Can't any of you wait another 30 or 40 yrs to meet your maker? you gotta waste your Earthly time now?? :eek: "He exists! No He don't! He exists! No he don't!" trust me, sooner or later, your going to see the MF'er . one way or the other
The Tree of life was the beginning of man's choice to be obedient to God or not. Yes, God knew that man would begin by being disobedient, but if there was no choice, then there would only be robots running around doing what ever God says. How else could God know if a man/women loves Him or not-- there has to be a opportunity of choice put in place.
No. She proved her love for me before I married her-- as did I for her. Nothing sick and selfish about that.
It was the tree of knowledge not the tree of life. At least get the details of the myth right. Adam had no choices. He had no knowledge of what was good bad or evil, whether it was right or wrong to obey or not , because he had not yet eaten from the tree. It is a bad story like most archaic fairy tales it just doesn't stand up or add up. It portrays God as a trickster . Goes to show how the authors expected it to appeal to the gullible who willingly and blindly accept the ridiculous to be something more than what it is.
Apparently God does have emotions. The Bible makes reference to God's anger and His love. The only thing embarrassing here is that someone would disrespect another person's beliefs.
Thanks, Stu for that correction-- just responded to the OP and didn't catch it. Your observation about Adam is both right and wrong. Adam did not know good and evil before he ate the fruit, but Adam did have a choice. God told him not to eat of the tree of knowledge and told him the consequences if he did. That presented Adam with a simple choice: either he would be obedient to the creator that made him or he would disrespect his creator and not be obedient.
I agree that some have tried to use the gospel for personal gain. But even in Jesus' day there were moneychangers in the temple-- nothing new. The problem is that you use the words "childish and fantasy" very disrespectful. Just because you choose not to believe in the stories about Jesus Christ does not mean that somehow you have reached a higher level of maturity and intelligence. In fact, the Bible makes a statement contrary to that: (Ps 14:1, Ps 53:1)
No problem stockerup. I think it's necessary to appreciate what is actually being suggested in the tale itself. The Tree of Life was quite a different thing and has quite separate imperatives altogether, although all of it is rather poor allegory. As you say, Adam did not know of good and evil before he ate the fruit. Certainly then Adam had no choices about deciding what was right or wrong. Imagine such a scenario ( after all that's all the Bible is about - imagination ) . God told him not to eat of the tree of knowledge and told him the consequences if he did. How could Adam know if it was good or evil to disobey ? How could he possibly know if it was right or wrong to do as he was being told when he had no knowledge? He had NO knowledge . No information about God's status or whether or not he should do as he was told. He did not even know if he had to make a decision or not. After that you have to start re-writing the story but that only results in things getting more and more ridiculous and convoluted the more one does. The original story I think was Babylonian. More modern religion story tellers plagerised the Babilonian tales and the folk lore but never bothered to try and alter it in a bid to make it sound more compelling. With the greatest respect, there has always been plenty of the kind of blind acceptance in human nature you exemplify, which is why they never had to. The same blindness got Adam into a whole lot of trouble and got everything and everybody cursed along with it. But if Adam had knowledge, he could have seen that not only was the snake a sneaky bastard as well as being a 4,000 year old cartoon character, but God had the worst of natures along with some serious personality problems and was an untrustworthy con man. That would then leave Adam with a simple choice. Not to put his faith in such deceit.