The tree of knowledge..............

[michel]

We all know of that blasted tree, and the one about 'hissing sid' who got Eve to give the apple from the tree of knowledge to Adam. From that point, makind was doomed to be denied the luxury of Paradise, and we have to go through this not so ideal life, trying to sin as little as possible (but, like me), maybe some of you aren't so good at the saying 'NO' bit..............

Now, what was it that 'the tree of knowledge ' contained that Adam should never have known about ? anything that made him 'no longer innocent', is what I understand (correct me if I am wrong).

So we were apparently never supposed to eat the fruit.

In an ideal world, if no one had ever eaten the fruit we and all the animals would be lying close to each other, and no one would ever try to harm anyone or any creature.

Presumably, that tree of knowledge was also about 'things that are supernatural'. using my often used 'super natural is only natural that is above our ability to understand at the time' definition (a car is a supernatural beast to someone who has been brought up on a desert island where no one has ever seen or heard of cars.

What about science ? In general ? Is that not 'supernatural' until it has been understood? Should we really have all bee trying to abstain from knowledge ? (which I see as ridiculous, but I can't see the falw in my argument)...

 

[Willamena]

Well, I don't agree with your definition of supernatural, and that would change the argument. But I don't see any flaw with the argument the way you've presented it. Denying us the tree would have also denied us education, civilization and the ability to ask each other these hypothetical questions.

 

[michel]

Well, I don't agree with your definition of supernatural, and that would change the argument. But I don't see any flaw with the argument the way you've presented it. Denying us the tree would have also denied us education, civilization and the ability to ask each other these hypothetical questions.

How do you define the supernatural?

Denying us the tree would have also denied us education, civilization and the ability to ask each other these hypothetical questions.

That's the point I was making (as well)

 

[nutshell]

michel, are you aware of the LDS belief regarding Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge?

 

[michel]

michel, are you aware of the LDS belief regarding Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge?

No, I am not.

 

[nutshell]

OK...I don't have much time so here are the highlights:

God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden.

Adam and Eve were in a state of innocence, not knowing good and evil. In this state they could not progress to their full potential and they physically were incapable of procreation.

God gave two commandments: Don't eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and multiply and repenish the earth.

These commandments conflicted because Adam and Eve would not be able to procreate until they had eaten of the Tree, yet they were told not to do that.

Eve is tricked by Satan and she partakes of the Tree then gives to Adam and he partakes.

Because they broke one of God's commandments they become spiritually separated from God. They are spiritually dead. Physically, they change as well. They can now procreate and they will eventually die. Also, as the name of the tree implies, they now have knowledge of good and evil, like God. This means they can now make the choices that will lead to progression.

God set up the conflicting commandments as a switch that would begin the progression of mankind.

And he provided Jesus Christ to save us from the Spiritual and Physical death that was the result of throwing the switch.

 

[michel]

So, if I understand correctly, for God, it was a case of "heads I win, tails you lose".....?

Ummmmmmm.

Thanks, BTW.

 

[nutshell]

So, if I understand correctly, for God, it was a case of "heads I win, tails you lose".....?

Ummmmmmm.

Thanks, BTW.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Who is God fliping coins with?

If it is Satan then yes it's a case of "Heads God wins, Tails Satan Looses."

If it is the case of Adam and Even then it is "Heads we all win, Tails we all win." We don't believe Adam and Eve lost anything except a pseudo-Paradise where they weren't learning anything more from God because they did not yet have the capability to do so. LDS belief does not come down hard on Adam and Even like the majority of Christianity. They were a carefully selected pair to "flip the switch" for God, making it possible for all of us to be here. Was the result separation from God? Yes. But we wouldn't have progressed if we stayed in God's presence. There came a time when we needed to get out and experience things on our own, very similar to parent/child relationships today.

 

[Willamena]

How do you define the supernatural?

I hesitate to do so, because I am not learned in philosophy, and when I start talking about such things people start throwing big words like "epistemology" at me. But if you promise not to do that, I'll give it a go.

