The First Questions In The Bible

Well, it didn't "happen". (The talking snake should be your first clue.) It's a story, so yes, it is significant. It sets the scene for the rest of the story - the story of human creatures who question our God. It doesn't matter what was "meant". The fact is we do question, we always have and, hopefully, we always will.Some people try to blame the poor snake for "why" we question but the text doesn't support that interpretation. The snake asked an honest question and that question made Eve think.Thinking is a good thing.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

It's more like you trying to pull God into the box with you.The serpent asked Eve, "Did God say you have to stay in the box forever?" Eve replied, "It's dangerous outside the box." The serpent shrugged and said, "I'm outside the box."Then Eve peeked outside the box and she saw what wonders were out there.Later on, God reassured them by making them leather pants to protect them.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Are you equating sin with doubt?

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I walk and talk with a lot of people. I feel free to doubt/question anything they say. Why would mere existence make any of them immune to doubt?I'm thinking that sin is the actual screwing up, the making of bad decisions - not the gathering of information for the purpose of decision-making.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Unless God is speaking to you directly, the distinction is pretty useless. I'd bet that about 100% of what you believe has come from human sources, not directly from God.Adam and Eve were in the same boat: Who to believe? Some guy who claims to be God? Or a miraculous talking snake? But you have no way of knowing what Adam and Eve's motivation was. They gathered information from two different sources and they made a choice. Well, no. God Himself said that eating the fruit made Adam and Eve more like Him. How is that "evil"? As it turns out, their choice was the right one.If they hadn't questioned God, they would have been less Godlike.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Or... the Adam and Eve story is a story, intended to explain what we already know - that we prefer figuring things out for ourselves instead of blindly following orders.I don't see how God's level of foreknowledge has much bearing on that fact of human nature.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

You say "doubt" and "rebel" as if they were bad things. If free will is a good thing, why do you suggest that the first time it was exercised it was bad? As I already said, they had no reason to "trust" anybody. They had no reason to choose God over the snake. "Ashamed of their nakedness" indicates something like "aware of their vulnerability". Before they knew good and evil, they knew nothing about threats to their safety.By talking about God's nakedness, are you suggesting that He was vulnerable too? They were created in God's image. God said, "the man is become as one of us." I don't see how that "becoming" could mean anything else than becoming more. That "unconditional love" thing is not in evidence here. You'd be hard pressed to find it in Genesis. Only if you take the story as a historical incident. It wasn't, of course.The story is an explanation of why we till the ground and why women have pain in childbirth and why we don't like snakes. It's not as if there really was One Choice and they screwed it up. The story is about all the choices we make and about the consequences of screwing up.Yes, the ability to make our own choices, for better or for worse, does make us more Godlike. For future reference, I consider the idea of "perfection" - God's or otherwise - to be (almost) perfectly worthless. Again, it wasn't an event. It's a story about how we grow up and learn that evil things can hurt us. No. I don't know how you get "separate them from God" when God Himself said:

quote:

---

Behold, the man is become as one of us....

---

And why would becoming like God make them feel guilty?

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

If that's all you think free will is, I'm not impressed. I think of free will in terms of taking responsibility for our own actions, making our own decisions after carefully (and sometimes accurately) considering the consequences.If free will is nothing more than the ability to choose our favourite colour, it isn't much of a gift from God. That's all just speculation too. All we have from the Bible is that God claimed to have done those things. As far as Adam knew, it could just as easily have been the snake. We have even less reason to blindly trust than Adam did. We don't have God putting in a personal appearance to make His claims. That's the point of the story, isn't it? When we have the knowledge of good and evil, we are more Godlike, but we still have the consequences of our actions. God, presumably, doesn't have to face the consequences of His actions. Again, that's the point of the story - the choice is supposed to be ours. What makes you think the "God is love" angle is the "right" message to extract from The Book, anyway? To hear some people around here talk, it would be more like "God is justice". I'm saying just the opposite - that Adam and Eve became more Godlike by making their own choice, by questioning the conventional wisdom. I pointed out where God said, "the man has become like one of us." Do you have anything to back up your assertion? I don't see how it can. I'll repeat again: God indicated pretty plainly that they became closer to Him, not farther. I'll also repeat that they recognized their vulnerability, which is inherent in making their own choices. No, not "better yet" at all. I've answered your question: It wasn't a figurative game of hide-and-seek, it was a figurative realization of their mortality.I'd appreciate an answer to my question: Why would becoming like God make them feel guilty?(By the way, could you write in sentences instead of blank verse? It would make your posts easier to read.)

