Professor

Where does the old testament say that Adam and Eve were immortal?

As to God lying about the effects of the tree of knowledge of good and evil...
Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The day that he eats it he will die. Not that he will begin to die a slow 9 century death, but that he will die on the same day that he eats it. Not that he will lose immortality, but that his death will result within 24 hours. It is quite clear.

I know, the whole thing is pretty silly, but we are supposing for this discussion that it actually is true so I am working within the fictional framework. I'm not sure how this relates to Yahweh's lie though.

Exodus 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

Yahweh specifically says his name is jealous in the same sentence in which he states that his personality is jealous. If both statements refer solely to his personality then it is pretty redundant phrasing for a god.


The I AM statement is probably just wordplay on the part of the author. In Hebrew, "I AM" is kind of a pun on "Yahweh." Of course it could be taken to contradict the definition of Jealous, but when the Bible contradicts itself then my version is as valid as yours.

Of course names are funny things. Consider that Yahweh tells Moses that he didn't use his real name when talking to the earlier patriarchs. Instead, they knew him as El Shaddai.

Exodus
6:2 And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Yahweh:
6:3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh was I not known to them.

This of course begs the question, how do we know that Yahweh actually was El Shaddai and is not another supernatural being trying to steal El Shaddai's worshippers. Is there an ID card for gods? Notice that he is very careful to tell Moses that he will never use any other name. Having pulled a con job on old El Shaddai, he doesn't want anyone else to pull the same thing on him.

Exodus
3:15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Yahweh God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

What a horrible ethical framework. This is what you get when a slave-holding culture invents a god. As I recall, Jesus uses a parable in which humanity is represented by slaves and Yahweh is represented by the slave master. Nice.

I hope that we have developed a better one before we manage to construct artificial intelligences. After all my wife and I created our children, but we don't own them.

Well i'll admit that I did get a bit carried away, but I was really having fun playing with the story behind the story. But the topic was the relationship between original sin and the atonement so it is not entirely off topic.

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I don't ignore it. I'm especially impressed with God's acts of genocide, mass murder, and infantcide.

Then why the militant emphasis on obedience?

Ah. The "God works in mysterious ways" evasion. Had to come up sooner or later.

And your basis for assuming this is...? Oh yeah. The Bible, wherein God commits all manner of monstrous acts and no one bats an eye. No one seems to have the courage to stand up and say "Hey, I know you're God and everything but isn't this just a tiny bit questionable?"

It's not a matter of gratitude. It's a matter of right and wrong. You assume that because God (claims to) do something, it has to be right and good. I look at a slightly bigger picture.

The only reason we're alive right now is because of God's psychotic fit, if you'll recall. I fail to see why I should look for a way to glorify someone or something that evidently needs its ego stroked constantly. Need I remind you of some periods of Christian history about a number of bloody efforts to "glorify" God? I don't doubt for a moment that if given the chance any branch of Christianity would jump right back on to the bloody bandwagon--for the sake of "glorifying God", of course.

Evoken

Adam was told that he would return to the earth after he ate from the tree, this is an indication of his inevitable death and punishment. What is the opposite of this, that is the state of Adam and Eve before eating from the tree, if not immortality?

Also we are also told that by Adam's sin death entered the world, so if there was no death before Adam's sin in the world, what is left, again, but immortality?

This is bogus and close to a slippery slope fallacy. To you the verse should say: "you will not die the same day you eat from the tree but you will live 900+ years after you eat from the tree and you will die on day X on X place" or something along those lines. Honestly that is not a fair way of handling the text. The Bible shows that they did die and further on we are told what was meant by death on this verse.

I am not sure what the relationship of this is with the original topic. God was known by many names as regards to his attributes and his real name is Yahweh. We know from The Bible that God is a jealous God and also jealous of his name (read the second commandment).

Amazing, you assert contradiction, claim that "I AM" is wordplay on the part of the author and then go on to say that your version is equally valid.

Oh no you didn't. Who was El Shaddai? The God of Abraham and his descendants of course. and who are among the descendants of Abraham? The Midianites, and where is Moses when God appears to him? In Midian, so from whom does he learns about God? From the Midianites of course.

God has no intention of stealing his own worshipers from himself

No, it isn't. Isn't society structured in the same way? You have to summit to authority, follow the law and "play by the rules" so to speak. The same thing with God, he has his laws for us and he wants us to follow them.

