From: drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake)
Subject: The Genesis Myth
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Distribution: world,public
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:23:32 GMT

brian@lpl.arizona.edu (Brian Ceccarelli 602/621-9615) writes:

>It grieves me to hear this kind of discussion.  God gets accused of
>things that are really not his to begin with.  Both Christians and
>non-Christians alike attribute the pain and suffering in the world
>to God.   This is not true.

"I make the light, I create darkness, author alike of prosperity and
trouble.  I, the Lord, do all these things." (Is 45:7, NEB)

>Ultimately, we as humans have chosen death over life.  We had preferred
>cancer and old age a long time ago.   The four year old girl gets what
>she has inherited from the beginnings of humanity.  Death.  Suffering. 

A creature that prefers pain to pleasure is mentally ill.  Do you claim
that the creation of God was insane?

>   Do you remember that in the Bible, we humans chose to gain access
>to the knowledge of good and evil at the price of our lives.   Despite God's
>ample and clear warning. we chose to eat from that infamous fruit.

Ample and clear lies, you mean.  Where the tree of knowledge stands is
always paradise.

>  Here are some details from the Bible.

Conveniently selected so as to leave the truth out.

>1.   Recall Genesis 1:16
>
>     And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from
>     any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree
>     of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it,
>     you will surely die."
>
>Genesis 3:6
>
>     When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for
>     food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
>     wisdom, she [Eve] took some and ate it.  She also gave some
>     to her husband.
>
>Genesis 5:5
>
>     Adam . . . died.

COMPLETE quotation of Gen 5:5 -

     [Adam] lived nine hundred and thirty years, and then he died.

Usually, Gen 1:17 is rendered "on the day that you eat from it, you
will certainly die." (precise wording from NEB)

A parent is not likely to say "if you do that, you'll get a spanking" and
then when the child does it, wait twenty years to administer the punishment!

The unspoken clause in God's warning is, of course, "you will certainly
die, BECAUSE I'LL MAKE SURE YOU DO."  The common Christian belief, erroneous
though it is, is that eating from the TOKOGAE cause Adam and Eve to die.
A closer examination of the Scriptures shows that this is not the case, but
rather that God deliberately and maliciously caused their death.

After they ate from the tree, God, talking to himself, asks:

	"what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from
	the tree of life also, eats it and lives forever?"
						(Gen 3:22)

So God admits that man has the capacity to live forever, but somehow
seems afraid of man if he figures this out.  To prevent this from
happening,

	"the Lord God drove him out of the garden of Eden...and to
	the East of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim
	and a sword, whirling and flashing to guard the way to
	the tree of life." (Gen 3:23, 24)

One more thing about this whole situation; Satan's promise was also
fulfilled when he said:

	"God knows that as soon as you eat it, your eyes will
	be opened and you will be like gods, knowing both
	good and evil." (Gen 3:5)

Sure enough, after eating the fruit,

	"the eyes of both of them were opened" (Gen 3:7)

and later on, even God admits to this, saying:

	"The man has become like one of us, knowing good and
	evil" (Gen 3:22)

Another incident where God seems afraid of what man can do - even though
man is mortal - is later in Genesis, the Tower of Babel.

	"now they have started to [build the Tower]; henceforward
	nothing they have a mind to do will be beyond their reach.
	Come, let us go down there and confuse their speech"
						(Gen 11:6, 7)

Again I ask you, what was God so frightened of?  Not that they would
build the Tower, but that "nothing they have a mind to do will be
beyond their reach" - in other words, that they could then do
whatever they wanted to do.   For some reason, God thought that this
was a bad idea.

On Job:

>     Who would you say caused all this?  God?  NOT!  God merely 
>allowed Job to be given "into Satan's hands."  

A sin of ommission rather than commission, then.  Are you going
to claim that it's ok just to stand by and watch somebody be
tortured when you have the power to stop it, just as long as you
don't help?  All just to prove a f**king point?!?

And then, when it all over with, God tries to make it up to him by
"[blessing] the end of Job's life more than the beginning?"  Ask
any parent; having more kids never quite makes up for the oldest 10
dying.

>From the Bible you will see Satan ruining people's lives and
>enjoying it.  

Where does your Bible say that Satan enjoyed what he did?

>God wills that no one should
>perish but have everlasting life.  

Yeah, right; that's why he kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden of
Eden and made sure they wouldn't?  Come on!

>Here is a question you may want to ask yourself.  "Do I have the
>same affinity to the tree of knowledge of good and evil as did Eve?"

I answer myself: You're darn tootin' I do.

>People are still choosing death over life.  

I choose death as a free man over life as a God-slave.  I will not
cower and beg for life.


I earnestly hope that you will choose release from the chains with
which you have chosen to bind yourself.  Your God is decieving you
with lies that masquerade as the truth.  Open your eyes and look
around, and you will find the freedom you seek.  Do not believe the
doublespeak where "slavery to God = real freedom."

-- 
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