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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


quoting

BornAgain9 ...

quoting

Bookworm88 ...

quoting

pepperspaw ...

Just remember, children, that God is LOVE and all our thoughts and concepts are as filthy rags... just saying...

I thought that that verse about the "filthy rags" was talking about the idea that any attempt I make to gain heaven through my own righteousness only counts as filthy rags in the eyes of God. I don't think it is saying that all of my thought are as filthy rags, because then when I try to obey the verse that tells me to think on what is true and lovely and of good report, I wouldn't be able to.
. . just saying. . . emoticon



Bookworm, could you point me to that passage? I am not familiar with it.



Isaiah 64:5-7 talks about the sinfulness of mankind, and how we don't follow God, and we need God to save us. So I can see as how one could infer that all of an unsaved person's thoughts are as filthy rags, even though the verse itself doesn't mention thoughts. After all, an unsaved person is in opposition to God. But I don't think the "filthy rags" part can refer to the thoughts of a saved person, since a saved person is no longer unclean.

5 You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,
      Who remembers You in Your ways.
      You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—
      In these ways we continue;
      And we need to be saved.
       6 But we are all like an unclean thing,
      And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
      We all fade as a leaf,
      And our iniquities, like the wind,
      Have taken us away.
       7 And there is no one who calls on Your name,
      Who stirs himself up to take hold of You;
      For You have hidden Your face from us,
      And have consumed us because of our iniquities.

Still, I'd rather have someone else from the forum come on this thread and say anythig than stay completely away.


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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


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BornAgain9 ...
Do you think God would want you to believe in the one time existence of talking snakes? Doesn't it make more sense to acknowledge that this is part of an ancient myth? I don't mean to sound disrespectful Bookworm, but I don't understand how you can believe in talking animals.


Oh, I don't know, have you seen this video? emoticon




Actually, I believe Satan was speaking through the serpent, anyway, so it was really Satan talking. Still, Eve didn't seem surprised that speech was coming from an animal. She was probably so amazed by all of God's creation that no one individual thing could overly astound her.
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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


quoting

Bookworm88 ...

quoting

BornAgain9 ...
Do you think God would want you to believe in the one time existence of talking snakes? Doesn't it make more sense to acknowledge that this is part of an ancient myth? I don't mean to sound disrespectful Bookworm, but I don't understand how you can believe in talking animals.


Oh, I don't know, have you seen this video? emoticon


That was hilarious! I'd never seen such a thing before. emoticon

quoting

Bookworm88 ...
Actually, I believe Satan was speaking through the serpent, anyway, so it was really Satan talking.


Then why did God punish the snake? Presumably when the snake had the discourse with Eve it stood on legs.

So the Lord God said to the serpent "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life."

You know the rest. God also causes us to have a natural fear of snakes.

God punished the serpent, and all serpents after that. Why? If it was Satan speaking through the serpent then the snake had nothing to do with the event that unfolded.

No. I would argue that this is clearly a myth. This was a talking snake and God punished all snakes as a consequence of this one action. It is really an attempt to explain why snakes don't have legs and why there seems to be such a natural fear of snakes. Of course young monkeys also quickly learn to fear snakes.
 
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2008/03/innate-fear-of-snakes-in-young-humans.html

This could be an evolutionary development.

quoting

Bookworm88 ...
Still, Eve didn't seem surprised that speech was coming from an animal. She was probably so amazed by all of God's creation that no one individual thing could overly astound her.


No, again. I'd say this shows the whole thing is fabricated. It's a myth. In mythic stories people do talk with animals and think nothing of it. If this story of Adam and Eve, the tree, and the snake was not in Genesis, but in a non-Jewish/Christian holy book, you would have no trouble identifying it as a myth. Frankly, in other circumstances you would not believe the tale. Check out the many native American myths that have talking animals. Do you think any of those happened? Not likely.

8/2/2010, 5:37 am Link to this post Send Email to BornAgain9   Send PM to BornAgain9 ICQ Blog
 
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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


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BornAgain9 ...
Then why did God punish the snake? Presumably when the snake had the discourse with Eve it stood on legs.

So the Lord God said to the serpent "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life."

You know the rest. God also causes us to have a natural fear of snakes.

