Who was it that was Perfect in the Bible's Creation Epic?

reply to post by Akragon


Thank you for that explanation...very much appreciated...You are very gracious in your replies.

reply to post by ellieN


It seems im here to help...

i thought i joined ATS for conspiracies....

who knew

reply to post by Akragon


If more people would take your example then many more people like me would post and learn . We all have questions. Arguing and getting mad at some one never accomplishes anything. This is a wonderful place for people to express their opinions and talk them out without the insults. But unfortunately that is not so. With some, it is either my way and yours does not matter. This only sends a thread to a dead end.
Thank you again for the uplifting attitude you have in your posts.

Originally posted by ellieN
reply to post by Akragon

 

If more people would take your example then many more people like me would post and learn . We all have questions. Arguing and getting mad at some one never accomplishes anything. This is a wonderful place for people to express their opinions and talk them out without the insults. But unfortunately that is not so. With some, it is either my way and yours does not matter. This only sends a thread to a dead end.
Thank you again for the uplifting attitude you have in your posts.

IF we all lived by christs example things would be much easier in this life... You'll notice before i hit that reply button i make sure i don't judge others beliefs... I can offer a correction if its needed because unlike many i do understand the message Jesus taught. On the other hand no one needs to except my inturpretation, im very open to others ideas and look forward to a persons thoughts that might teach me more. When i disagree with a perspective i will again, offer a correction....which usually leads to a debate and scripture quoting, its all really pointless.

If you approach everything with love and respect you will understand, if you approach things with what you've studied without understanding the true message... One who does understand will see the flaws.

As i've said before, read the words of Christ...he showed us the narrow path and led by example... And don't be afraid to look outside your bible for other teachings as well.

Personally I find it gratifying, that (with a few die-hard exceptions) there's a tendency of declining circular doctrinalism as an 'absolute' reference point; ... and that there's a growing semantic syncretism taking place, so the worst examples of "what the heck are you talking about?" are disappearing, thus furthering real communication.

And while this ofcourse doesn't change the basic positions, it could possibly remove the worst garbage exchanges between what on this thread ultimately would manifest as the question of 'who are enlightened and who are endarkened and relating to what and how?'.

As I, from reasons of including a great deal of 'objective' methodology in my search for existential 'reality', can't take genesis as anything but (at best) a symbolic fictive story, I will say, that my favourite symbolic enlightened character is the talking snake. Who may or may not be identical with Lucifer.

And my favourite symbolic endarkened character is the 'god' of the bible (even when he's cosmetically bettered through the use of a 'new' covenant).

Starwars and 'Lord of the rings' topsy-turvy, but then I'm not even a real gnostic, as I'm not a religionist.

reply to post by bogomil


You have quite an academic vocabulary!! Very interesting. Also interesting is the talking snake that you find enlightening. Could you give some more insight on why that is so for you ?
But please use some everyday language or I may become one of those....Huh! What did you say..people.

reply to post by ellieN


Thanks for your answer, and I apologize for my stilted language (I don't talk this way normally).

But I did spend 4-5 years at university in my youth studying social sciences (and by Jove, these guys can REALLY talk weird), so it comes easily to me. But mostly I use language this way to 'protect my back' against theist opposition with an excessive fixation on semantic interpretations.

(Ooops, I did it again already; didn't I?)

Well...many people search for truth or reality, and some are satisfied with second-hand answers from various authorities: Gurus, scriptures, doctrines or 'manuals' of some kind. Others are not satisfied with this, but create methods for finding truth/reality (like e.g. science/logic which have their own defined rules) and finally those who even search methods for controlling methods. At the end of the day no-one has all the ultimate answers or methods, though many postulate they have.

Amongst bible-believers the 'god' of the bible is said to be ultimate truth or reality, and different parts of existence are measured as 'good/bad', 'true/false' etc on this background.

In this thread 'perfection' is such a measurement, and a common christian attitude is, that living in an innocent state without much intellectual and/or ethical activity/knowledge (it's never been exactly decided which) is 'good', and also that obedience to the 'god' of the bible is THE thing.

According to this model all the problems started, when obedience was disregarded. A few literalist christians even say that the whole of existence became corrupted through this disobedience.

There is much opposition to such a way of putting things, and this opposition comes from several different directions. But at the center of most of this opposition lie the ideas, that intellectual and ethical knowledge is 'good' and can be found outside any (alleged) deity or divine sphere, and that blind obedience is 'bad'.

So in this world-view the talking snake did a 'good' thing, encouraging knowledge and questioning obedience. A lot of both academic and physical confrontations have taken place between the two opposite world-views, and there have been centuries of ideological warfare going on on practically all levels of life from politics, education and morals to a competition between truth/reality seeking methods.

