From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: some gods are _not_ creaters of all things, apparently
Organization: my dog is always barking, but doesn't he remind you of toto?
	<BtLvHF.Cs6@nntp-sc.Intel.COM> <fRV5Wjs@quack.sac.ca.us> 
	<adams.715272497@spssig>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 19:50:17 GMT

(Steve Adams) writes:
Similarly, the story of Adam and Eve found in Genesis 2:4ff shows us
that even given only one rule, man is not able to keep it.  Declaring the
literalness of the story would do nothing to improve the message found
there.

(Paul Harvey) writes:
I don't come to that conclusion at all. Obviously it was a setup. Who
wouldn't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, even if it meant
knowledge of the reality of life and death? Now, it seems to me there
are two possibilities. One, the guy really is a ruthless tyrant war
lord, or two, it was His intent for human beings to gain knowledge at
their own initiative, thus illustrating that with knowledge also comes
responsibility. Knowledge tells you that if you eat the fruit, it is
your responsibility, not some one else's. You can't get just good
knowledge, knowledge comes with good and bad. If you were just created
with knowledge, you could blame the bad on the creator. But you were not
created with knowledge, you gained it of your own initiative. It was the
first test, and you passed. You proved that you are willing to take on
some of your own responsibilities. That is proof that you are maturing
and ready to leave the nest. The creator had high expectations of you,
after all, in whose image were you created? Surely you don't expect Him
to do everything for you, do you? Did your own father and mother? You
didn't expect to stay in your mother's womb forever, did you? She drove
you out when she judged you to be ready, just as the Lord drove Adam and
Eve out of Eden when He judged them to be ready.

(Steve Adams) writes:
Sounds like a good free-will defense to me!  I disagree that is was a
setup, though.  There was the logical possiblity that Adam & Eve, given the
conditions in the garden (ie full presence & glory of God, all needs cared
for, etc), would not sin.  It was possible that they wouldn't separate
themselves from God.  They did.  You can say that it is 'human nature'.
I don't see how that is different than saying 'Free Will'.  

And why do you say that eating the fruit is a sin? If the creator did not
want us to eat the fruit, he would not have placed it in the center of the
garden and told man about it, would He? Unless, 1. His intentions were to
mislead man (setup), or 2. His intentions were that man gain knowledge of good 
and evil at his own initiative. Isn't this logical? I'll remind you that Adam
and Eve were not created with knowledge of good and evil. All of their needs
may have been cared for just as all of the needs of someone who is brain dead
can be cared for. If you had the choice of brain death or knowledge of good
and evil, which would you choose? And just to make it more interesting, no
one will tell you which is the correct choice. As a matter of fact, your Lord
says that eating the fruit will bring knowledge of death and forbids it for
this reason. Now, how do you choose? Will you choose knowledge of good and
evil and knowledge of life and death, or the peace and serenity of brain
death, of not knowing the joy and suffering of humanity? And as for the
seperation from God, this make sense. We are human beings, not deities. Just
as we seperate from our birth mother at birth, so we also seperate from
the Garden of Eden. We are human beings, not deities. We ought to live as
human beings. The seperation may be sad, but it is reality, at least human
reality. We will be reunited soon enough, in the meantime why not act out
the given role of human being? Then when the time comes to be reunited, we
can say that we are ready as we have lived the life of a human being to its
fullest and there is no more for us to do as humans. Then we can die to our
human being, as a good human must do. Death is not a curse or penality, it is
THE WAY of human being. Knowledge of life includes knowledge of death. This
is just the way the creator constructed the universe. The creator created you
as a human being for now, why not act out the role? The curtain will be drawn
when the time has come for your role to end, but in the meantime ...

(Steve Adams) writes:
God establishes Adam in the Garden, a symbol for the state of
perfection.

(Paul Harvey) writes:
Perfection? I don't know about that. Didn't you once find your mother's
womb to be perfection? Times change you know. There is only one
constant, and that is change. I would not call a lack of the knowledge
of life and death perfection. Would you? Are you ashamed of the
knowledge you have attained at your own initiative? Why? Are you ashamed
to know that you must kill in order to eat, that you must kill other
lives in order that you can live? Why? Why are you ashamed of
knowledge? You are proud of your knowledge of good, right? Then why are
you ashamed of the knowledge of evil that comes with it?

(Steve Adams) writes:
We approach these texts from different directions.  Your approach, given
what you've said, is to 'prove' that Christianity is flawed.

I'm afraid you are wrong. My approach is to prove that Christianity is not
flawed but is in fact correct. I have not said that Genesis is flawed and
incorrect, I have said that it makes perfect sense to me.

(Steve Adams) writes:
I don't think you understand the basic philosophy here.  Remember, I start
with the default assumption that God exists and that the Bible is valid.
And that clearly influences my opinions, thoughts, actions, etc.

Of course God exists and all texts are valid. I agree with you there. Must we
start with such trivial assumptions?

(Steve Adams) writes:
This is just as bad as your continual harping on the verses in Luke about
hate.  You seem to think that all Christians have an absolute, inerrant,
literal understanding of Scripture.  We don't.  Trying to pin me down on
absolute literalism won't work.  I don't subscribe to that theory.  I've
said it before and I'll say it again: the message is what's important.
Since the Bible presents the message in various literary methods, we need
to determine the message and not get caught up in the actual literal words.

I agree with this moderate Christian view entirely. I only remind people of
Luke 14:26 as proof that the Bible is not the direct word of God, that one
must interpret the message as you say. Learn from dogma, but don't be
dogmatic. Surely you agree with this also? This is fundamental, is it not?
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc