fromdownunder

God created everything, and it was perfect.

Then, Adam and Eve ate a pomegranate and were exiled, and the serpent tempted them and was made to eat dirt all it's days (even though it does not) Fair enough! They did the wrong thing and got punished for it.

Now, because of this event, perfectly created stars go supernova. Why? What did the stars do to deserve being blown up?

Animals started eating each other. Why? What did the poor Wilderbeast and Impala do to start getting devoured by lions and cheetahs? And how did God decide which herbivores would become carnivores, and why? It wasn't their fault.

The Dinosaurs died out completely, as have probably many millions of other species. It wasn't their fault!

Poor innocent trees were condemned to a finite lifetime because of Adam and Eve's sin? Many plants became annuals, and died because Eve offered Adam a bit of fruit?

And, then Man became sinful again, and yet again, every other living thing got it in the neck, and drowned! Could God have not just killed off the bad guys and left the innocent flora and fauna alone?

Why did God find it necessary to punish his entire creation, and not just limit the punishment to the three main protaganists?

Norm

patchy

Simple.

The writers who created the character of Yahweh were just kind of winging it, and didn't seem realize or care how many contradictions, logic faults, and lies they were weaving into their script. A good proofreader or continuity editor could've done wonders for that book, but no...they had to skimp and do it on the cheap.

And the rest of us are still paying for it.

WishboneDawn

They weren't different people with different ideas of fiction and storytelling or writers trying to collect and respect the myths of different traditions. We aren't wrongheaded in not seeing them for what they were meant to be or in trying to apply modern standards of writing to them. They were just bad people doing bad things.

FreezBee

Ok, whatever you say

Ehh ... except we don't know what kind of fruit it was, and the serpent tempted them before they ate the fruit, iirc.

Simple - the stars are kept collected and in place by the angels, but seeing that humans could rebel against God, 1/3 of the angels decided to follow suite and went on strike (after all God could take a day off, so why not?). You should do some more research, before writing this kind of things. Just a well-meant advise

God -always foreseeing every possible event - had encoded in the genes of some animals the possibility of becoming carnivores, so all that happened was that God did some simple bio-engineering. Not really any big deal. But why? Well, why not? Without anyone to take care of the Garden of Eden there wouldn't really be plant food enough, so that's why!

No, it was the evil dragon-slaying "heros", wasn't it?

Don't underestimate the POWER OF THE WRATH OF GOD - or you'll come to suffer it :devil3:

And who's innocent? Who can step forward and truly declare to have done nothing wrong? Remember, it's a sin to blaspheme God

Well, God thought that if those whom who had taken the most care to make as perfect as possible would rebel against him, then why not so much more readily the rest of creation?


- FreezBee

Codec

So... there was this guy called Moses, and he wrote the first draft of the pentateuch, and he handed out a few review copies.

"I've got a meeting with an agent who thinks this book will really sell. It needs a few more chapters, but its looking good at the moment. Let me know how it goes".

Some of the review copies got handed around, a friend passed it onto a friend, and it was becoming an underground success. A couple of screenwriters got hold of it and made a pitch to a mogul. "This will make the big bang look like a damp squib!". They gave it to their copy editor who checked it through, and found a few problems. He went through page by page and sent back a copy with copious red ink on them, showing up a few plot holes, and there were one or two request for clarifications.

• You appear to have two creation stories, this will make the running too long, and it really doesn't advance the plot. Maybe you can combine them?
• Can we have some detail on the fruit, I mean, if we're to make a film of this, its stuff we need to know - pineapples or ugly fruit? Melons might work too.
• Love the snake, can we make it a python or anaconda?
• Loose the whole Lot and his daughters thing, its not big, its not clever, and its not really saying anything, plus it will offend the middle class audience we're aiming at.
• The flood is going to look magnificent, I'm seeing Tom Cruise being rain lashed, can we get Angelina as Mrs Noah? However rescuing all the animals is going to be impractical, so can we just do, like mamals? Just the cute ones mostly? A few carnivores to heighten the tension maybe. BTW - how are we going to explain a growing olive tree after a year underwater? Got any ideas?
• Dinosaurs - no mention - was that an oversight??
• Including details of your own death is a bit creepy, but I can understand the need for closure.
• 40 years in the wilderness - no ones ever going to believe 3 million of you doing that in a dessert, plus the extras will cripple the budget. How about a few 100 and a month or so?
• You appear to have the 10 commandments 3 times, was that intentional or did you get some duplicated pages?
• ...

By now, however, it was too late, people were copying it like no tomorrow (which was also predicted in later versions), and it was too late to make changes. Moses couldn't take the criticism of the monster that he had given birth to, faked his death and fled to babylon where he eventually became head garden waterer.

The screenwriters had several goes at adding to the tale. It all got a little out of hand, and eventually shelved the original project. They attempted a rewritten chronical based version, but it didn't gel quite as well. Fan fiction abounded with tales of those who might have been. Whole new books were written about minor characters, and various pop lyrics and sayings were attached together with some thinly veiled porn.

Many years later the whole lot was published as an anthology for those who collect such things.

Over time, the original concept of the novel had been lost, and people started to believe these things really had happened.



Well I think it explains things pretty well? :huh:

Diogenes the Cynic

Moving this to GRD. Please remain seated until the thread comes to a complete stop.

Queen of Swords

So are you saying that even babies, fetuses and embryos sin?

Eldarion Lathria

The thing seems like one of Kipling's Just So stories How Death came into the world. And that's where I put it, next to How the Camel got his Hump, and How the Elephant got his Trunk. But it's not so innocent or logical as Kipling.

Eldarion Lathria

Deacon Doubtmonger

Anyone here remember the Arthur C. Clarke short story "The Star," in which an advanced and peaceful civilization is destroyed when a star goes supernova ... so that the three wise men can have a navigation beacon?

Any psychologists here? I always thought there was some psych maxim to the effect that if you're going to push a load of bullshit, it's easier to get people to bite on a large amount of outlandishness than a small amount of mere puffery. Is there a formal name for this, and could that have been the principle at work when the joody-xian creation myth was written?

Deacon Doubtmonger

Bump, lest my question get lost:

Or if not from formal psychology, is this a sales/advertising/marketing maxim?