So, Adam and Eve have been tricked into eating from the tree of knowledge. God, naturally, finds out about this and is pissed off. In this part of the chapter, god gets around to overreacting and dealing out some harsh punishments to all involved parties.
Genesis 3
The Fall of Man
9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
My Commentary
Alright, so god now looks in the garden and, because Adam and Eve have hidden themselves, mister all-powerful can’t find them. Adam tells god that he hid himself because he was ashamed of his nakedness. God gets mad. He knows that they ate from the off-limits tree. After a quick interrogation, he gets the whole story. Some might think that he would have known already, but whatever.
So now, God doles out the punishments. First he punishes the snake. He takes away his legs, makes him eat dust and makes them an enemy of humans. They’ll bruise the snakes head and the snake will bruise the heels of humans. This relationship is supposed to go on forever. Now, of course, it isn’t uncommon for there to be pet snakes, so that didn’t work out as planned.
Now, onto the woman. Giving birth is gonna hurt. Also, the man is the boss. Seems kind of spiteful, seeing as she was tricked and god made her the way she was when she was tricked.
Now, for man. You gotta work to get food from the Earth. And, it’ll be hard work, not easy. Oh, yeah, and now all humans are going to die at some point.
And, showing some mercy, god then makes clothes for Adam and Eve. Then god kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and he put the cherubim and the flaming sword which turns every which way to guard the garden and, the never before mentioned tree of life which would let people live forever. And that wraps up chapter three.
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I ask my daughter questions when I already know the answers, to command honesty...Like recently, "Kylie, did you spill nail polish?"
"No mommy," yet I could smell it, then I found it...Then she fessed up, so that may be that part of the story, but I take away TV which to my child is worse than torture...
Yes, but do you take actions to prevent that sort of thing from happening? God is supposed to have made Adam and Eve. He would know that they would do that, and yet he did nothing to stop his rules from being broken.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
I know Kylie will always do what I say not to do, so sometimes you let your child get into trouble so you can explain it. Ky will pick up something heavy, and I make her carry it because she chose to pick it up, I let her know that her decisions are hers, not mine. Ky has crushed her fingers not listening and I could not have prevented it. Her will was stronger than my warning...Kids do this everywhere, I am not the only parent with stories like this...I promise.
And those are actions that you take to discourage breaking the rules. God, who must have known how easy to trick humans at the time must have been, said don't eat from the tree and then did nothing to enforce that law. After messing up once, because they were tricked, god essentially flips out and goes off the hook with punishments.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
He says that on the day that they eat from the tree of knowledge, they will die.
They eat, they don't. -- In fact, apparently, if they had eaten from the tree of life, they'd never die. So God would have been REALLY lying.
I thought about taking that up, but they do die. They don't die right away, but they die eventually. That may not have been a direct result of eating from the tree, but it will stilll happen.
The tree of life sounds like it was just shoved in there last minute. Whoever was writing it thought, hmm, a tree of life. That sounds cool.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
No. God doesn't say that "you'll die" if you eat from the tree; he says that they will die THE DAY that they eat from the tree.
2:17 "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
I guess I missed that. Still, that's more open for interpretation that a lot of things that are regularly interpreted in very, very loose ways.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
God lied and the serpent told them the truth.
The problem of God telling Adam that he would die the "day" he ate the fruit is what fostered the very first biblical apologetics ... that to God a thousand years is like a day (Psalms 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8). According to the bible Adam died about 930 years later. He still had 70 years to go before the "day" was over.
It is this that caused people like St. Augustine to postulate that the instead of 6 actual days, creation took 6000 years. That would make the earth 12,000 years old instead of the biblical 6,000. That is still a bit shy of science's 4.5 billion years for the earth and 13.7 billion for the universe since the big bang.
Some people will believe anything no matter how ridiculous it ultimately is, so long as it seems to have a glimmer of hope of making their religious beliefs sound reasonable.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
It is interesting to see what people will do to back up what they believe. In the end, what I find amusing, is that you are still changing your belief. Just, one way you're honest about it and one way, you're not.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
The Bible doesn't actually say the earth is only six thousand years old, you'v got to think about the first earth age.
The bible DOES actually say that the earth is about 6,000 years old. If you follow the genealogies, which includes even Jesus, back you will find that the bible places Adam's creation in the 5th century BCE. It says that Adam was made before God put plants on the earth. It says this occurred during the first week of creation. It uses the phrase "evening and morning" to refer to days during that week. It justifies keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest with the analogy of God resting on the 7th DAY.
