And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked
How can you be dead and walk? Only if you're body is not dead, but your spirit.
You seem to lack understanding of what the term 'literal' means. It doesn't leave room to any sort of interpretations. You can not add anything extra to what is written if you are reading it literally.
In other words, that sentence doesn't make sense if you read it literally.
You don't understand it. Theres a difference.
But what do you believe is the meaning behind it? What was he trying to say?
That is quite off-topic.
At Luke 15:24, it says:
[24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.]
The word 'dead' is being used in the same way as to your quote.
Dead equals to lost here. It is a figure of speech.
I consider it to be wrong. The message may be confusing to us, and may be open to interpretation to us, but it also wasn't meant for us. If we assume that the Christian God is a deity and omnipotent then we should believe He knows the best way to communicate.
If you consider my interpretation to be wrong, then you accept that my wrong interpretation
could also be Adam and Eve's. That is what matters.
I'm trying to point out the logical fallacies of both of our arguments. Realistically both you and I can't understand the implications that were between Adam and God because we do not come from that time or experience. With that the case the only thing we can do is to take the text literally as it says because there is logically no other way we understand it (and it could even be argued that we cannot understand the text as is even). Which is why I say there is no room for interpretation, we can't pretend this passage needs to be deciphered like a womens response to your flirtations. It's not that what we perceive may be true or untrue, its that we have no ability to accurately discern the intent and it would only be luck if we stumbled upon the truth.
God's words at that part are rather dubious. When you say there is no other logical way to understand the text, you are completely innaccurate. My interpretation does not lack the quality of being logical. If there is room for an interpretation where God's words can be seen as deceiving, then it is more than enough to prove my point. I would expect no less than precise diction from an omnipotent deity.
One of the first things that I learned in my diversity class was that there is almost no universal trait betweens humans when it comes to gestures or phrases. We watched a video of a guy who went around the world and studied gestural communication and found the only universal trait was to raise your eyebrows as a sign of non hostility. This may seem irrelevant, but what I am saying is that what you perceive and what someone in Zimbabwe perceives is different. And when we bring our perceptions to interpret something is not under the blanket that our perception covers we are simply shooting in the dark at mosquitoes.
And what i am saying is that God would know very well how to make his words be understood exactly the way he wanted to by everyone.
Complete different from what i said. There are two completely different situations here: 1) I stab your chest with a knife and you die. 2) Someone stabs you in the chest, i do nothing to rescue you and you die.
I am the killer only in the first one.
Hmm, I didn't realize the forum adjusts its time based on user preference. Anyway here is the post.
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2407232-post48.html
Do you consider God as omnibenevolent?
Once again we get into what we know what the serpent was thinking.
The serpent did not say "you will not die if you eat the fruit!", it simply said "you will not die!" Did the serpent know that God would banish them from Eden if they ate the fruit? Well that is contingent on whether you believe the serpent was Satan (which is a discussion for a different thread). If the serpent was just that, then it could be argued for ignorance on the subject, but if you believe the serpent was Satan (which I think is the assumption for this argument) then it's pretty logical to assume that an Angel who was punished by God for seeking glory would know that when Adam and Eve would seek their own personal desires above the Lord would have similar consequences, no?
You have to consider the context. The snake said that Eve would not die due to the fruit. And Eve didn't really die because of the fruit, so the snake was telling the truth.
Now about the snake being Satan or not, it is irrelevant for this part of the argument. Let us assume for a moment the snake is Satan. It still doesn't change the fact that Satan did not lie to Eve, even if it may be said he wanted to deceive her by omitting important information. And why do you think he would know the punishment for humans would be death? What leads you to think he was at "college degree"? Why death? Satan remains alive.
