Bible and Church; contradiction club.

reply to post by ButterCookie


Thank you for entering the conversation. I agree with you in that Biblical teachings of Church and Bible are two distinct things. Way I see it, modern Christianity is nothing more than an extension of old pagan religions that were polytheistic, which in Christianity have been tidied up and several ancient divinities has been compiled in as one godhead.

I also suspect the common explanation that God is talking to himself when he creates man - instead he might be talking to his wife Sophia (Maria) that is acknowledged at least in Gnosticism (pre-christianity), but also probably in many other religious factions.

Originally posted by ButterCookie
reply to post by v01i0

 

Sounds extraterrstrial by all acoounts, which I firmly believe to be true but that's another thread.

Yes thank you - it might be better to keep it separate at least for now even tho there's a point.

-v

[edit on 29-10-2009 by v01i0]

Since this thread has been silent for couple of days, perhaps then it is time to move on.

In my OP, I was hinting on that our next topic would be human exile from the garden of Eden. But before starting, I am curious to know what is the church's stance on this? What do they teach that is the meaning of consumption of the fruit from the tree of good and evil knowledge? I ask because I am unfamiliar with it.

Also, we can discuss about the book of Job that basically suggests, that God is both evil and good - which I think should be the case if considering that God is everything.

-v

Allright, since the paradise paradox doesn't seem to be so interesting issue, let's move onto one of my favorite subjects which is the dualistic character of God, including good and evil.

Church seems to be teaching that God is everything, yet they hardly seem to acknowledge the fact that something which should be everything, should also be evil. Some teachers of Church seems to suggest that God is merely good, which again seems to be something else that the Bible teaches.

We have couple of examples (I'd appreciate if someone can post even more) of the dualistic nature of Jehovah. First example would be again from Moses, more precisely, Exodus:

And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses.

Exodus 9:12 KJV

So the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he wouldn't listen the plea of Moses and his people. It actually says that God made Pharaoh so cruel, not to ease the burden of his slaves. So who is the bad guy here, God or Pharaoh?

Another example is from book of Job, where Jehovah gives permission for Satan to pester Job, one of his most faithful servants of those times:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

Job 1:6 KJV

Note that there is yet another reference to the polytheistic orientation in Bible, when it speaks about the sons of God. Then I just skip few verses to get into the point:

And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Job 1:12 KJV

Once satan (with Jehovah's permission) has murdered has killed Job's family and destroyed his property, God decides that it wasn't enough for Job and sent forth satan, his loyal aide, again:

And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.

Job 2:6 KJV

So, satan goes forth again and lays Job with abscessing boils so that Job sits upon the pile of rubbish and scratches his skin with a piece of pottery and says to his wife whom begs him to give up, curse the god and die:

[...]Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? [...]

Job 2:10 KJV

Then, after he and few of his "friends" has given speeches, God answers to him in arrogant manner, boasting in his might (boasting with both good and evil deeds - so to speak). In the end of the book, Job responds:

2. I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
3. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
4. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
5. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
6. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Job 42:2-6 KJV

So in the end, Job realizes that God is both Good and Evil. Furthermore, how else would he tolerate satan on his side, allowing him to pester Job the faithful?

Also, the swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung has commented the book of Job, in his book "Answer to Job", which I quote:

The Book of Job is a landmark in the long historical development of a divine drama. At the time the book was written, there were already many testimonies which had given a contradictory picture of Yahweh - the picture of a God who knew no moderation in his emotions and suffered precisely from this lack of moderation. He himself admitted that he was eaten up with rage and jealousy and at this knowledge was painful to him. Insight existed long with obtuseness, loving-kindness along with cruelty, creative power along with destructiveness. Everything was here, and none of these qualities was an obstacle to the other. Such a condition is only conceivable either when no reflecting consciousness is present at all, or when the capacity for reflection is very feeble and a mote or less adve­ntitious phenomenon. A condition of this sort can only be described as amoral.

Snippet from C.G. Jung; Answer to Job

So it seems that indeed according to the Bible, God is everything, not only love and compassion, but also hatred and cruelty. A little contradiction on what Church often teaches.

-v

Not so fast, man! Job will take forever. Let's do Eden first.

What do they teach that is the meaning of consumption of the fruit from the tree of good and evil knowledge?

Different churches teach different things . Here's a nice, short discussion from a reputable scholar about what the Hebrews understood by the idiom which is translated into English as the knowledge of good and evil.

biblische.blogspot.com...

Misconceptions swirl around the nature of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in the midst of the Garden of Eden that bore the fruit associated with the fall of humanity. You may be surprised to learn that this tree has nothing to do with the development of conscience or knowing right from wrong. Adam and Eve already knew right from wrong, aware that it would be wrong to disobey God and eat from that tree.

Actually, eating of the tree made one "like God" (Genesis 3:5), gave one powers of intellectual and spiritual penetration and discrimination. This is known from the use of the same Hebrew idiom in texts such as 1 Kings 3:9 and 2 Samuel 14:17.

The First Kings is Solomon asking God for, and getting, what is usually described as wisdom. But what he asks for in Hebrew is knowledge of good and evil.

I am not a theologian, but I conclude that God was thought to be willing to give, if asked, what he objected to having taken without asking and contrary to his instruction. That, and the combination of the benefit of both trees' fruits, what he complains about in as many words in Genesis 3, and which does not apply to Solomon's request.

[edit on 1-11-2009 by eight bits]

Originally posted by eight bits
Not so fast, man! Job will take forever. Let's do Eden first.

As you wish, but allow me to have my sleep over night first. Will read your post as a first thing in the morning!

Best regards,

-v

reply to post by eight bits

Originally posted by eight bits

biblische.blogspot.com...
[...] Adam and Eve already knew right from wrong, aware that it would be wrong to disobey God and eat from that tree.

Here again we see strange interpretation. No matter how I read the Bible, I cannot get any idea why would Adam and Eve already knew right and wrong; all they knew was that God has forbidden them of eating from it.

More specifically, only Adam received the personal command not to eat, because only after forbidding, God created Eve out of Adam's rib bone.

Originally posted by eight bits

biblische.blogspot.com...
Actually, eating of the tree made one "like God" (Genesis 3:5), gave one powers of intellectual and spiritual penetration and discrimination.

Yeah, this seems to be the case. Way I personally interpret it, it is the awakening of thought and consciousness - before that man was intellectually very close to the animal:

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:25 KJV
In Bible, Jehovah is human like (and human becomes godlike - only psychologically - after eating the fruit), which could be meaning that God is man as well as man is God. Lucifer might be the intellect that rebels against the will of God, demanding constantly anew, never being satisfied with things how they are - hence it is cast out of heaven (from perfect state).

Originally posted by eight bits
I am not a theologian, but I conclude that God was thought to be willing to give, if asked, what he objected to having taken without asking and contrary to his instruction. That, and the combination of the benefit of both trees' fruits, what he complains about in as many words in Genesis 3, and which does not apply to Solomon's request.

One doesn't have to be theologian nor anything but vigilant individual in order to conclude what one is reading

Thanks for posting,

-v

Hello, again.

More specifically, only Adam received the personal command not to eat, because only after forbidding, God created Eve out of Adam's rib bone.

Yes, but the Woman recites the command to the serpent, so she does know it.

Yeah, this seems to be the case. Way I personally interpret it, it is the awakening of thought and consciousness

Well, the story has Adam naming the animals, exercising choice about mating, and has him getting a privileged place among animals - all in chapter 2. So, he seems to be us. The Woman has quite a philosophical conversation with the Serpent, and both humans choose to eat. They're both us already.

Similarly, Solomon is us when he prays for cognitive enhancement. So, knowledge of good and evil is more than what we all have.

I agree that there is a lot of concern in distinguishing human beings from other animals in this story. However, the passage you cite (And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed) is the end of a discursive discussion of marriage in all times and places.

It seems routine to me that a husband and wife, alone together, might be naked and unashamed about it, even people who come from a prudish society, which Adam and the Woman don't. It is also an important detail, since it is the only mention of body shame in the story.

Much is often made that Adam and the Woman are said to feel shame after eating the fruit. That is not in the text, however. What Adam says he feels is fear. Only loincloths are made (that is, the Woman's breasts remain bare). Despite his loincloth, Adam describes himself as still naked.

Clothing serves many functions for people. After their enlightenment, Adam and the Woman gird their loins for the struggle to come: the first capital trial ever. If they were wearing stainless steel armor, they would still have felt naked.

Lucifer might be the intellect that rebels against the will of God

Maybe, but Lucifer is not a Hebrew character. The character in the Hebrew story is Snake. He is identified as animal and treated by God afterwards as an animal. He is part of a motif of contrasts between human beings and other animals. He is an animal. He is also the archetype of wisdom teacher, across cultures and across the ages.

Both body shame and Lucifer are Christian revisions of the Hebrew story. These come many centuries after the Eden story has been written down. The mechanism for change is not redaction, but rather retrospective commentary and allusion to the story in the New Testament.

In the case of Lucifer, the Christian doctrine of devils will not be finally codified until the Fourth Lateran Council in the Thirteenth Century. That is way too late to have anything to do with the original story. And no attempt can be imputed to those medieval commentators to recover the original intention of any Old Testament story. By then, what Jews thought about anything religious was not a priority for many Christians.

reply to post by eight bits

Originally posted by eight bits
Hello, again.

More specifically, only Adam received the personal command not to eat, because only after forbidding, God created Eve out of Adam's rib bone.

Yes, but the Woman recites the command to the serpent, so she does know it.

Hello,

She knows, otherwise she couldn't repeat it to the snake. But it might be, that she never received the command directly from God, but Adam has repeated it to her. Just maybe.

About the nakedness, Bible says following right after the fruit was consumed:

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Genesis 3:7 KJV

Originally posted by eight bits
Well, the story has Adam naming the animals, exercising choice about mating, and has him getting a privileged place among animals - all in chapter 2. So, he seems to be us. The Woman has quite a philosophical conversation with the Serpent, and both humans choose to eat. They're both us already.

Interesting. Indeed in here they must be above animals in the sense that they are able to such complicated forms of action. I tend to think this has something to becoming aware. From personal experience, I know that we can be unaware of things we are doing - meaning that we don't think a lot of our actions. I can go on driving a car without not much paying attention to it, and so on. So in the end, consumption of the fruit might also refer to awareness. Just a thought.

Yeah well, texts in Bible are so obscure that the interpretation can vary. And of course what you said about satan and snake might be the case. I don't know since I haven't read the original lore of Hebrew's. Nevertheless I have read that snake often is a symbol of intelligence and power, as we can understand from eastern philosophy (for example, the kundalini).

In general, I found it interesting what you said above.

Sincerely,

-v

[edit on 2-11-2009 by v01i0]

Originally posted by PSUSA

Not really.

Was man created in God's image? No. Man sinned, God cannot sin.
But we are being created in His image, and uses the "us" to do it.

I love how God is Love, is all-powerful and yet all his creations become evil, even angels fall. For a being that is supposed to be perfect God sure has some bad luck when it comes to his creations obeying him. I mean He planted the tree of good and evil in the Garden himself and then created beings to live in the Garden who were capable of wrong doing but who could not have known eating the fruit was a sin (God explaining to them not to eat it does not mean they knew any better, they didn't because their oh-so-generous creator did not see fit to give them the ability to discern good from evil). Why did he even plant the darn tree to begin with?... Why does a perfect being create imperfect creatures and then blame those creatures for the imperfections he programmed them with. He's all powerful, he could have reset to a time before the whole forbidden fruit thing...

In short it is not a story to be taken literally and if taken literally contradictions are found on almost every page of the Bible.

It always amazes me that many people take the Bible and word of their Church officials as truth, shouldn't we be going directly to God? What's with the whole middle-man thing? Seems to me its designed to control people and keep them in line, after all when was the last time you saw God at a book signing autographing Bibles, you'd think he'd at least take credit for it (might help out the believability a bit)

OK I just discovered this thread, so I'm back tracking a bit. Gos is a spirit. Aside from the approx. 33 years on earth he has no form. I believe in His image to mean the creative mind and spirit. Or our souls you could say. The physical body is just the shell that houses the part that God made in his image.

In my OP, I was hinting on that our next topic would be human exile from the garden of Eden. But before starting, I am curious to know what is the church's stance on this? What do they teach that is the meaning of consumption of the fruit from the tree of good and evil knowledge? I ask because I am unfamiliar with it.

could you rephrase that question, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by the words meaning of consumption. Do you mean prior to or after. What led to it was the introduction of something alien into the environment, the result was the introduction of sin and evilness.

[edit on 2-11-2009 by calstorm]

Titen-Sxull, I guess that would all depend on your interpretation of the word perfect. God created Love and Hate. You can not have joy with out sorrow
light with out dark, cold with out heat. Some God is perfect in the sense that he is complete. God is a loving God because he created love, but he also knew there had to be balance, hence Satan. He choose not to embody evilness himself to to create another being to do it for him. God knew there had to be balance. It truly all comes down to order and balance in the universe Perhaps that is why God does not ease the suffering of some. Despite how cruel it may seem to us God may just be unwilling to upset the delicate balance of the universe. In essence the butterfly effect. So why did he create us to begin with then? again I will refer you to my statement about order and balance. Who knows what other planets or life forms were created before us if any besides the angles. perhaps we are meant to be the balance to the angels.

[edit on 2-11-2009 by calstorm]

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


I liked your post in general. Although it might have not been directed to me but rather to some previous poster, I couldn't hold my self of commenting.

Indeed, I also wonder this middleman phenomena. There one gives authority to someone else - namely to the priests - and fails to carry responsibility by oneself. There is absolutely no one that knows better than you by yourself.

Maybe you are right about the thing, that it for keeping people in line - making them programmable machines that sway to the rhythms of Pied the Piper.

-v

[edit on 2-11-2009 by v01i0]

reply to post by calstorm

Originally posted by calstorm
OK I just discovered this thread, so I'm back tracking a bit.

Hi and welcome.

Originally posted by calstorm
could you rephrase that question, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by the words meaning of consumption. Do you mean prior to or after.

Since you just discovered this thread, your question is not in vain. However, in most recent posts on page 2 you can find the issue already under examination. I wish you have good time reading them and perhaps then contributing with some insightful comment

Sincerely,

-v

I just edited my post. It took so long to sort out my thoughts, I probably should have just started a new post. I will give thought to the rest that is being discussed.

It always amazes me that many people take the Bible and word of their Church officials as truth, shouldn't we be going directly to God? What's with the whole middle-man thing? Seems to me its designed to control people and keep them in line, after all when was the last time you saw God at a book signing autographing Bibles, you'd think he'd at least take credit for it (might help out the believability a bit)

God doesn't need to feel special, oh wait, ok maybe he does, but not in the same way as man. They "need" to feel special if you catch my drift. And yes we can go directly to God. Thats called prayer. As far as how he responds, be it through signs or feelings, well... lets just say i take up issues with him on a daily basis and frequently point out that IM is the best way to get a hold of me.