Clearly the bible INTENDED to portray a universe around 6000 years.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
He wasn't speaking of physical death, he was speaking of spiritual death.
It seems a lot of people are making up their own gods as the years go on since Genesis. Genesis tells a story about human origins. Just like Charles Darwin and all those who preceeded him tell a story about human origins called Evolution. All those who believe in evolution have faith in it. There is no emperical evidence that suggests evolution can be re-created. Labs have tried with no success. Adolf Hitler tried to push the evolutionary process into his ideal and look what his "Survival of the fittest" ideas led to. Mass murders with no sense of consequenses or value placed on human respect.
If you read what a previous poster posted here he/she quotes that science places earth at 4.5 billion years and 13.7 billion for the universe since the big bang as if it is the actual truth.
Science is ever growing, and one of the ever growing and disputed postulates that science has to offer is Evolution and the Geological Time Scale. To blindly put your trust into a council of atheistic men and women that the world is actually 4.5 billion years old and that a "Big Bang" created what we see and are today requires a lot of faith... faith is something atheists claim they do not have. Its almost as if atheism is a hypocrisy... why have conferences of atheists and fellowships if you stand for nothing?... is the standing for nothing sort of like a standing for something? Like that poster posted "If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France"
It just seems that there are alot of atheists who are biased individuals with some sort of hang up against other religions. Maybe they had a bad experience with a parent, maybe they were brought up that way or some sort of life experience left a bad memory... I really don't know nor is it any job of mine to care. I have no problem with atheists, I suggest to be one if it makes you happy. What I don't care for are pushy people and hypocrites. Pushy religious nuts and uppity-nosed atheists are big turn-offs. Many religious people forgot that Christ came here to abolish the bondages of religion. He offered Jew and gentiles love, and that is the message that has been corrupted with all the different sects of Christ's teachings.
The reason for the tree of life, was to set up what we all have today. FREE WILL. You know that little thing in your head that says "you better not do that" and "hey go ahead its ok", that is our conscience. Thats what this part of genesis teaches us as to why we have it tough today. That is what God established through the tree of life. God wanted us to choose Him. He didn't want robots or puppets, he wanted what every other person wants from someone they love. That is, we as humans want people to love us for who we are, not because we possess some sort of control over another person. I do things for people out of love, because I care. And thats what God wanted from us, to love him because we care and we want to. Everyone has a heart, and not everyone will get to know God as others, but for those who don't know him God will love you and some sort of communication will be established and manifested.
I believe in God not out of fear. I am aware there are consequences in my actions, and I also realize I am not a perfect person. Actually, no one is perfect. I believe because a feeling inside of me brings me happiness. I don't believe in pedophile priests or money laundering churches. I escape the bondage of worshipping icons such as crosses or figurines... thats not what God wanted (see 10 commandments). Now if being an atheists makes you a happy person, and I stress "truly happy" in the sense you care for others and you promote goodness in your daily life. Then by all means continue to do so, and make your life worth something here on earth, because life is short. But stop telling people that what they believe is lies, especially when you have no proof to back that statement up.
There is a hell of a lot more proof for evolution than the Creation story. I'd have to call on other bloggers to present that evidence in an understandable way. I cannot.
The application of Survival of the Fittest to human lives, social darwinism, has nothing to do with actual evolutionary biology. It is a perverse belief. There have been plenty of genocides before that psuedo-science. That was only more effective because of the technology.
It is my understanding that the "Big Bang" theory has a lot of flaws. I find the existence of a god, however, much more improbable. It leaves us with the question of the origin of god. Not having faith in a god does not mean that we don't stand for anything. I stand for truth. I stand for freedom from people who want to force irrational beliefs on me. I cannot speak for others.
I have no bad epxpirience with religion. I happen to think it is ridiculous. These are some of my reasons in regards to the Judeo-Christian faith.
I don't see what the tree of life has to do with free will. Even if someone tried to find it, they couldn't get at it. Anyway, my point was that it was not mentioned previously.
Before I even consider your god loves everyone rant, I suggest that you give me even the slightest amount of empirical evidence that he exists at all.