As a side-note: Lucifer means the 'lightbringer', representing the enlightenment by intellect or ethics and rebellion against divine authority. So he (could be she) is maybe identical with or in league with the talking snake.

Hope I didn't get carried away into my own lingo again, and I have tried to avoid all the implications almost every sentence here can lead to.

bogmil...I really like getting opinions from all sides. I recently read that are about 30,000 structural christian faiths in the world. That is quite a number.
Akragon is one that knows the bible without ranting back at others and is easy to post to. I really like that and can get some good answers on what the bible is about.
Also you have a different view and speak in such a way that doesnot sound as if you are condemning anyone , just your opinion.
.




Started to ask a question, but decide not to.

reply to post by ellieN


Thanks for your answer and your open and inquiring attitude.

The number 30.000 different christian denominations is close to the one I found (34.000), a number which (to my knowledge) sofar hasn't been contested by even fundamentalist christians. But then religion isn't something, where it's easy to find absolutely certain answers, so I have some understanding for the great numbers. Theoretically it only takes 7-8 basic moot-points to disagree on (in all possible combinations) to arrive at 34.000 various answers.

The problem is, when some of them claim possession of THE exclusive answer, and start fighting competitors and sometimes society to get a monopoly.

Which leads me to your comments on my 'non-condemning'. I can actually be rather harsh, when I'm up against, what I call ideological fascism. Individuals or groups claiming some kind of superior knowledge, system, insight or whatever, which, if such world-views got power in society, could interfere drastically in the lives of mankind in general. Examples are the more or less open theocracies in Europe some centuries back and in South America, nazi-germany and Stalins Sovjet.

I can be very, very annoying, confronting such invasive extremism, when I defend the principles of liberal, egalitarian, secular democracy, while I seldom pick on moderate inclusive ideologies, and by the invasive evangelists I oppose, I am (together with other 'liberals') considered an oppressor (and often worse) of their faith.

You are maybe familiar with contemporary conspiracy-theories and such. This thread is, together with similar threads everywhere, an expression of a at least 2.500 year old ideological conflict about true/false, right/wrong, good/bad, and while I do not put much trust in any New World Order (NWO) scenarios, I'm sadly aware of many groups, which would love nothing better than to take over everything, if they got the chance.

PS Ask all you want; I have no guru pretentions, but because of age and involvement 'I've been there, done that', gathering information and experience as anybody would.

reply to post by bogomil

Ok...This is just an off the wall question. For a moment ..just bear with me. let's say that Genesis is literal.
We know that Adam and Eve definitely did not obey God. Since God is an all knowing Supreme Being, He knew from the beginning that these two creations were not going to to obey Him, yet he went forward with the plan anyway. Putting the two trees in the Garden, and even giving them don't touch rules about the two trees and death if they did not obey. ( I'm not at knowing when they knew what death was )
I know from the Bible their expulsion from the Garden lead humanity to wars, murder, deceit, greed and anything else you can name and it just keeps going on. But as a species on Earth, we are very, very young. Who was it that said this? The very young do not always do as they are told.
My question now. What if the plan was for the two to disobey? Since disobedience was already foreseen, why go ahead with the plan? Could there have been plan on a scale so vast that it is still in the future? If we survive our own mess that is.
And that is another question..What if God turned off his all knowing knowledge of our future to give us free will to our own destinies... to make or break it. It is up to us whether or not we are worthy of that place in the future.

I'm not speaking of Jesus saving us from Adam and Eve's disobedience in the Garden of Eden, where our souls will be saved from the fall. I am speaking of a reality of the here and now Universe. What if there is something really special out there we are suppose to advance to, but only we can do it. Right now ..it just looks as if we are not going to make it that far. It is a really big Universe.
I know this sounds really strange..

reply to post by ellieN


Hi, and thanks for your VERY thought-inspiring post.

Unfortunately my european time-zone is late night now, so I have to wait until tomorrow with my answer.

reply to post by ellieN


On the premises (conditions) you suggest:

Yes, with an omniscient (all-knowing) 'god' it's quite possible, that there's a later purpose with mankind's misery.

But there is a hang-up in this scenario. It's debatable if the outcome of an ultimate 'free will' can be predicted. It wouldn't really be 'free will' then, as it must follow some order or rules to predict from. But that's a complicated question, because 'god' should be outside space-time, and we have no idea of non-space-time mechanisms (if there are any such).

So I would like to suggest a small adaption of the scenario. Maybe mankind's options are SOME submission to rules and SOME 'free will'. That would fit better with the universal situation as we know it. There's cosmos (=order, rules) and chaos (=less or no order, freedom from rules).

I have had many speculations on this. The universe can support biological life, but it's not especially generous in doing it, as the environment (at least on our planet) includes a lot of harsh darwinistic competition, from viruses and up to the complex life-forms. Universal existence can be right out hostile to biological life.