God punished the serpent, and all serpents after that. Why? If it was Satan speaking through the serpent then the snake had nothing to do with the event that unfolded.

But now the snake is a constant object lesson of the events that took place in the Garden of Eden. And it wasn't just the snake that was cursed. The ground also was cursed due to Adam's sin, even though the ground bore no responsibilty for what had happened.

quoting

No. I would argue that this is clearly a myth. This was a talking snake and God punished all snakes as a consequence of this one action. It is really an attempt to explain why snakes don't have legs and why there seems to be such a natural fear of snakes.

So where is the explanation of why zebras do not have wings and why we fear spiders? It is not really the purpose of the book to explain those things, yet because you do not wish to believe the actual account of what happened, you have to claim that other reasoning was behind the accounts. Yet that other reasoning is inconsistent with the message of the entire book.
 
quoting

No, again. I'd say this shows the whole thing is fabricated. It's a myth. In mythic stories people do talk with animals and think nothing of it.

Do you believe the stories of apes communicating in sign language to be myth? After all, it is not speech, but it is communication, and if such communication can only be understood as mythic, then we should not believe the accounts of those apes, should we? I only point that out to say that animals are often capable of more than we give them credit for, and I would say that that is especially true for the animals who were created in perfection before the fall occured and before a curse was put upon all of creation.

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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


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Bookworm88 ...
Do you believe the stories of apes communicating in sign language to be myth? After all, it is not speech, but it is communication, and if such communication can only be understood as mythic, then we should not believe the accounts of those apes, should we? I only point that out to say that animals are often capable of more than we give them credit for, and I would say that that is especially true for the animals who were created in perfection before the fall occured and before a curse was put upon all of creation.



The following is an interview that centres around some of the research that has been done in regard ape communication.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/11/01/video-bonobo-sex-communication.html

You asked whether the stories of ape communication are myth. The video link actually shows such communication of this sort, so I would have to say no. When you look at the definition for myth then it becomes obvious that the scientific work involving communication with apes using bliss boards doesn't fit, but the stories of Genesis do fit, and they do so quite well.

quoting

Oxford Dictionary of English ...
myth 1 a traditional story especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomena, and typically involving supernatural beings or events....


Supernatural beings and events – those are the keys to viewing the Genesis story as a myth. In those terms it actually makes sense. It does not make sense as history.


Last edited by BornAgain9, 1/1/2011, 7:44 am
1/1/2011, 7:35 am Link to this post Send Email to BornAgain9   Send PM to BornAgain9 ICQ Blog
 
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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


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Bookworm88 ...
quoting

BornAgain9 ...
This was a talking snake.... It is really an attempt to explain why snakes don't have legs and why there seems to be such a natural fear of snakes.


So where is the explanation of why zebras do not have wings and why we fear spiders?



You need to turn to Africa for legends and myths about the zebra. You wouldn't expect to find such a story in the Bible as there are not zebras living in the region of Palestine where the myth of the snake may have originated. Check out the following link for a legend found among the Bushmen, a people who are familiar with zebras, which explains in supernatural terms why they have stripes:

http://www.colours-of-the-rainbow.com/african-legends.html

This link is obviously for younger children, but I am sure if you searched you could find one that is more academic. Why, however, would you think there should be a myth explaining why zebras don't have wings? Do most ungulates have wings? None do the last I checked, but if one did I am sure there would be a myth to explain it.

Why are many of us afraid of spiders? Well, if you go to Wikipedia you will find a huge number of legends and myths associated with the spider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_spiders

Not all legends view snakes as bad. They are also known for the curative properties. See: http://sispharm.com/html/healing_snakes.html
1/1/2011, 1:31 pm Link to this post Send Email to BornAgain9   Send PM to BornAgain9 ICQ Blog
 
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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


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Bookworm88 ...
It is not really the purpose of the book to explain those things....


I agree. The two magic trees and the talking snake explain not just why things die and why snakes have no legs, but also the loss of paradise. Many cultures, apparently, have mythic stories that look back to simpler and happier times, before disease and misery affected humanity, but they are all myths, from the story of Adam and Eve to the story of Pandora. No doubt there are many others as well.


quoting

Bookworm88 ...
... yet because you do not wish to believe the actual account of what happened, you have to claim that other reasoning was behind the accounts.