The supernatural is often referred to as the unexplained, the undefinable, the immaterial, so I find it best to define it in terms of what it is not. A thing's nature is the sum of all its characteristics, traits and qualities, everything that we can know about the thing. Supernatural is viewed as the opposite, so it is everything that we cannot know about a thing, often interpreted as everything that we don't know about the thing, which is how you used the word earlier. Things we don't know can be rectified; the supernatural cannot. Common though that idea may be, the word "super" means "above or beyond," which doesn't imply an opposite of knowing, but rather a "dimension" or component of unknowableness about the thing.

So the supernatural is something we cannot know about a thing, but that is still a component of it. Talk about undefinable. I often refer to the supernatural simply as the "unknown/unknowable". (I'm agnostic...) The natural and the supernatural together make up a thing, and the conclusion of that is that the supernatural requires the natural to exist. (...and I don't believe in ghosts.)

The word "immaterial" derives from such a concept of the supernatural, in both its literal and figurative meanings. A thing that is beyond our ability to study can easily become so insignificant that it doesn't matter anymore. Certainly it will never matter to science, whose main concern is explaining and defining things for the use and betterment of mankind.

But it does matter to a lot of people. Our brains have this lovely faculty to create and utilize symbols in a way, and to a degree, that sets us apart from other life-forms on this planet. The supernatural is intuited through the natural, as a 'living' part of it. Symbols of meaning are allocated to the concurrence of events or other symbols (god, spirit, demon, etc.) and purposes and intents intuited. We call these "omens," and they are our guides. The spirits are real, and they are around all the time, a 'living' part of the world we live in --a part of it because we are human.

 

[spacemonkey]

Finally you all are asking the questions they will lead you to the answer. Why do those in power prefer to keep those beneath them uneducated? They are easier to subjicate. It was the creator of the planet that forbid Adam and Eve from eating of the tree, but does that mean that he is the True God? He is described in the OT as jealous, but of who? How can he be jealous of other deities worshipped by humans if they don't exist? Think about the God that Jesus descibes; forgiving, loving, kind, not the kind of guy to kill everything with a flood in a fit of jealous anger. Now lets look at "Satan". In Hebrew Satan means "adversary", now who would be the "adversary" to an angry, jealous god? That's right, a loving, forgiving god. So who is the serpent, in my opinion he is a messanger from the True God, revealing to an imprisoned mankind that the way to escape our bondage is through KNOWLEDGE (Gnosis in greek) and ENLIGHTENMENT. Basically, the god in the OT is Satan in the NT and vice - versa.

 

[doppelganger]

We all know of that blasted tree, and the one about 'hissing sid' who got Eve to give the apple from the tree of knowledge to Adam. From that point, makind was doomed to be denied the luxury of Paradise, and we have to go through this not so ideal life, trying to sin as little as possible (but, like me), maybe some of you aren't so good at the saying 'NO' bit..............

Why do you say that? Paradise is all around us, but people just don't see it.

Now, what was it that 'the tree of knowledge ' contained that Adam should never have known about ? anything that made him 'no longer innocent', is what I understand (correct me if I am wrong).

I don't know if you're "wrong," but that understanding pretty much jibes with how I read it. To be a little more specific, I read the the "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" as reasoning, logic and language that are the result of self identity and all of its attendant illusions of separation (good/evil, man/woman, god/human, garden/human, etc.) and the need to categorize and judge that makes suffering possible, shame possible and self-delusion possible.

So we were apparently never supposed to eat the fruit.

I'm not so sure about that. I see it as a metaphor about the state of things as they are. The fruit is eaten. We now have self identity as part of being human based metaphorically on our inheritance of self-consciousness as part of our being humans (perhaps the natural selection millions of years ago of our first reasoning homonid ancestors). This first reasoning "humans" are represented metaphorically by "Adam and Eve." By becoming self- conscious we ar no longer one with "God" and the "Garden." We inherited the consequeces of that self conciousness - separation from "God" and alienation in our Universe, the ability to contemplate (and thereby experience) death, and the ability to experience suffering from loss of the illusions that come with that identity.

In an ideal world, if no one had ever eaten the fruit we and all the animals would be lying close to each other, and no one would ever try to harm anyone or any creature.

There would be no concepts such as "harm." There'd be no self conscious me to make such a judgment. Animals would still eat each other though, because that's how life works.

What about science ? In general ? Is that not 'supernatural' until it has been understood? Should we really have all bee trying to abstain from knowledge ? (which I see as ridiculous, but I can't see the falw in my argument)...

Maybe. What do we really know and much do we really understand, anyway? And what truly is the end of "progress"?

 

[Katzpur]

So, if I understand correctly, for God, it was a case of "heads I win, tails you lose".....?

Ummmmmmm.

Thanks, BTW.

Well, apparently you don't understand correctly. First off, it wasn't a game, and it certainly wasn't a gamble. God knew what He was doing and He did it for man's benefit, not His own. Adam and Eve and all of their posterity (that would be you and I) have reaped the blessings of God's Plan and of Adam's and Eve's decision, which set it in motion.

 

[shema]

The tree of Knowledge was actually called the tree of knowlege of Good and evil. so that opened up a can of worms that we still deal with today.

 

[Quiddity]

*MOVED TO RELIGIOUS DEBATES*​

 

[Quiddity]

Well, apparently you don't understand correctly. First off, it wasn't a game, and it certainly wasn't a gamble. God knew what He was doing and He did it for man's benefit, not His own. Adam and Eve and all of their posterity (that would be you and I) have reaped the blessings of God's Plan and of Adam's and Eve's decision, which set it in motion.

Would a good analogy be me placing my son in the ghetto for personal growth that he could not get otherwise?

 

[spacemonkey]

No one has a comment on my first post? Come on, my gnostic rants can usually incite some sort of a response. As for Shema's post, kinda sounds like the story of Pandora huh, blaming women for all the woes of the world.

 

[doppelganger]

No one has a comment on my first post? Come on, my gnostic rants can usually incite some sort of a response. As for Shema's post, kinda sounds like the story of Pandora huh, blaming women for all the woes of the world.

I'll bite. Is it possible to interepret the "Demiurge" as my own ego, rather than an object (being)?

That Gnostic myth always made more sense to me understood allegorically.

 

[spacemonkey]

The demiurge (literally "craftsman" in greek) is the name given to the false god who created this place and populated it with souless creations. He captured the essance of his mother, Sofia, and trapped it in a creation and called it "man". The demiurge was said to have been born to Sofia (wisdom) without the ummm..."imput" of her consort (a virgin birth).

 

[Willamena]

Finally you all are asking the questions they will lead you to the answer. Why do those in power prefer to keep those beneath them uneducated? They are easier to subjicate. It was the creator of the planet that forbid Adam and Eve from eating of the tree, but does that mean that he is the True God? He is described in the OT as jealous, but of who? How can he be jealous of other deities worshipped by humans if they don't exist? Think about the God that Jesus descibes; forgiving, loving, kind, not the kind of guy to kill everything with a flood in a fit of jealous anger. Now lets look at "Satan". In Hebrew Satan means "adversary", now who would be the "adversary" to an angry, jealous god? That's right, a loving, forgiving god. So who is the serpent, in my opinion he is a messanger from the True God, revealing to an imprisoned mankind that the way to escape our bondage is through KNOWLEDGE (Gnosis in greek) and ENLIGHTENMENT. Basically, the god in the OT is Satan in the NT and vice - versa.

Interesting idea, except that Satan is the adversary of Man, not God: it is man he tests and tempts. It is God's work he does.

 

[doppelganger]

The demiurge (literally "craftsman" in greek) is the name given to the false god who created this place and populated it with souless creations. He captured the essance of his mother, Sofia, and trapped it in a creation and called it "man". The demiurge was said to have been born to Sofia (wisdom) without the ummm..."imput" of her consort (a virgin birth).

So you view the OT serpent as a sort of Prometheus figure who gives knowledge to humanity and who comes back in the form of Jesus to set us free from the law of the Demiurge? Interesting.

I like it. I need to think about it some more though.

Sorry if you were looking for more argument, outrage or shock. You'll have to get that from someone else.