John 3:16

Also:
Whats the point of creating a universe just for people to praise you and say how great you are all the time?
That is so self-centred.

He created intelligent beings that they (we) might experience the advantages of free will.

neologist wrote:

He created intelligent beings that they (we) might experience the advantages of free will.

Do you have a reference for that Neo?

By my reading of the story Adam & Eve had no knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong until after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. Yet God still through a hissy fit and held them and all future humanity accountable. Feel the love.

neologist wrote:

You can dance around it all you want, Frank. If God have given Adam and Eve perfect conscience and no choice, it could only have been at the expense of free will. He gave them conscience. The tree represented their choice of whether to live by it or decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong.

Free will, Frank. Perhaps God's greatest gift - and one admittedly fraught with the risk that some might use it wrongly.

You are blind, Neo...because you have your eyes shut.

The pathetic, murderous, jealous, disgusting, barbaric, cartoon god of the Bible...in the tale you have decided to bring up one more time...

...DENIED ADAM AND EVE THE KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO EXERCISE ANY FREE WILL THAT YOU ARE SUPPOSING THE PIECE OF **** GOD GAVE THEM.

They did not know right from wrong...good from evil...

...the god intended that they not know right from wrong...good from evil...

...the idiot god actually considered such knowledge to be the province of gods...

...SO THEY HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT DISOBEYING WAS A "WRONG" OR "EVIL" THING.

If your god will punish you for opening your eyes to the reality of what I am telling you here...

...just get a different god, Neo. The one you have sucks.

This bullshyt that your god gave them "conscience" is absolutely absurd, gratuitous, self-serving pap. Conscience requires a knowledge of good and evil...of right and wrong.

What is wrong with you?????

Why are you doing this?

What is **** up in your life to send you down this particular street...when it is so obviously a dead end for you?

In need of a fix Neo? Here ya go. :wink:

Frank Apisa wrote:

neologist wrote:

You can dance around it all you want, Frank. If God have given Adam and Eve perfect conscience and no choice, it could only have been at the expense of free will. He gave them conscience. The tree represented their choice of whether to live by it or decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong.

Free will, Frank. Perhaps God's greatest gift - and one admittedly fraught with the risk that some might use it wrongly.

You are blind, Neo...because you have your eyes shut.

The pathetic, murderous, jealous, disgusting, barbaric, cartoon god of the Bible...in the tale you have decided to bring up one more time...

...DENIED ADAM AND EVE THE KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO EXERCISE ANY FREE WILL THAT YOU ARE SUPPOSING THE PIECE OF **** GOD GAVE THEM.

They did not know right from wrong...good from evil...

...the god intended that they not know right from wrong...good from evil...

...the idiot god actually considered such knowledge to be the province of gods...

...SO THEY HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT DISOBEYING WAS A "WRONG" OR "EVIL" THING.

If your god will punish you for opening your eyes to the reality of what I am telling you here...

...just get a different god, Neo. The one you have sucks.

This bullshyt that your god gave them "conscience" is absolutely absurd, gratuitous, self-serving pap. Conscience requires a knowledge of good and evil...of right and wrong.

What is wrong with you?????

Why are you doing this?

What is **** up in your life to send you down this particular street...when it is so obviously a dead end for you?

I think it is pitiful to twist and contort logic the way Neo is doing to make this ridiculous fairytale fit his concept of a kind and loving god.

One would think he would have a subconsciousness willing to kick him in the ass and let him know the reasoning he is using to make this okay...is bizarre.

But it is, as I said, pitiful.

I pity him...and the others that are so afraid they actually distort logic the way they do.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I think it is pitiful to twist and contort logic the way Neo is doing to make this ridiculous fairytale fit his concept of a kind and loving god.

One would think he would have a subconsciousness willing to kick him in the ass and let him know the reasoning he is using to make this okay...is bizarre.

But it is, as I said, pitiful.

I pity him...and the others that are so afraid they actually distort logic the way they do.

I thank you for reminding me of the fun I used to have reading Frank's sophistic responses. The eating of the fruit of the tree represented Adam and Eve's choice to make their own decisions regarding matters of conscience.

Would somebody please beg Frank to come back?

Oh, yeah. Ain't he fun?

You don't really concur in his backward babble and sophomoric slobber, do you?

I had thought better of you.

neologist wrote:

I thank you for reminding me of the fun I used to have reading Frank's sophistic responses. The eating of the fruit of the tree represented Adam and Eve's choice to make their own decisions regarding matters of conscience.

Would somebody please beg Frank to come back?

And on your next post...

neologist wrote:

Oh, yeah. Ain't he fun?

You don't really concur in his backward babble and sophomoric slobber, do you?

Gee neo, make up your mind here.

Frank and I have had occasional differences since we subscribe to different non-believer sects, but his analysis of Biblical text is dead on IMO.

neologist wrote:

I had thought better of you.

Those two posts from Frank were sequential in the thread they were pulled from, selected only because of the subject matter. No offense intended. I hadn't noticed you to be thin skinned previously.

I'm not at all thin skinned, but Frank's analysis of Biblical text is based solely on the passages he has narrowly selected to justify his point of view.

For example, he insists that Adam and Eve were naive waifs set up by God to fail. His reasoning? They failed, therefore it was God's fault.


DUH!

But I guess I must also be pretty stupid to have assumed that Frank's moronic rants actually made sense to more than just a few.

. . . Of course they were naive, the story is naive. It has talking snakes and magic trees. They failed because they were not given the knowledge of good and evil right or wrong. Without that knowledge the conscience has nothing to work with. . .

Neo, Why should the only two humans in existance be ashamed that they were naked?

mesquite wrote:

Neo, Why should the only two humans in existance be ashamed that they were naked?

Answer included in my previous post about conscience.

Have you ever gone against your own conscience? How did you feel about it later? Adam and Eve had a perfect conscience that guided them in moral choices. They did have one choice, however: namely, did they wish to make these moral decisions on their own. That was what the fruit represented.

neologist wrote:

mesquite wrote:

Neo, Why should the only two humans in existance be ashamed that they were naked?

Answer included in my previous post about conscience.

Have you ever gone against your own conscience? How did you feel about it later? Adam and Eve had a perfect conscience that guided them in moral choices. They did have one choice, however: namely, did they wish to make these moral decisions on their own. That was what the fruit represented.

con·science -noun
1. the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action: to follow the dictates of conscience.

So what you are saying is that even though God withheld knowledge of good and evil, he still provided a perfect conscience to guide them in place of knowledge.

If they had perfect consciences, why were they not ashamed of being naked before eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

Beyond that my first question was what in the heck is there wrong or evil in the first place about the only two humans in existence being naked.

What I always thought when I was little was:
In the old testement, the jews had to sacrafice an animal to make themselves forgiven again, or something.
So God sent Jesus to be sacrificed, so that people wouldn't have to sacrifice animals, they would just pray to jesus to forgive them instead, and there would be less killing.
If we accept that jesus died on the cross to save our sins, then we get into heaven. Presumeably because we will be 'sin free' again.

God sacrificed jesus for our benefit, whether it was of any cost to him we will never know, and in some ways is irrelevant.

mesquite wrote:

If they had perfect consciences, why were they not ashamed of being naked before eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

Beyond that my first question was what in the heck is there wrong or evil in the first place about the only two humans in existence being naked.

you perhaps have answered your first question with your second.