I don't trust the accounts because they present too many difficulties to reconcile. For example, Eve tells the serpent that she and Adam were warned by God not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge or they would die. The difficulty here is that God turns the couple from paradise because of His worry that they will next eat from the Tree of Life and live forever:

quoting

Gen 3:22-23 (NEB) ...
'The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life also, eats it and lives for ever?' So the Lord God drove him out of the garden of Eden...


... to prevent them eating fruit from the second tree and attaining immortality; thus, it was never His intention that they should live forever. I am sure you have an explanation? I think I have raised the matter before, but I don't know that I have ever received an explanation.

This, however, is only one of numerous problems that arise from the Genesis story. It is an internal contradiction within the text itself, there may be others, but this aside there are certainly many other problems that contradict what we see in the natural world itself. It is not just for no reason that I don't view the Genesis account as historical.

quoting

Bookworm88 ...
Yet that other reasoning is inconsistent with the message of the entire book.


The entire Bible is filled with contradictions. It is clearly the work of many authors. The other point is there are other very good ways to understand the text without assuming everything is supernatural. Two books that are exceptionally good at revealing this are Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? and James the Brother of Jesus: the Key to unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Robert Eisenman.


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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


quoting

BornAgain9 ...
quoting

Gen 3:22-23 (NEB) ...
'The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life also, eats it and lives for ever?' So the Lord God drove him out of the garden of Eden...


... to prevent them eating fruit from the second tree and attaining immortality; thus, it was never His intention that they should live forever. I am sure you have an explanation? I think I have raised the matter before, but I don't know that I have ever received an explanation.

God's willingness to let them eat the fruit of the second tree was dependent upon their obedience to the command not to eat from the first tree. So it was not God's intention that they should live forever IF they ate of the first tree. If they had obeyed in regard to the first tree, then it would have been okay to eat of the second tree, so it is false to say it was NEVER God's intention that they should live forever. It WAS God's intention if they had obeyed.

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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


quoting

Bookworm88 ...

quoting

BornAgain9 ...
quoting

Gen 3:22-23 (NEB) ...
'The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life also, eats it and lives for ever?' So the Lord God drove him out of the garden of Eden...



... to prevent them eating fruit from the second tree and attaining immortality; thus, it was never His intention that they should live forever.


God's willingness to let them eat the fruit of the second tree was dependent upon their obedience to the command not to eat from the first tree. So it was not God's intention that they should live forever IF they ate of the first tree. If they had obeyed in regard to the first tree, then it would have been okay to eat of the second tree, so it is false to say it was NEVER God's intention that they should live forever. It WAS God's intention if they had obeyed.



This is an interesting assumption, but I don't know that it is explicitly stated. Where does God tell Adam that if he does not eat from the Tree of Knowledge he will later be allowed to eat from the Tree of Life?

The first assumption is that Adam will die if he eats from the first tree. He eats and doesn't immediately die; therefore you are making the assumption God meant something else. As a reader don't you get the feeling that the promise of death, as a consequence of eating from the tree, is expected to be somewhat more immanent than hundreds of years in the future?

When exactly was God going to say, 'Oh, by the way, you have to eat from the Tree of Life to become an immortal'? Where was the tree hiding? It must have been readily available as God drove them from the garden and established a sentry to prevent them getting back in and eating from it. Why wasn't there a directive to stay away from it as well? Was God planning on leaving human immortality to chance?

You have not convinced me that God's intention was to provide immortality. Where does it say – in the lead-up to the story of the serpent – that God planned to grant eternal life to the first couple and their descendants?

It seems you are also saying that eternal life was to be granted at a cost: self-denial of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge? I don't think this tree was just any old tree. It provided the knowledge that was the source of God's power. Essentially it was the Tree of All Knowledge – knowledge that was both good and evil. That's why God said, 'He has become like one of us....' In other words he had become like a god. If Adam were then to reach out his hand and eat from the Tree of Life, he would have become a god. That is why eating from the first tree was forbidden. It was knowledge that was forbidden.

