Your first sentence is wrong (making the entire paragraph ludicrous). Man and Woman were created WITHOUT sin, but with free will ( the capability of sinning). I have no problem with you mocking Christianity, if you want - that is your right. But, at least, mock us for what we actually believe, not for what you think we believe!
Appreciate the argument, but since (in the stories at least) your Invisible Friend was both omnipotent and omniscient, he knew Adam & Eve were going to transgress his impossible rule. Which, in every myth that uses the notion of The Prohibited Thing, is really the point of the prohibition anyway. Of course, we could also talk about the nastiness of prohibiting knowledge, which is what the tree represents, yet since every culture had their Theft of Knowledge myth (Prometheus stealing fire being among the most famous), we can see that the point isn't necessarily the sin, but the knowledge. But whay make the acquisition of knowledge a sin? And we could also talk about the absurdity of a god sacrificing himself to himself too, couldn't we -- except that every culture has this story too, most notably the story of Wotan nailing himself up to the World Tree so that he could gain knowledge. So at least the Norsemen harboured no ridiculous ideas about their gods being omniscient, but it does tie up very nicely several threads of the story above, doesn't it. And in the re-telling of the Wotan tale by Wagner, we see too that by creating human beings with free will, the gods have made themselves inevitably irrelevant -- a really good way to tell the tale, and a really good way to tie up all the threads.
Mythology is fun. It's fiction, but often reveals important truths. Just don't confuse any of it for religion.
macdoctor just emphasises how ludicrous the whole creation myth is.
Man and Woman were created WITHOUT sin, but with free will ( the capability of sinning).
A & E were forbidden from eating from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", thus meaning that they had no way to understand that disobedience was wrong. They had no moral compass, if you will, they could not choose to be good or to be evil as, until they ate from that "tree", they had no concept of good or evil. They had no free will to exercise.
It is also instructive that when they did acquire knowledge of "good and evil" they did not immediately become good people, they became ashamed of the nudity, their god created state, and this began the religiously imposed prohibition on feeling good about our bodies and our sexuality.
It boils down to one claim - Did Christ rise from the dead? If he didn't then we're the most pathetic of mankind in beleiving a myth. If not? Choice is ours. Mick
Were Adam and Eve perfect, they would not have sinned. Since they sinned, they must have been imperfect. One clearly stated imperfection was their inability to distinguish between good and evil. I blame their creator.
It's a goddamned pity that Jim (Macdoctor) uses the same ludicrous irrationality to ensure I have no civilised, rational option for euthanasia. And his stance, incredibly, is also that of a Christian dominated NZ Medical Association.
All of which is as disgusting as barbaric as medieval.
And yes, that is a lot of personal animosity ... I hate bullies.
It took me a while before I figured I had all my ducks in a row as regards the Bible. It is not regarded as the omniscient and inerrant Word of God in the Catholic tradition BTW. Something like that is reserved for the Catechism - a statement of faith if you will. The Old Testament is given - according to such tradition - as Jewish faith and context for the events surrounding the life of Emmanuel....but not as part of the new relationship with God. Even the New Testament remains true to the meaning of the word bible : collection. The King James Version ( commissioned by the English king ) even goes so far as to put purported quotes of Jesus of Nazareth ( somehow substituted for Emmanuel ) in red letters. So people going by the context of Christianity guided by the words of Christ ( who ? )consider that the authoritative version. So here we go. A rabbi performs miracles and inspires crowds to his sermons in the open air. The Temple authorities dislike their being made irrelevant by someone who goes so far to smash tables in the Temple anteroon as being nothing but a racket of money changing ( for temple currency to purchase offerings to become burnt sacrifices ). He is harassed by rules enforcers ( cops ) who do poorly at entrapment. So the leadership decides to take the affirmative action available to them : false accusations and testimony against a righteous man with imprisonment, sponsored agitations and riots against him, imprisonment, torture, and death. The state sponsors such storytelling, ensuring the message is clear that such is available for others who follow in his footsteps. It is at this point that the question of the truth of the story is moot. The threat is real.
Yes Mark, Libertarianism approaches religion and you fellows find it hard to tolerate it when we point out some of the absurdities. Christians bad, Muslim OK. Boundaries for personal property but none for State, Open border trading and let your Countryman fellow traders starve.
Original sin was Augustine's idea, not part of original Christianity. It's not a belief of the Orthodox Church. The third sentence assumes Christianity is unitarian, when it is Trinitarian (nobody impregnates anyone with "themselves"). The last sentence is an idea of Anselm's - again, not part of original Christianity. Christ's death and resurrection was a victory over death, not a penal substitutionary atonement. Too many straw men on this meme.
12 comments:
Your first sentence is wrong (making the entire paragraph ludicrous). Man and Woman were created WITHOUT sin, but with free will ( the capability of sinning). I have no problem with you mocking Christianity, if you want - that is your right. But, at least, mock us for what we actually believe, not for what you think we believe!
Appreciate the argument, but since (in the stories at least) your Invisible Friend was both omnipotent and omniscient, he knew Adam & Eve were going to transgress his impossible rule. Which, in every myth that uses the notion of The Prohibited Thing, is really the point of the prohibition anyway.
Of course, we could also talk about the nastiness of prohibiting knowledge, which is what the tree represents, yet since every culture had their Theft of Knowledge myth (Prometheus stealing fire being among the most famous), we can see that the point isn't necessarily the sin, but the knowledge. But whay make the acquisition of knowledge a sin?
And we could also talk about the absurdity of a god sacrificing himself to himself too, couldn't we -- except that every culture has this story too, most notably the story of Wotan nailing himself up to the World Tree so that he could gain knowledge. So at least the Norsemen harboured no ridiculous ideas about their gods being omniscient, but it does tie up very nicely several threads of the story above, doesn't it.
And in the re-telling of the Wotan tale by Wagner, we see too that by creating human beings with free will, the gods have made themselves inevitably irrelevant -- a really good way to tell the tale, and a really good way to tie up all the threads.
Mythology is fun. It's fiction, but often reveals important truths. Just don't confuse any of it for religion.
macdoctor just emphasises how ludicrous the whole creation myth is.
Man and Woman were created WITHOUT sin, but with free will ( the capability of sinning).
A & E were forbidden from eating from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", thus meaning that they had no way to understand that disobedience was wrong. They had no moral compass, if you will, they could not choose to be good or to be evil as, until they ate from that "tree", they had no concept of good or evil. They had no free will to exercise.
It is also instructive that when they did acquire knowledge of "good and evil" they did not immediately become good people, they became ashamed of the nudity, their god created state, and this began the religiously imposed prohibition on feeling good about our bodies and our sexuality.
It boils down to one claim - Did Christ rise from the dead? If he didn't then we're the most pathetic of mankind in beleiving a myth. If not? Choice is ours.
Mick
Were Adam and Eve perfect, they would not have sinned. Since they sinned, they must have been imperfect. One clearly stated imperfection was their inability to distinguish between good and evil. I blame their creator.
On the other hand, it's just a story.
Kiwi Dave
It's a goddamned pity that Jim (Macdoctor) uses the same ludicrous irrationality to ensure I have no civilised, rational option for euthanasia. And his stance, incredibly, is also that of a Christian dominated NZ Medical Association.
All of which is as disgusting as barbaric as medieval.
And yes, that is a lot of personal animosity ... I hate bullies.
Its silly and cynical silly .
It took me a while before I figured I had all my ducks in a row as regards the Bible. It is not regarded as the omniscient and inerrant Word of God in the Catholic tradition BTW. Something like that is reserved for the Catechism - a statement of faith if you will. The Old Testament is given - according to such tradition - as Jewish faith and context for the events surrounding the life of Emmanuel....but not as part of the new relationship with God.
Even the New Testament remains true to the meaning of the word bible : collection. The King James Version ( commissioned by the English king ) even goes so far as to put purported quotes of Jesus of Nazareth ( somehow substituted for Emmanuel ) in red letters. So people going by the context of Christianity guided by the words of Christ ( who ? )consider that the authoritative version.
So here we go. A rabbi performs miracles and inspires crowds to his sermons in the open air. The Temple authorities dislike their being made irrelevant by someone who goes so far to smash tables in the Temple anteroon as being nothing but a racket of money changing ( for temple currency to purchase offerings to become burnt sacrifices ). He is harassed by rules enforcers ( cops ) who do poorly at entrapment. So the leadership decides to take the affirmative action available to them : false accusations and testimony against a righteous man with imprisonment, sponsored agitations and riots against him, imprisonment, torture, and death.
The state sponsors such storytelling, ensuring the message is clear that such is available for others who follow in his footsteps.
It is at this point that the question of the truth of the story is moot. The threat is real.
Yes Mark, Libertarianism approaches religion and you fellows find it hard to tolerate it when we point out some of the absurdities.
Christians bad, Muslim OK.
Boundaries for personal property but none for State,
Open border trading and let your Countryman fellow traders starve.
Are you on drugs Paul. How does your comment speak to any part of mine?
It doesn't.
Original sin was Augustine's idea, not part of original Christianity. It's not a belief of the Orthodox Church. The third sentence assumes Christianity is unitarian, when it is Trinitarian (nobody impregnates anyone with "themselves"). The last sentence is an idea of Anselm's - again, not part of original Christianity. Christ's death and resurrection was a victory over death, not a penal substitutionary atonement. Too many straw men on this meme.
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