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

How so? The snake put in a personal appearance too. How was Adam supposed to assess their relative merits? That's the standard dogma, but does it make sense?How can you say "without the know-how" when it's about getting the know-how? How can you talk about free will when the only "right" choice is blind obedience? How can you talk about mercy when God is the one who is supposedly causing the consequences? Of course the consequences are the same whether we accept responsibility or not. The point is not to blame gods or snakes for those consequences. Well, they didn't have multiple options. They had two, yes or no, eat the fruit or not, get the knowledge or remain ignorant, grow up or remain immature.There's no hint in the story of anything being partly good or a little bit evil. It's one or the other. In the end, every decision - no matter how complex - comes down to a binary tree. This or that. If this, then two more options. If that, then two other options.(By the way, The Fall™ is another one of those dogma-fictions that won't fly around here unless you're preaching to the choir.) That's not the part that makes us more Godlike, it's the part that prevents us from being God. I asked you how you got to that conclusion. What was the question-and-answer process? For each question, why did you choose one answer and not the other(s)?You're illustrating what I've been saying. Instead of taking responsibility for the conclusion you've reached, you attribute it to a "branding", presumably by some external entity. But the knowledge of good and evil is something we got from God, something that makes us like Him. I'm talking about using that knowledge, like God uses His knowledge, instead of blindly trusting. Blind trust is the childlike state that Adam and Eve left when they became like God. You're tangling yourself up unnecessarily with the hiding-from-His-presence thing. One more time, it was God Himself who said they had become like Him. That's the important point. The hiding can not contradict that point from God's own lips.When God asked why they were hiding, Adam said it was because they were naked, i.e. exposed, vulnerable. With their new-found knowledge of good and evil, they were faced with the decision of who to trust: God or the snake.Notice that God made clothes for them - i.e. he gave them protection. Because of their action, they knew who was the benefactor. And yet you manage to swallow far-fetched dogma with no effort at all. Let's try again. Before they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve were like a couple of kids. God had told them that they'd be in big trouble if they ate the fruit, but there was nothing real about that threat. They had nothing to compare it to. They hadn't lost parents or grandparents.After they ate the fruit, they startd to put two and two together: "It hurts when I stub my toe. My toe bleeds when I drop a rock on it. If I dropped a really big rock on it, the damage would be more severe. I wonder how much it would hurt if a really really big rock fell on it...."They started to notice all the things that could hurt them. And remember that God had "threatened to kill them". Small wonder that they hid in the story, but it's really a recognition of any danger to their lives.As it happened, God reassured them by giving them protective gear. He showed that He accepted them no matter what they did. So they accepted Him too. Being more Godlike is having the knowledge of good and evil. Shall I remind you again that God said so Himself?I'm asking where you get guilt and separation from that.Edited by Ringo, : Typo.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Why should the Garden of Eden be anything more than the setting of the story? You're getting ahead of yourself. I'm asking you why Adam should have trusted God's word. The knowledge of good and evil is the ability to differentiate them. What else could it be? "More Godlike" doesn't mean in comparison to any other animal. It means more Godlike than we were before. We can act or not act. That's free will. For each tree, there was the option of eat or don't eat. The only tree where free will was significant was the one where eating had consequences. Why would you assume that we can have a clear conscience only by blind obedience? Adam and Eve never had immortality. That's irrelevant to the discussion. You keep ignoring what God Himself said. They became like Him when they ate from the tree. That could only improve their communion with Him. A choice not acted on is not a real choice. I have asked you more than once: Why would we feel guilt from using our free will? We always had the mortality.We don't need to feel guilt over using the gift of free will that God gave us.We gain wisdom by making our own choices (and acting on them).

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

You're just making that up. Try actually reading Genesis.Then answer the question: Why should Adam have trusted God's word? Really think about it. Don't just parrot what you've been spoon-fed. He didn't restrict the Tree of Life. Read Genesis. Please, stop the Olympic-caliber long-jumping and think before you post. Free will (two words, by the way) is only free if there are no strings attached. The consequences may be good or bad. They may not be foreseen, but the path leading to the consequences must be freely chosen. If English isn't your first language, let me know and I'll try to take that into account. Otherwise, please stop misrepresenting me.I said that a choice not acted on is not a real choice. For example, if I "choose" a lemon or an orange from your bowl but don't actuallt take it, I haven't really made a choice. I receive no benefit from either "choice" and nobody knows what "choice" I made.On the other hand, if I choose not to commit a crime, I have chosen a different set of consequences. I receive the benefit. Everybody knows what choice I made. Who said anything about causing grief? We're talking about Adam and Eve here. They were the community. Their actions had consequences for themselves, not "grief to the community". I'm not implying selfishness? Where are you getting that?And let me remind you again, it was god who said they became more Godlike. You can argue with Him if you like. Knowledge/awareness of consequences.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

As I said, that's complete fiction. The only recorded interaction between God and Adam before the incident was "Don't eat that tree." With Eve, there was no interaction at all. I didn't say he should have. The choice was his.You're the one who's claiming that he had reason to trust one over the other. I'm asking what that reason was. And, since this is Bible Study, your fictional speculations don't count. I didn't say it was insignificant. It's irrelevant to a discussion of what happened before they were restricted from it. They might have been eating from it or they might not have.We're talking about the first questions here, when Adam and Eve first exercised their free will and questioned God. Their subsequent adventures in mortality had no bearing on those questions. They could not have predicted the consequences. Ask God. Apparently, He didn't want them to be too Godlike. How could you know it was poisonous if you didn't choose it? You have to choose something or you'll starve to death. By the consequences. No consequences, no evidence that a choice was made. That's exactly my point in this whole exchange with you. If Adam and Eve had never had to make a decision before and they were given a choice of God or snake, how could they tell them apart? Chapter and verse? As far as I can see, their actions caused God to be worried that they were becoming too much like Him. Who cares what God thought? I'm saying that it was a good thing for them to be more like God. If He didn't like it, boo hoo, but it was a step up for them. I don't "suppose". This is Bible study. I'm going by what the Bible says. I'm not interested in why Adam "should" have trusted God. I'm only interested in what information he had to work with.The rest of your questions miss the point entirely.God said that eating the fruit made Adam and Eve like Him. If we are going to assume that "God is good", we have to conclude that being like Him is a good thing.Good things sometimes go hand in hand with bad things. Some bad consequences don't nullify the general good that came from Adam and Eve questioning God.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Again, you seem to be confusing the question with the answer. We're trying to determine whether or not Adam and Eve had any reason to believe God when He told them that. That's what the knowledge of good and evil means. It isn't infallible, but it's better than no knowledge at all. Hell no. Strictly lightweight. That's what I'm here for. If you decide to think about the topic, you can still answer the question I've been asking: What reason did Adam and Eve have to trust God?

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

So far, so good. And then you turn around and step right back into the same hole.The story is not just a mere occurence of history. It's about all of us. It's about how we all must learn to differentiate good from evil and how we all face the consequences of our decisions.So you can't say that "they" had no reason to blindly trust God but "we" do. We are them. No. We're not. You're blaming the poor snake for things done in other books that have nothing to do with him. The point of the story is that the decision is ours whether to believe a snake or a guy who claims to be God.Edited by Ringo, : Removed "First" because there's no "Second".

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I'll remind you again that this is Bible Study, not Make-Up-Whatever-You-Feel-Like. If there's something about "the attainable form of Godliness" or "the incomprehensible mystery of “Godliness” that gives Life" in Genesis 3, by all means quote the verses. Otherwise, it's off topic. Again, that's the whole point: they didn't have to choose the "way of the serpent" - i.e. making their own choices instead of blindly obeying. They didn't have to choose the "way of the guy-who-claimed-to-be-God" either. They had free will. That's a very good point. Later on in the Bible, notably the Book of Job, there's another character called "Satan" who's God's prosecutor, God's employee. If you were going to equate the serpent with Satan (even though that would be hard to support Biblically), you could think of the serpent as a servant of God. You could speculate that he was sent by God to plant the seed of doubt in Adam and Eve's minds. You could suggest that the whole incident was God's plan to see if the free-will feature was working.That would be a speculation that's within the parameters of the story.

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC