None of it is true - Does this bother anyone?

[OmarKhayyam]

your dreamin!

"You may call me a dreamer
But I'm not the only one. . . ."

 

[slave2six]

Book recommendation interlude:

Apparently it makes enough sense that the myth of the redeemer has been recycled hundreds of times in cultures all around the world - without the Adam and Eve schtick in every case but one.

Thanks! I've added it to my list.

 

[Autodidact]

The very notion of moral progress, the "rise", is itself a result of the digestion of the Judeo-Christian eschatological impulse and the doctrine of Incarnation. Admittedly, most of this occurred outside formal Church structures. It is not without co-incidence that modernity begins as a Western, Christian phenomenon.

Could you find a more pretentious way to phrase your views if you tried really hard?

The rooster takes credit for the dawn.

It is just as plausible that enlightenment arose as a rebellion against Christian Theism as because of it. Pre-cedence != causation.

Oh, and your first sentence is gobbledy-gook. "digestion???"

 

[Autodidact]

This dilemma is the fruit of the sola scriptura doctrine, IMO, and not really so much of a difficulty for churches that have a living dogmatic authority- a structure which keeps the revealed mysteries of the Faith in view, but sets off her members on a quest to pursue that Faith with thought. The notion of the development of doctrine is also noteworthy here.

Yes, and the Catholic Church has provided a light unto the nations, a shining example of peace, love and justice that embodies God's mission on earth.

 

[Riverwolf]

"You may call me a dreamer
But I'm not the only one. . . ."

"You may SAY I'm a dreamer."

(LOVE that song!)

 

[OmarKhayyam]

"You may SAY I'm a dreamer."

(LOVE that song!)

Correction accepted.

Please forgive an old man his frailties.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

And that is a very nice and thorough story line except that it isn't true. You clearly believe in a literal "fall of man" although you railed against me for doing so as well. This being the case, the physical universe stands in evidence against your story thus making it moot and nothing more than a simple tale.

Moreover, even accepting your premise, the results are irrational. If God is a Father then "who can separate us from the love of " God? If, as your story purports, man is spiritually broken in some fashion and therefore "alienated" from God it is "sin that separates us" from him and the way that any normal human being regains a right relationship with one against whom he has sinned is to ask forgiveness and for the offended to simply forgive. Nothing more. Nothing less. Sacrifice does not enter into the equation. All that is required is for your God to forgive people. Period. But this is not something that He is willing or able to do.

But your story tries to take things a step further. Not only is it required that one has to accept the conditions of a perfect human sacrifice (something that God abhors in the OT) but your book states that those who do accept this are "a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come." Your religion would have us believe that just as the first Adam was sinless and that his spiritual condition changed as a result of committing a sin, so too those who accept the "free gift" ought to be fundamentally changed so that they are again perfect as Adam was. But this is not so. Indeed, the divorce rate among Christians is 60% (ref). Christians are as prone to "sin" as anyone else. In short, there is no evidence for this later claim of Christians being "a new creation." Evidence against this claim is easily measurable whereas there is no evidence to support it. How then can you expect anyone to believe you about things that are ethereal and unmeasurable such as your story of the "fall of man"?

Finally, the physical completely eradicates the Christian idea of a "sin nature" etc. For example, there was a time in Judeo-Christian history when people were considered to be "possessed by a demon." Today, there are no such claims because we know that mental illness, epileptic seizures and other conditions of the brain are the causes behind the behaviors that were once attributed to demons. And the cures are physical as well. Science has found solutions to those conditions that Christians of former times attributed to spiritual causes. How can that be if there really are demons and a spiritual world plaguing us?

There is no lack of evidence of a growing number of Christians who suffer from depression and who are finding relief with the use of antidepressants. If the spiritual life of an individual has any bearing on their mental status, how do you explain these things?

The reality is that all those conditions that were once considered to be spiritual in nature (possession, lust, anger, hate, etc) in fact are physical conditions. Some of these can be treated while we have yet to discover treatments for other conditions. What will happen to your myth when science has effectively mastered the human mind to the degree that all those things that were once thought to be spiritual have been effectively managed through physical means? Certainly they cannot be managed through "spiritual" means as history has demonstrated quite clearly.

It's all nonsense and the only hope for the human race is to recognize that we are simply physical beings who behave in certain ways (whether because of traits that were valuable in our evolutionary past or what have you) and that the means of changing ourselves as a species lies in the physical sciences and not in the hocus-pocus world of never-ending ethereal debates about "interpreting divine revelations" and whatnot.