The injunction against eating the fruit of the tree at the centre of the garden was, thus, not just a simple test of obedience. Any ordinary fruit tree could have served that purpose. God did not want the fruit of that particular tree eaten. I once saw an old black and white photo of Buddhist peasants crawling on their hands and knees beneath a table piled high with books. In their minds they were magically absorbing the knowledge from the texts. The Tree of Knowledge, in Hebrew myth, played a similar role. Adam only need eat the fruit to gain knowledge, knowledge that God did not want him to possess.
1/6/2011, 8:20 pm Link to this post Send Email to BornAgain9   Send PM to BornAgain9 ICQ Blog
 
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Re: Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'


quoting

BornAgain9 ...

quoting

Bookworm88 ...

quoting

BornAgain9 ...
quoting

Gen 3:22-23 (NEB) ...
'The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life also, eats it and lives for ever?' So the Lord God drove him out of the garden of Eden...



... to prevent them eating fruit from the second tree and attaining immortality; thus, it was never His intention that they should live forever.


God's willingness to let them eat the fruit of the second tree was dependent upon their obedience to the command not to eat from the first tree. So it was not God's intention that they should live forever IF they ate of the first tree. If they had obeyed in regard to the first tree, then it would have been okay to eat of the second tree, so it is false to say it was NEVER God's intention that they should live forever. It WAS God's intention if they had obeyed.



This is an interesting assumption, but I don't know that it is explicitly stated. Where does God tell Adam that if he does not eat from the Tree of Knowledge he will later be allowed to eat from the Tree of Life?

Oh, so I can only present things that are "explicitly stated," whareas you can say that "it was never His intention that they should live forever" without that comment being explicitly stated.

quoting

The first assumption is that Adam will die if he eats from the first tree. He eats and doesn't immediately die; therefore you are making the assumption God meant something else. As a reader don't you get the feeling that the promise of death, as a consequence of eating from the tree, is expected to be somewhat more immanent than hundreds of years in the future?

I am not assuming God meant something else when God told Adam he would die. God meant that Adam would die. Where does it explicitly state that Adam would die immediately? Remember, you are the one interested in these explicit statements. As a reader, I certainly do not "get a feeling" about the timing of the death. Nothing at all is stated about the timng of the death, so how could I "get a feeling" about it?

quoting

When exactly was God going to say, 'Oh, by the way, you have to eat from the Tree of Life to become an immortal'? Where was the tree hiding? It must have been readily available as God drove them from the garden and established a sentry to prevent them getting back in and eating from it. Why wasn't there a directive to stay away from it as well? Was God planning on leaving human immortality to chance?

Human immortality wasn't left to chance: it was conditional upon Adam's willingness to be obedient. Adam didn't have to be concerned AT ALL about dying unless he ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The only way he was going to die at all was if he disobeyed.

quoting

You have not convinced me that God's intention was to provide immortality. Where does it say – in the lead-up to the story of the serpent – that God planned to grant eternal life to the first couple and their descendants?

Where does it say that He didn't plan to grant it? Can you give me an explicit statement that God didn't plan to grant it? My viewpoint is that God didn't have to "grant" eternal life to them anyway. God had already made them eternal and the only way they coul lose immortality was by being disobedient.

quoting

It seems you are also saying that eternal life was to be granted at a cost: self-denial of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?

No, I'm saying they HAD eternal life but they would lose it if they disobeyed.

 
quoting

I don't think this tree was just any old tree. It provided the knowledge that was the source of God's power.

Whoa. Explicit statement check here. Where in the account do you get this from?

 
quoting

Essentially it was the Tree of All Knowledge – knowledge that was both good and evil. That's why God said, 'He has become like one of us....' In other words he had become like a god. If Adam were then to reach out his hand and eat from the Tree of Life, he would have become a god. That is why eating from the first tree was forbidden. It was knowledge that was forbidden.

It was the knowledge of evil that God did not want Adam to have. Adam already had the knowledge of "good." God had created everything, looked it all over, and it was all good. Once Adam disobeyed, he would have the knowledge of evil. No other type of knowledge is implied.

quoting

The injunction against eating the fruit of the tree at the centre of the garden was, thus, not just a simple test of obedience. Any ordinary fruit tree could have served that purpose.

EXACTLY. It really was just an ordinary fruit tree which was serving that purpose. When you make it out to be something more you are missing the point. It was a simple test of obedience, and that simple test of obedience would give Adam the knowledge of both good and evil if he failed the simple test.
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