I am perfectly happy with my life. However, even if I wasn't, my desireds have nothing to do with what I percieve as truth. I am explaining my beliefs regarding the bible and I have a lot mor evidence than you do. It's not even scientific. It's logical. I could say the same thing to you. In fact, I will. Don't go around saying that other's beliefs are foolish when you don't even know what they are.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
titled "The fall...how the garden of eden story is actually about evolution," shows how evolution and what the Bible says are actually one and the same....there is no difference! Read it and be amazed...(I was when this idea popped into my little brain...)
Love ya,
Carrot
I read it. I have a reply, but I'm still trying to figure out how to put it in words.
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
Friedrich Nietzsche
And you have it right?
And you think WE have it wrong!
(1) The Genesis story of human origins is ridiculous. There is a lot of evidence for science's version of human origins.
Here is something fundamentalists like you don't seem to understand ... when you have evidence you don't need faith.
(2) It is not clear what you mean when you say, "There is no emperical evidence that suggests evolution can be re-created." If you mean the pattern of diversification that evidence shows has happened then of course not. Nobody would expect it to be recreated since there were contingencies in the environment, and the mutations that produce the variability by which evolutionary mechanisms work.
If you mean the origin of life, then that is the origin of life, also known as abiogenesis ... not evolutionary theory. No lab has ever tried to recreate the origin of life, nor are they likely to. We don't normally allow experiments to run millions of years.
What origin-of-life researchers have done is set up conditions that mimic what they believe conditions were like at the time we think important events took place. What scientists have shown is that all the building blocks of the complex organic chemicals necessary for life are capable of being made under abiotic conditions. Experiments have also shown that simple life-forms can exist under extreme conditions which raises the number of potential environments that they could have originated in. Yet other experiments show that in a complex milleau of chemicals complex chemistry can spontaneously occur. While not all the pieces to the puzzle are in place at this time, many are. Origin-of-life researchers are very encouraged ... enough so to begin some daring experiments that MAY lead to plausible ways the remaining pieces could fit.
(1) Hitler was a Catholic, by the way. He never renounced his Christianity, and in several speeches he made references to doing Jesus' work. I'm guessing you would say that he misused Christianity.
What evolutionary mechanisms do you think Adolf Hitler used? The most important mechanism is NATURAL selection. That is NATURE selects. Hitler's program was one of HITLER selecting. So at best Hitler misused evolutionary principles, same as he misused Christianity.
(2) Like most fundamentalists you understanding of the phrase "survival of the fittest" is as stilted as your understanding of evolutionary theory in general. This phrase originally was used to describe NATURAL SELECTION. It's meaning within evolutionary theory has become quite technical, referring to the ability of an organism to transmit copies of its genome into future generations.
I think I'll stick to the one in which "survival of the fittest" is synonymous with Natural Selection. Remember that natural selection means that NATURE selects. What does that mean? It means that the local environment imposes constraints on an organisms such that those with favorable characteristics leave more offspring than those with less favorable characteristics. The next question to ask is, "What determines a favorable characteristic?" The answer is ... THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT ... and local environments are different. So what that means is that a trait can be favorable in one environment and not favorable in another. In fact there is no such thing as a trait that is favorable in ALL possible environments.
Humans are social animals. That means for almost all of us a HUGE part of our local environment is OTHER PEOPLE. In such an environment cooperation is a VERY favored trait. So are caring and sacrifice. In other words, it is evolution that has given us value for human life.
You simplistic understanding of the concept conflates "survival of the fittest" with "might makes right". That is an error. Believe it or not, bullies don't reproduce as well as nice guys. Your boy, Hitler, didn't have any kids; Charles Darwin, a nice guy who gave money to antislavery movements, contributed regularly to charities had 10 children.
It is MUCH more likely to be the truth than is Genesis.
BOOM! Damn, there goes another irony meter.
(1) Er ... I do believe in your zeal to bring to science down to the level of religion, you have forgotten about evidence. Here is something for you to REconsider ... when you have evidence, you don't need faith.
(2) While I personally don't mind it, and among the best scientists (members of the National Academy of Sciences) there is a HUGE proportion of atheists and agnostics (about 93%), I think the considerable number of Christian scientists WOULD be ticked off with your equating science with atheism. That would be especially true for people like Ken Miller of Brown University, and Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health who have written books (FINDING DARWIN'S GOD, and LANGUAGE OF GOD) espousing their both evolutionary theory and their Christianity.