In short, Jesus has failed to save anyone from the "sin" that allegedly alienates man from God. So has every other religion that believes that there is an alienation between God and man. That people still buy into it is amazing but there are a growing number of people who have shunned religion (ref) and that, to me, is a wonderful thing.

Ok so excuse me but I'm still reading from my last post and trying to play catch up here.

IMO..

The Adam, and Eve story by biblical standard was a real story. All of the genealogies trace their roots to Adam and Eve. Theses two aren't viewed, in the bible, as some sort of bed time story or metaphor blurted out to teach a lesson. For the sake of argument...these two had kids...and supposedly one killed the other and then after that the story continues with their kids growing up having kids who grew up to have kids etc etc.... About time you get into the NT...the people still believed Adam and Eve were real people who were the beginnings of their genealogy. The gospels writers believed this in an attempt to establish the biblical Yeshua's bloodline and Paul believed them to be real and their actions being responsible for the fall of man.

If they aren't real then which of the biblical stories are metaphor and which aren't

Was the story of Yeshua a metaphor? I bet if you ask Christians and Muslims will tell you NO.....but what if it was?.....

So if Adam and Eve are metaphor does that mean Yeshua is a metaphor?...Why not?

 

[challupa]

Ok so excuse me but I'm still reading from my last post and trying to play catch up here.

IMO..

The Adam, and Eve story by biblical standard was a real story. All of the genealogies trace their roots to Adam and Eve. Theses two aren't viewed, in the bible, as some sort of bed time story or metaphor blurted out to teach a lesson. For the sake of argument...these two had kids...and supposedly one killed the other and then after that the story continues with their kids growing up having kids who grew up to have kids etc etc.... About time you get into the NT...the people still believed Adam and Eve were real people who were the beginnings of their genealogy. The gospels writers believed this in an attempt to establish the biblical Yeshua's bloodline and Paul believed them to be real and their actions being responsible for the fall of man.

If they aren't real then which of the biblical stories are metaphor and which aren't

Was the story of Yeshua a metaphor? I bet if you ask Christians and Muslims will tell you NO.....but what if it was?.....

So if Adam and Eve are metaphor does that mean Yeshua is a metaphor?...Why not?

There are certainly a growing number of people that do not believe Yeshua was a flesh and blood being, but rather a consciousness. The thing is we don't know. The problem with taking everything literally is that we take away the potential of the story to be meaningful I guess. If Yeshua is not a flesh and blood being and is a consciousness, then we don't have to be limited by a being that is so far above everyone in pureness that no one could possibly attain his levels. We also don't give up our responsibility to living a responsible lifestyle if Jesus isn't our saviour. When he is a saviour, all we have to do is believe in Jesus and we will be okay. Many people I talk to say how comforting it is to know that all they need to do is give their lives to Jesus and they will be okay. I think it's sad that they have bought into the belief that they need saving in the first place. Hell, imo, was created by church elders to create a market for salvation. We would not need to be saved if we didn't buy into the belief we have somehow fallen, are born sinners, and have the potential to be tormented for eternity. You don't need to fear something that doesn't exist and you also don't need to be saved from something that doesn't exist. That's just how I see the whole unfortunate story of original sin and hell.

 

[Alceste]

The Adam, and Eve story by biblical standard was a real story. All of the genealogies trace their roots to Adam and Eve. Theses two aren't viewed, in the bible, as some sort of bed time story or metaphor blurted out to teach a lesson. For the sake of argument...these two had kids...and supposedly one killed the other and then after that the story continues with their kids growing up having kids who grew up to have kids etc etc.... About time you get into the NT...the people still believed Adam and Eve were real people who were the beginnings of their genealogy.

You can't know that. Why would you think that people were any less conscious of metaphor and allegory less than two thousand years ago? I've seen no evidence of that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. We are natural storytellers. It makes no sense that for one brief dark period our ancestors lapsed into an inexplicable inability to recognize a good story when we see one. Seems more likely that the proportion of people who couldn't process a metaphor back then would be about the same as it is now. We haven't exactly been selecting for intelligence for the past 2000 years, in an evolutionary sense. There's no reason to believe we've changed so much as you suggest.

If they aren't real then which of the biblical stories are metaphor and which aren't

Why does the reality or non-reality hinge on that single creation myth for you? Every culture has a creation myth. They're for little kids. When Junior goes "Mommy, how did the world get here?", "Well, in the beginning, there was a giant spider floating around in the void" makes a better story than "Sorry, Junior, that's anybody's guess".

There are a lot of Christians for whom it's more-or-less irrelevant / arbitrary what is taken as a story as opposed to a literal truth. As I've mentioned in other threads, the head of the United Church of Canada at one point stated that he didn't believe the resurrection story was literally true, and yet this church is the second largest denomination in Canada, after the Catholics, who also (generally) don't believe the creation myths are literally true.

I'm saddened by this trend toward an "all-or-nothing" literalist attitude, even among non-Christians and atheists, with regards to the Bible. It's a book of stories, telling the history of a culture. The majority of Christians know this. By insisting it has to be anything other than that, we're allowing our perception of Christianity in general to be shaped by a minority of noisy fundamentalists. Mainstream Christians (the ones who aren't getting sucked into this trend themselves) are saddened too, but don't know what to do about it.

 

[Storm]

I can't frubal you again, Alceste, but well said.

 

[challupa]

You can't know that. Why would you think that people were any less conscious of metaphor and allegory less than two thousand years ago? I've seen no evidence of that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. We are natural storytellers. It makes no sense that for one brief dark period our ancestors lapsed into an inexplicable inability to recognize a good story when we see one. Seems more likely that the proportion of people who couldn't process a metaphor back then would be about the same as it is now. We haven't exactly been selecting for intelligence for the past 2000 years, in an evolutionary sense. There's no reason to believe we've changed so much as you suggest.

This reminds me of a paragraph in John Crossan's book, "Who is Jesus". He writes "My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally".

 

[Dirty Penguin]

You can't know that.

What can't I know...?...

I can't know that from the beginning of the book up into the NT it is showing that Adam and Eve were perceived as real people?

Why would you think that people were any less conscious of metaphor and allegory less than two thousand years ago? I've seen no evidence of that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

I'm not necessarily thinking that the people back then weren't aware of that which was allegory or not....and I see evidence to the contrary, in that the people in the bible did believe they were flesh and blood. There wouldn't be such a big deal as to if they were or not if everyone was of the same opinion. Apparently we're not.

If we or the book were simply talking about Adam and Eve and their situation in the garden or even Cain and Abel I might say....yea that was all allegory....but from Cain in Genesis 4 we start to see the family tree (genealogy) come into play. What sort of "lesson" should we be getting from the mention of some sons and daughters from Genesis 4 and 5? Mind you...Adam is in direct line with these family members. So up until now none of this is allegory.

Why does the reality or non-reality hinge on that single creation myth for you?

Who says it does for me? I personally believe they were made up stories.....for the sake of this discussion is why I asked the questions.

Every culture has a creation myth.

Yep..I'm well aware of this.

There are a lot of Christians for whom it's more-or-less irrelevant / arbitrary what is taken as a story as opposed to a literal truth.

I have no problem with that if that is what they believe or don't beleive. I was simply asking why they don't believe Adam ad Eve to be literal considering the bible gives no indication that anyone else thought they weren't and the stories surrounding them were allegory.

I'm saddened by this trend toward an "all-or-nothing" literalist attitude, even among non-Christians and atheists, with regards to the Bible.

It's not an all or nothing for me. I simply asked the question. I've found nowhere in the book that the generations after Adam thought him not to be their forfather. Gospel writers as well as Paul didn't appear to think him to be ficticious and some sort of bedtime story or temple lesson.

 

[Alceste]

What can't I know...?...

I can't know that from the beginning of the book up into the NT it is showing that Adam and Eve were perceived as real people?

Have you ever read a work of literature where the characters in it don't believe in each other? Something tells me this is not the standard practice when humans create a narrative of any kind.

If we or the book were simply talking about Adam and Eve and their situation in the garden or even Cain and Abel I might say....yea that was all allegory....but from Cain in Genesis 4 we start to see the family tree (genealogy) come into play. What sort of "lesson" should we be getting from the mention of some sons and daughters from Genesis 4 and 5? Mind you...Adam is in direct line with these family members. So up until now none of this is allegory.

It's not a "lesson" at all. It's how oral cultures keep track of lineage. In First Nations societies there were people with the specific role of keeping track of who was related to who, and how, as far back as anyone could remember. And there were other people with the specific role of keeping track of the stories, myths, and moral narratives as far back as anyone could remember. They'd even take on apprentices so this important cultural information wouldn't be forgotten. That's what the "begats" are. There's no lesson in them. It's evidence of nothing more than an oral culture learning to write things down. Even Plato lamented the rise of writing and the profound changes he thought it bring to bear on our cultural memory.

I have no problem with that if that is what they believe or don't beleive. I was simply asking why they don't believe Adam ad Eve to be literal considering the bible gives no indication that anyone else thought they weren't and the stories surrounding them were allegory.

