the activation of some brain areas responsible for the disgust feeling. It can actually be measured on a brain scan. And I am pretty positive that it is, or will be, objectively possible to measure what someone considers right or wrong without even asking him but just by analyzing his brain operation.

In other words, your subjectivity is objective as well, I am afraid.

Ciao

- viole