I think that this is where the atheists miss the point in that they think that God should be nothing but a slave whose job is to satisfy men's passions and desires and that God should make no demands from us. If that were the case then it wouldn't be God at all but a machine without a will of it's own.

Well you got even more carried away from the topic with this post

I think this can happen since everything is related one way or the other. It is difficult to talk about one point without having to bring another up.

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The difference being that we don't have the death penalty for jaywalking, adultry, wearing cloth made from two different kinds of thread, working on the Sabbath, and what not. We also don't subject people to eternal torment as punishment fgor being born.

The problem seems to be that God seems to want US to be machines. Begging perpetually for forgiveness because we were stupid enough to be born, constantly singing his praises and obeying his laws without any sort of question--no doubt as interpeted and enforced by his priesthood. I'd be happy to keep that kind of God completely out of my life, thank you very much.

If the Christian God is the monster that he seems to be, I sure as blazes wouldn't want to have anything to do with it. If God is somehow different or I have somehow misunderstood, then he shouldn't have a problem dropping by my place and explaining himself. I'm sure he knows where it is. I have no reason to beleive anyone who claims to speak for him.

Professor

Of course my version is equally valid. The whole thing is make-believe, and my version of make-believe is just as valid as anyone else's. Personally I enjoy playing literary games with myths, but I am beginning to see that you think the bible is more than just some old fables so I'll move on.

Evoken

For the same reason that a parent demands obedience from his son and gets angry when he disobeys even while he loves him. It is for our own good, God knows what is best for us. Contrary to the fallible knowledge of the hypothetical parent who may err in his desires.

It is not an evasion, it is the truth. We cannot fully know the mind of God and have to rely on what he has revealed to us thru his Church.

Some did and among them were Abraham and Moses. Think of Abraham talking with God before the destruction of the two cities and asking him to spare the innocent. And what does this shows? That God knows what he is doing and that ultimately his judgment is just.

No, what God does is right because God has the complete picture in view, not because I assume so.

No, we are alive because of God's love for us, like I pointed in a previous post, God could have created something else or He could have not created at all.

Many crimes and atrocities have been done in the name of Christianity, that much is true. But the issue comes down to, are they done because of Christianity or IN SPITE of it? That is, by men following their own agenda and not what Christianity says? No need to look further than Bush and his war in Iraq, or the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells. These people profess Christianity but they do not practice it. It is important to make this distinction.

Also, your accusation that "any branch of Christianity would jump back on the bloody bandwagon" is unjustified and speaks only of religious paranoia.

GoodLittleAtheist

No, it is based in disobedience. It has to be since "Good" is defined as following God's laws and "Evil" is defined as opposing God's laws.

Well, I was a Catholic and I am an Atheist. Atheism isn't any easier. Whatever ease you gain from abandoning arbitrary rules like "don't have lustful thoughts" is complicated by not being able to say "because God said so" when making moral decisions.

So how is that innocence if they knew some things weren't good?

Forseen sins? What does that mean? God plays out alternate scenarios where the baby lived and then decides based on that? I hope I am just misunderstanding you.

GoodLittleAtheist

The difference being that we are a part of the law making process in society (indirectly at least). So what does that make God, a dictator?


Huh? The only thing I'd want of God is for him to stop threatening me. Oh, and as far as a machine without a will. Well, yeah, I guess that is a good analogy for the universe. Except it isn't our 'slave' because it doesn't do anything to please anyone. It just is.

Evoken

Exactly. That's what I was pointing out, I only went to the heart of the matter so to speak. Yes, Good is following God's law and Evil is opposing God's laws, which is the same as disobedience.

Like I pointed out in a previous post here their innocence does not equals ignorance.

No, loop back. I got mixed up, sorry for that. There is no official doctrine from The Church as to where unbaptized babies go. The most commonly held view of the destiny of unbaptized children is that they go to a place of natural happiness called Limbo. The different being, in that while they live in natural happiness in Limbo, they are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God (since they departed in a state of Original Sin) which is what going to Heaven gives. In any case, The Church has said that they should be left in God's hands.

Evoken

And we can be part of the law making process, the only nitpick is that we have to take God's objective standard as our point of reference when deciding such things and work things out from there.

God is not going to force you to convert, He is not going to send some angels your way to grab you by the throat to make you obey him. However, He has made his will known to us and has laid out the rules. Wether or not we follow them is for us to decide.

That may be, the universe makes no demands from us because it is not made to do so. Yet it is made in a specific way, like us humans, which speak of an objective standard that is the result of the intention of the designer.

But this of course I know is something you do not accept