What does in God’s image mean? He created Adam & Eve without a moral sense.

[Trooper]

So it is the ability to think for ourselves that makes us 'godlike'.

I don’t think so. I think that our desire is so insatiable. So much so, that we long to be like gods.

Before I was an atheist, I still took it as a mythical creation story.

The forbidden fruit was the knowledge of good and evil. If anything, I thought it symbolized desire and temptation. It is somewhat funny how after giving into to this temptation of fruit, she wound up pregnant.

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow, thou shall bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

AND…like every other goddamn story, it’s the female who was the temptress. Funny how it took the serpent to tempt Eve, but only Eve to tempt poor little dumb Adam. Hah! Friggin dumbshit!

Humans…
Jesus Christ, we have huge god-like egos, don’t we?

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

I had a little wine. Can you tell?

 

[Greatest I am]

Murdering, or just A&E becoming aware of their preexisting mortality? Were all of the animals in Eden physically immortal?

Scripture indicates murder. God actively bars the way to the tree of life.

I don't know about the other animals.

How many had access to the tree of life?

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

By the way, it is entirely possible that the first Christian gospel was written specifically to put down the Gnostic movement, which would have made Christianity an intolerable insult to the Jews.

Perhaps.

It would have been ok if Constantine had not bought the Church and started killing off Gnostics and others and burning their scriptures. Shades of Hitler.

Gnostics like myself are thankful that it did not work.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

It is generally accepted that some of the texts of the Hebrew Bible have precedents in earlier ancient (Bronze Age), near Eastern religions and mythology, especially Mesopotamian, but to a lesser extent also Ancient Egyptian.

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

I personally, think there’s a lot of similarity between Ancient Egyptian and the Hebrew bible but the consensus of the scholars is that there’s only a little.

This is very similar to the Books of Proverbs.

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

Like all creation myths, Egypt’s is complex, but they even believed that it all began with the first stirring of the High God on primeval waters. The hieroglyphs were sacred writing, transmitting secret, mystical knowledge. You know that it had to influence Moses with his little commandments.


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

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

I agree that there is not much if anything in Christianity that was not plagiarized from other older religions and myths.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Firstly, although I was not always, I am now an atheist, so who am I to say? But I took God's image to mean mind, not moral sense as the original poster (Greatest I am) suggests.

I mean I think that it is our intelligence, such as it is, and our free will. For instance, why does a dog chase a car? Because he operates on instinct, not intelligence, and his instinct tells him that if it flees, you chase it. If the dog had our type of mind, he'd say, 'Aw hell, I chased cars before and what did I get for it? I'm just going to hang back from now on.

So it is the ability to think for ourselves that makes us 'godlike'. You're right it has nothing to do with arms and legs, feet and hands or gender.

Thanks for this.

I agree that image is all about the mind.

Strange then that God threw a fit on A & E the moment they used it to do their will and not God's.

Great free will that --- Christian style.

Regards
DL

 

[Syne]

Scripture indicates murder. God actively bars the way to the tree of life.

I don't know about the other animals.

How many had access to the tree of life?

"16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”" -Genesis 2

"22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”" -Genesis 3​

The capacity for value judgments only exist among consequences. A value judgment of man's entire existence only exists where the consequences of an end to that existence also exists.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates​

Once again, if man had free will and chose to become like a god, with the capacity for value judgments, then it would be necessary that no consequences were barred to them.

Quite aside from the body being only a vessel for an eternal soul. If you want to be literal about the Bible, then you must equally accept this assumption. So the god just stopped giving them free gas for their cars. That can hardly be called murder.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Perhaps.

It would have been ok if Constantine had not bought the Church and started killing off Gnostics and others and burning their scriptures. Shades of Hitler.

Gnostics like myself are thankful that it did not work.

Regards
DL

When I mentioned Gnosticism, I wasn't referring to a modern version, but the actual cult that appears to have existed during the time the Jesus story first started circulating. A long time before Constantine, Gnosticism may have been something quite different than it may be today.

It certainly could not have been heresy if Christianity (as we know it) did not yet exist. Since the New Testament speaks of and about Gnostic ideas (aeons, John the Baptist, etc.) it's evident that NT Christianity came later.

Here is one example of the evil creator-god I referred to:

[He is ignorant darkness.
When the Light mingled into the darkness
the darkness shone.
When darkness mixed with the Light,
the Light diminished,
No longer Light nor darkness but dim.]

This dim ruler has three names:
Yaldabaoth is the first.
Saklas is the second.
Samael is the third.
He is blasphemous through his thoughtlessness.
He said “I am God, and there is no God but me!”
Since he didn’t know where his own Power originated.

This is from the Apocryphon of John, at the episode of the creation or reality.

This kind of ideology would seem an insult to the Jews. In fact, who were these people? Were they Copts? Followers of Thoth? How did this ideology insinuate itself into Jewish culture?

I think it can be shown that the Jesus story was invented by these folks, possibly from a set of logoi (sayings) of Jesus such as the Gospel of Thomas. They seem to have a connection to Alexandrian Hermeticism and maybe the Essene exiles living at Qumran. If the Jews didn't ostracize the Gnostics, the Christians certainly made up for it. Orthodox Christianity seems to have been itself a heretical form of Gnosticism, which completely overran and displaced it, then quashed the Gnostics wherever possible. No wonder Gnostics ended up a secret society so early on.

There seems to have been a huge void created after the destruction of the Temple, with wild ideas taking root faster than the emasculated rabbinical authorities could possibly put them down.

The more I learn about early Church history the more I am convinced it arises out of crazy mixed up circumstances, a fact that seems to be lost to anyone suffering the side effects of blind faith.