Can you say, "Non-sequitur". Sure you can. You just said one. Atheists don't believe in God or gods. What makes you think that means they "stand for nothing"? Atheists stand for a few principles like REASON, EVIDENCE, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, TAKING CARE OF FAMILY, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, RESPECT FOR HUMANITY, and whole variety of other things which do not require a belief in God or gods. True some of those things above can be things that theists stand for too. I know that ... too bad you don't have the where-with-all to recognize that among atheists.
Hopefully now you can have a better idea of what my signature closing line means now.
Yeah, I can understand your problem. Those pushy atheists who want to express their opinion are a pain in the ass, aren't they? They FORCE you to read their blogs. They FORCE you to read their books. They try to pass laws forcing the teaching of evolution in Sunday School. They want to change the Pledge of Allegence to insert the phrase "One nation under NO God". They want "IN REASON WE TRUST" to be put on our money. They have all those Sunday morning TV shows and even their own cable TV networks constantly pestering you for money.
Erm ... not really. You read this of your own accord. It was THEISTS that changed the laws to insert "One Nation, Under God" and "In God We Trust" . It is theists that have the TV shows and the cable networks. You claim not to like them, but I doubt if I will find you commenting on any of their blogs about how obnoxious they are.
What you don't like is atheists speaking their mind. Too bad ... don't read it or get over it..
And your evidence for this assertion is ...? Has it ever occurred to you that YOUR interpretation of Jesus' message may have no more validity than that others whom you disagree with?
Do you have any idea how ridiculous this is? You DO realize that Adam and Eve NEVER ate from the Tree of Life, don't you? They ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What evidence do you have that eating the fruit of anything can bestow a complex characteristic like free-will or knowledge of good and evil on anything? Furthermore, if Adam and Eve had no knowledge of Good and Evil, how could they possibly know it was wrong to eat the fruit? What IS wrong with obtaining the knowledge of Good and Evil anyway?
I doubt if you come up with an answer that withstands scrutiny to hardly any of these BASIC questions. You certainly cannot base your answer on EVIDENCE. Considering how little you reason you have to believe as you do, I find it ironic that you complain of the mountains of evidence that supports naturalistic science.
And exactly how was putting the tree of life in the Garden supposed to ward off mindless automatons? And exactly how were we supposed to become mindless automatons in the first place?
Then God is in SEVERE need of talking to Dr. Phil. He is screwing up BIG TIME. You grow to love another person by sharing your time and experience, not by being hidden. Not by communicating psychically through the ether ... the message doesn't always get through, and it is not clear.
Congratulations, that makes you ... human.
Tell that to the Midianites
Dreaming about me and Jessica Alba brings me happiness too, but its not going to happen. It would be a waste of time believe otherwise.
I'll be willing to bet that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who says "I believe in pedophile priests or money laudering churches". I suspect that pretty much everyone would say that those things are wrong. But I also bet that it would not be hard to find supporters of pedophile priests or members of money laundering churches. If those people can be deluded why do you seem so sure you're not?
OK
We don't need proof. We have evidence.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Have you ever considered buying Irony Meters wholesale?
But, seriously, don't you know that god only ordered the Israelites to kill the Midianites because he loved them. :-)
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil
Thank you for making these points!
I would also like to add that carbon dating one of the most useful tools scientists use for the theory of evolution has be proven to be inaccurate.
Source please.
And carbon dating isn't the only type of dating we use. We also use several other isotopes for dating things. Have all of those been proven inaccurate as well?
~C
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Source? Time magazine.
You're not going to give me ANYTHING else that could lead me to the article? Not the year it was published, the title of the article, even what the article was ABOUT?
So far, I've got four articles that mention carbon dating. And the articles use that as a fact to prove what they want...
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1569014,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1169905,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,976856,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975225,00.html
~C
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Nominate a featured blogger!
Carbon dating is EXQUISTLY accurate up to about 50,000 years. Fantastically so. This can be shown with tree rings, varves, and historical material. The half life of carbon-14 is about 5400 years. No radiodating is accurate past about 10 half lives so it is not used to date anything older than that.
There are other isotopes that are used to date those things. Uranium-lead, Strontium-Rubidium, Potassium-Argon, and others can be used.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
What I don't get is all these athiests say they're tired of Christians telling them about God and stuff, yet when Christians says something about God in open air, athiests seem to always attack it.
I
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. I will make my assumption about it. When a person says anything on an open forum, that statement is open to criticism.
"Every man makes a god of his own desire."
-Virgil