The characters in the Bible are not necessarily representative of the people who were the proto-Christians who cobbled these stories together. What kind of story would the Oddysey be if Oddyseus didn't believe in the Cyclops? Or if the characters in the story didn't believe Poseidon and Athena could directly intervene in the lives of humans? It would be a dull, confusing, and probably incoherent story. (Heh - kind of like the Bible, come to think of it.)

To get to know the people, we should be paying attention to the fields of psychology, anthropology, archaeology, sociology and history. Not looking at the characters in the stories and assuming that what they thought of each other has to be the same thing everybody outside the story thought of them.

It's not an all or nothing for me. I simply asked the question. I've found nowhere in the book that the generations after Adam thought him not to be their forfather. Gospel writers as well as Paul didn't appear to think him to be ficticious and some sort of bedtime story or temple lesson.

And have you looked outside the book? The Iliad and the Oddysey make up only a part of our understanding of the Greeks. The Tao te Ching and Zhuang Zi make up a part of our understanding of the ancient Chinese. The Bible makes up a small part of our understanding of ancient Jews and proto-Christian cults.

 

[slave2six]

The Adam, and Eve story by biblical standard was a real story. All of the genealogies trace their roots to Adam and Eve. Theses two aren't viewed, in the bible, as some sort of bed time story or metaphor blurted out to teach a lesson. For the sake of argument...these two had kids...and supposedly one killed the other and then after that the story continues with their kids growing up having kids who grew up to have kids etc etc.... About time you get into the NT...the people still believed Adam and Eve were real people who were the beginnings of their genealogy. The gospels writers believed this in an attempt to establish the biblical Yeshua's bloodline and Paul believed them to be real and their actions being responsible for the fall of man.

If they aren't real then which of the biblical stories are metaphor and which aren't.

Yes. Precisely. The thing that amazes me is how many "Christians" still hold to the religion even when they themselves start trying to side-step this literality. Again, if it is literal than only an idiot would still believe it in light of what the physical universe has to say about the matter.

But, as the bards have written, "What a fool believes he sees no wise man has the power to reason away. What seems to be is always better than nothing..." (Doobie Brothers)

 

[slave2six]

There are certainly a growing number of people that do not believe Yeshua was a flesh and blood being, but rather a consciousness.

Amazingly, that is precisely what the Council of Nicaea was all about. A large portion of Christendom in the 4th century believed this as well. If they had won out at Nicaea, what a very different world this would be.

 

[slave2six]

You can't know that. Why would you think that people were any less conscious of metaphor and allegory less than two thousand years ago? I've seen no evidence of that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

I'd be interested in your evidence to the contrary. Have you read Jesus' genealogy in Matthew? It goes all the way to Adam. If Adam wasn't a literal person then one would have to suggest that neither was Moses or David. Certainly the literal genealogy was important to the Gospel writer because it was his Exhibit A of why Jesus was in fact the Messiah.

 

[slave2six]

Why does the reality or non-reality hinge on that single creation myth for you?

This is not about the Creation myth so much as it is about the Garden of Eden myth because it is the Garden story that is the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith. Again, it was believed to be literal and of divine revelation from God to Moses. The stuff about the Creation myth being wrong is merely evidence to support that God didn't reveal jack-squat to Moses about anything... assuming Moses was a real person.

 

[Riverwolf]

I'd be interested in your evidence to the contrary. Have you read Jesus' genealogy in Matthew? It goes all the way to Adam. If Adam wasn't a literal person then one would have to suggest that neither was Moses or David. Certainly the literal genealogy was important to the Gospel writer because it was his Exhibit A of why Jesus was in fact the Messiah.

And if you read Jesus's genealogy in Luke, it's different.

What does that tell you?

 

[Riverwolf]

This is not about the Creation myth so much as it is about the Garden of Eden myth because it is the Garden story that is the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith. Again, it was believed to be literal and of divine revelation from God to Moses. The stuff about the Creation myth being wrong is merely evidence to support that God didn't reveal jack-squat to Moses about anything... assuming Moses was a real person.

Most scholars accept that it is EXTREMELY unlikely that Moses was real.

It is quite obvious to most scholars that the Torah had at least four authors, each having written their own account independently, and then was edited and compiled later on. I don't know all the details yet.

EDIT: People sin, and THAT'S the point of the Christian faith: to save us from that sin. Not all denominations say Christ was sent to save mankind from the original sin; some people say that Christ came to save us from OUR OWN sins.

 

[Arkwort]

None of it is true - Does this bother anyone? :sad4:

It would bother me if there was no alternative!