So maybe the later purpose is not later, but something which already is at work. Biological life could simply be an integrated part of the running of the universe; not for the benefit of biological life per se, but just to keep things going.

There actually exist a scientific hypothesis on this, the idea of 'the anthropic principle', which implies the concept 'enthropy'. (Afraid you'll have to look it up, if you're interested). In that hypothesis biological life can be 'negative enthropy', expected to make the universe last somewhat longer than it would have done otherwise (without biological life).

If the intention of the hypothesis is correct, 'god' botched it, as 'negative enthropy' actually won't give the expected result.

Quote: ["What if God turned off his all knowing knowledge of our future to give us free will to our own destinies... "]

An extension of the above. But we would still be bound by cosmic laws, which are not overly favourable to biological life, and these cosmic laws would in the case of an alleged creator-god be an expression of his intentions. This 'god's knowing or not about what happens won't change anything for us.

Quote: ["What if there is something really special out there we are suppose to advance to, but only we can do it."]

The idea of existence as a 'school'. With an alleged start in perfection, what is there to learn? Or as an expression of divine boredom. "Yawn, this is terminally repetitive, let me 'create' something for entertainment, so it can grow and change all on its own. Surprising me with results of free will".

Quote: ["Right now ..it just looks as if we are not going to make it that far."]

As they said somewhere in Asia: "A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step"

Quote: [" I know this sounds really strange.."]

Not at all. I consider this one of the most lucid posts, I've read on ATS.

reply to post by UnknownPhilosopher

My question is this: If man was perfect prior to knowing good and evil ( which came from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge ) would that make "God" not perfect since "He" already had knowledge of good and evil and as well would be mere mortal since the price of knowing good and evil was death?

I follow your question, and I think it is a reasonable one arising from the contents of the scripture.

In my opinion, eating the fruit of the tree knowledge means operating at the level of consciousness where good and evil form the basis of human action and motivation, a mental perception wherein duality is the order of the day. In the world of duality, where there is life, there is also death, so man becomes mortal.

However, if God is perfect consciousness, if God is omniscient, then this consciousness is not limited or restricted to the awareness of duality, but knows the totality of existence, life, love and so forth. The consciousness at the level of God is above and beyond any duality, and hence above and beyond the duality of life and death.

reply to post by bogomil


I haven't been back much, because the grandkids had been playing on the computer and messed things up!!

Thank you for the explanation..very informative. It seems that we should be thankful for the privilege to exist, although it seems futile for so many here on Earth, and the misery just never ends. It seems our two small steps forward keeps defeating the purpose by taking one step backward. Kind of in ..an endless slow progression in the department of compassion, for one and all. That is very obvious by seeing what is happening in the world today.

My little granddaughter, who is 6, asked me one day why God created germs. She was sick at the time of this question. Also .. came why have mosquitoes, fleas, ticks. All these questions came when either outside and was bitten, Or having to rid our dog of ticks and fleas. She definitely has an inquiring mind on things that does not seem to be logical to her. Animals suffer because of the fleas and ticks. All I could tell her was we will just have to figure that out. To her..when is not soon enough.

reply to post by mysticnoon


Not surprisingly I'm one of those slow thinkers, who too late arrive at: "......when he/she said, I should have said...."

And I hate it, when some of you can express clearly and precisely in a few lines, what I need half a page of convoluted explanations to do.

But nonetheless your introduction of dualism was at the right time and the right place. But then the next level would be: A 'god' being made up of several parts (as in the trinity) and 'creating' dualism, couldn't be THE non-dualistic creator god (if any such exists).

As opposed to some of the jewish models (Ain Soph) and the hinduistic concept of BrahmaN, the bible-'god' is kind of halfbaked, and so from a dualism-analytical perspective not perfect.

reply to post by ellieN


Not as a manifestation of informedness, intelligence, closer-god-to-you or whatever human qualities we can ascribe to ourselves, but as a personal attitude, 'my glass is half filled, not half empty'.

Even the most black pessimist can always find consolation in, that it can't possibly get worse, unless he/she chooses a half-filled glass attitude.

So with some of the words from some evergreen: "It's getting better and better every day" from the end of WW II.
We can rely on our own efforts, if we have the patience.

reply to post by bogomil


Thank you so very much for taking the time to answer my questions.. I find your answers have put me to thinking again and many more questions. It is hard to engage in a conversation on these subjects without the extreme complications of negative reactions here where I live.
And I will take to heart what you said about the glass being half full. Good advice ... and much more positive.

Thank you again.

reply to post by ellieN


I can only reprociate the thanks, as it was a pleasure to meet, what I consider pivotal considerations. I will now turn my attention to other threads, as I believe you and I presently can't take this subject further.

My best wishes

Bogomil