death prior to original sin

Point of interest:

From my perspective in reference to the biblical mythos in question, whether you take a literalist or interpretive stance, it still needs to "hang together" (logically and/or congruently). . .

Chumly wrote:

Please state your position:
- human death prior to original sin
- no human death prior to original sin

We'll go from there once you choose!

If Adam and Eve were the first humans. then there certainly could not have been human death prior to their sin.

I am most interested in seeing where you will attempt to go with this.

Maybe the tree wasnt form Adam and Eve...Maybe it was for the angels? Couldnt it be possible that only god could be immortal and that he has his own set of boundrys /laws? Maybe he needed the tree for his angels to achieve an eternal life?

neologist wrote:

Chumly wrote:

Please state your position:
- human death prior to original sin
- no human death prior to original sin

We'll go from there once you choose!

If Adam and Eve were the first humans. then there certainly could not have been human death prior to their sin.

I am most interested in seeing where you will attempt to go with this.

It will just repeat. His point is why would they need the tree of life to give the eternal life if there was no death to stop life. A life without death is a life without end, therfore forever, therefor eternal....so why would they need a tree with eternal life if there was no death!

neologist wrote:

Before Adam and Eve sinned they had the prospect of living forever. That should be real easy to understand.

Well then if as you say "before Adam and Eve sinned they had the prospect of living forever" then prior to sin by default they were de facto immortals. Therefore the tree of life was not needed for immorality. Further (and again) how could man have been threatened by death as punishment if he had not yet eaten from the tree of knowledge and thus could not know of death as he was innocent? (and no I do not see how you have satisfactorily addressed this directly and on point).

neologist wrote:

Adam and Eve both knew what death was because Adam had been around long enough to name the animals and observe that animals did, in fact, die.

Where is your scriptural "proof" that "Adam and Eve both knew what death was"? It's meaningless that they observed "that animals did, in fact, die." Why? I might observe that a gasoline engine in fact runs, does that in any way infer I understand how a gasoline engine works and it's implications? Not even close! Neo where is the logic and/or congruency?

neologist wrote:

As for whether they would overfill the earth, I refer you to my response to CI, above.

And I refer you to your assertion that "they had the prospect of living forever" and my counter that "prior to sin by default they were de facto immortals."

Also when you say "it was the tree of the knowledge of good and bad" are you then saying that death does not fall under the category of knowledge of good and bad, if so I dispute this wholeheartedly.

The mathematics of uncontrolled growth are frightening. A single cell of the bacterium E. coli would, under ideal circumstances, divide every twenty minutes. That is not particularly disturbing until you think about it, but the fact is that bacteria multiply geometrically: one becomes two, two become four, four become eight, and so on. In this way it can be shown that in a single day, one cell of E. coli could produce a super-colony equal in size and weight to the entire planet Earth. http://www.ugrad.math.ubc.ca/coursedoc/math100/notes/zoo/andromed.html

Right you are EpiNirvana! There is no need for a tree of life if there was no death before original sin.

Further, how could man have been threatened by death as punishment if he had not yet eaten from the tree of knowledge and thus could not know of death as he was innocent?

And nope Neo, you have not provided a rational explanation that man knew and understood death prior to original sin because as discussed: it's meaningless that Adam and Eve observed "that animals did, in fact, die." Why? I might observe that a gasoline engine in fact runs, does that in any way infer I understand how a gasoline engine works and it's implications?

Not even close! Also when you say "it was the tree of the knowledge of good and bad" are you then saying that death does not fall under the category of knowledge of good and bad, if so I dispute this wholeheartedly!

Understand therefore, that man could not know of death unless or until he had eaten of the tree of knowledge, because death is not morally neutral-exempt.

neologist wrote:

Before Adam and Eve sinned they had the prospect of living forever. That should be real easy to understand.

Well then if as you say "before Adam and Eve sinned they had the prospect of living forever" then prior to sin by default they were de facto immortals. Therefore the tree of life was not needed for immorality. (sic) Further (and again) how could man have been threatened by death as punishment if he had not yet eaten from the tree of knowledge and thus could not know of death as he was innocent?

(and no I do not see how you have satisfactorily addressed this directly and on point. . .Where is your scriptural "proof" that "Adam and Eve both knew what death was"? It's meaningless that they observed "that animals did, in fact, die." Why? I might observe that a gasoline engine in fact runs, does that in any way infer I understand how a gasoline engine works and it's implications? Not even close! Neo where is the logic and/or congruency?

neologist wrote:

As for whether they would overfill the earth, I refer you to my response to CI, above.

And I refer you to your assertion that "they had the prospect of living forever" and my counter that "prior to sin by default they were de facto immortals."

Also when you say "it was the tree of the knowledge of good and bad" are you then saying that death does not fall under the category of knowledge of good and bad, if so I dispute this wholeheartedly.

Then there is also my final point, if there was no death prior to original sin, then we potently have the issue of uncontrolled growth. Admittedly however, the issue of uncontrolled growth is the least of the problems I have addressed as per this Christian myth, at least or until you Neo respond with logical and/or congruently explanation to the above and below:

If there was human reproduction pre-"original sin" then the world would very quickly have been wholly overrun run with people. Here's an example of uncontrolled growth

Quote:

The mathematics of uncontrolled growth are frightening. A single cell of the bacterium E. coli would, under ideal circumstances, divide every twenty minutes. That is not particularly disturbing until you think about it, but the fact is that bacteria multiply geometrically: one becomes two, two become four, four become eight, and so on. In this way it can be shown that in a single day, one cell of E. coli could produce a super-colony equal in size and weight to the entire planet Earth. http://www.ugrad.math.ubc.ca/coursedoc/math100/notes/zoo/andromed.html

Somewhere in here is a galactic non sequitur.

Unless the tree represented a symbolic reward for faithfully avoiding the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

It was the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, a moral distinction, not a biological one.

Are you saying that because you don't understand how a gasoline engine runs you would not understand that it might sometimes need gas?

Interesting choice of words. What are you talking about?

What you are saying is that it must have been quite obvious to Adam and Eve that such a thing as death existed.

. . .Further, given that if/when they did die (due to being expelled from the garden after eating of the forbidden fruit blah blah blah) Adam and Eve would (I presume) go to heaven, so why would a reward of eternal life (symbolic as you argue) be necessitated, when heaven (I presume) is the ultimate idealization? It makes no sense!

Further, it's understood that one of the common definitions of heaven is paradise, thus to what avail would a symbolic reward for "faithfully avoiding the tree of the knowledge" be necessitated, when the garden of Eden and heaven are for all intents and purposes (in this specific immortal context) the same. It make no sense!. . .

The Hebrew words we read as Garden of Eden literally mean 'paradise of pleasure', so Adam and Eve were already in paradise.

Where did the idea of heaven come in? Not from the passages under discussion. The choice before Adam and Eve was between continued life in the paradise of pleasure or death. If they had not sinned, they would still be here and we would not have had war and crime and sickness and death.Whether by now they or any of us would have been considered worthy of tasting the tree of life cannot be determined. Your argument that the tree of life makes no sense is valid only in its application to Chumly.

neologist wrote:

The Hebrew words we read as Garden of Eden literally mean 'paradise of pleasure', so Adam and Eve were already in paradise.

That's fine except it begs the question as to what sort of punishment would death be, from eating of the tree, if the net result of death in (Adam and Eve's case) was to go to heaven which, is also regarded as a paradise. It makes no sense; heaven as punishment?

neologist wrote:

Where did the idea of heaven come in? Not from the passages under discussion. The choice before Adam and Eve was between continued life in the paradise of pleasure or death. If they had not sinned, they would still be here and we would not have had war and crime and sickness and death. Whether by now they or any of us would have been considered worthy of tasting the tree of life cannot be determined. Your argument that the tree of life makes no sense is valid only in its application to Chumly.

The idea of heaven came in from your ruminations in justifying the purpose of the tree of life. You suggest the tree represented a "symbolic reward for faithfully avoiding the tree of the knowledge of good and bad". There is a begged question here which would quite naturally include the implications of Adam and Eve's death. One of the implications of Adam and Eve's death is going to heaven and the immorality that implies.

Chumly wrote:

neologist wrote:

The Hebrew words we read as Garden of Eden literally mean 'paradise of pleasure', so Adam and Eve were already in paradise.

That's fine except it begs the question as to what sort of punishment would death be, from eating of the tree, if the net result of death in (Adam and Eve's case) was to go to heaven which, is also regarded as a paradise. It makes no sense; heaven as punishment?

neologist wrote:

Where did the idea of heaven come in? Not from the passages under discussion. The choice before Adam and Eve was between continued life in the paradise of pleasure or death. If they had not sinned, they would still be here and we would not have had war and crime and sickness and death. Whether by now they or any of us would have been considered worthy of tasting the tree of life cannot be determined. Your argument that the tree of life makes no sense is valid only in its application to Chumly.

The idea of heaven came in from your ruminations in justifying the purpose of the tree of life. You suggest the tree represented a "symbolic reward for faithfully avoiding the tree of the knowledge of good and bad". There is a begged question here which would quite naturally include the implications of Adam and Eve's death. One of the implications of Adam and Eve's death is going to heaven and the immorality that implies.

Once again I ask: Where did you get the idea that one goes to heaven after death? Show me your research.

Hint: You won't find it in the Bible.