 

[Greatest I am]

"16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”" -Genesis 2

"22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”" -Genesis 3​

The capacity for value judgments only exist among consequences. A value judgment of man's entire existence only exists where the consequences of an end to that existence also exists.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates​

Once again, if man had free will and chose to become like a god, with the capacity for value judgments, then it would be necessary that no consequences were barred to them.

Quite aside from the body being only a vessel for an eternal soul. If you want to be literal about the Bible, then you must equally accept this assumption. So the god just stopped giving them free gas for their cars. That can hardly be called murder.

You completely ignored the question posed.

Murder is as murder does and God murdered A & E just like he also murdered his own son when there was no need to.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

When I mentioned Gnosticism, I wasn't referring to a modern version, but the actual cult that appears to have existed during the time the Jesus story first started circulating. A long time before Constantine, Gnosticism may have been something quite different than it may be today.

It certainly could not have been heresy if Christianity (as we know it) did not yet exist. Since the New Testament speaks of and about Gnostic ideas (aeons, John the Baptist, etc.) it's evident that NT Christianity came later.

Here is one example of the evil creator-god I referred to:



This is from the Apocryphon of John, at the episode of the creation or reality.

This kind of ideology would seem an insult to the Jews. In fact, who were these people? Were they Copts? Followers of Thoth? How did this ideology insinuate itself into Jewish culture?

I think it can be shown that the Jesus story was invented by these folks, possibly from a set of logoi (sayings) of Jesus such as the Gospel of Thomas. They seem to have a connection to Alexandrian Hermeticism and maybe the Essene exiles living at Qumran. If the Jews didn't ostracize the Gnostics, the Christians certainly made up for it. Orthodox Christianity seems to have been itself a heretical form of Gnosticism, which completely overran and displaced it, then quashed the Gnostics wherever possible. No wonder Gnostics ended up a secret society so early on.

There seems to have been a huge void created after the destruction of the Temple, with wild ideas taking root faster than the emasculated rabbinical authorities could possibly put them down.

The more I learn about early Church history the more I am convinced it arises out of crazy mixed up circumstances, a fact that seems to be lost to anyone suffering the side effects of blind faith.

No argument on this at all.

Regards
DL

 

[Syne]

You completely ignored the question posed.

Murder is as murder does and God murdered A & E just like he also murdered his own son when there was no need to.

I thought men murdered Jesus. What Bible are you reading?

 

[Trooper]

I agree that there is not much if anything in Christianity that was not plagiarized from other older religions and myths.

Ah-ah-ah, not so fast, not ONLY Christianity...BUT ALL RELIGIONS.

This kind of ideology would seem an insult to the Jews. In fact, who were these people? Were they Copts? Followers of Thoth? How did this ideology insinuate itself into Jewish culture?

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6723-gnosticism#ixzz1L59waxy8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism#Judaism_and_Gnosticism

“Some critics further claim, that even the description of Thomas as a "gnostic" gospel is based upon little other than the fact that it was found along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi.”

But I disagree. I think it even resembles atheism.

Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.
Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live.
If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"
His disciples said to him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?"
He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it."
His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"
"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html

 

[Greatest I am]

I thought men murdered Jesus. What Bible are you reading?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ott15j2KwQ&feature=related

Regards
DL

 

[Syne]

@GIA

Once again, perfectly reconciled if the will of men is the only operational will of god. God predetermined it because men self-determined their actions.

 

[Greatest I am]

@GIA

Once again, perfectly reconciled if the will of men is the only operational will of god. God predetermined it because men self-determined their actions.

It was God's plan from the beginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can be demonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucified from the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucify Jesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damned sin.

If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build into the Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for a problem you do not anticipate?

God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the die was cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.

This then begs the question.

What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when there was absolutely no need to?

Only an insane God. That’s who.

The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.


------------------------

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

Regards
DL

 

[Syne]

It was God's plan from the beginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can be demonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucified from the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucify Jesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damned sin.

If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build into the Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for a problem you do not anticipate?

God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the die was cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.

This then begs the question.

What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when there was absolutely no need to?

Only an insane God. That’s who.

The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.

Unlike you choose to, I don't naively assume the Bible literal nor inerrant.

But once again, what does the loss of a body really matter if there is an eternal soul? Murder, in the eyes of such a god, could only be the destruction of the soul. Or even quite literally, god supposedly raised Jesus from the dead, which as you claim was also planned for all along.

Just like there are medical reasons to stop a person's heart, and even blood flow to the brain, with the full intent to resuscitate.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

And the same old post you copy and paste in at every opportunity.

 

[Greatest I am]

Yes. Good sense is hard to get past stupidity blocks sometimes.

Thanks for showing though hoe your God does not venerate the life that he supposedly give when he does his Indian giver B S and claws them back.

As to the bible, it is a book of fiction.

Your
"Unlike you choose to, I don't naively assume the Bible literal nor inerrant"

Is also a fictitious lie.

Regards
DL

 

[Syne]

Your
"Unlike you choose to, I don't naively assume the Bible literal nor inerrant"

Is also a fictitious lie.

Then all your posts are nothing but rhetoric. If you don't think it is literally true then it is completely disingenuous to claim it should only be taken literally. All of your arguments...right down the crapper.

 

[Greatest I am]

Then all your posts are nothing but rhetoric. If you don't think it is literally true then it is completely disingenuous to claim it should only be taken literally. All of your arguments...right down the crapper.

Where did I indicate that scriptures should be taken literally?
Can you say anything that is not a distortion of what is said?

We are about done friend.
I have little time for fools who cannot keep things straight.

Regards
DL

 

[Syne]

Where did I indicate that scriptures should be taken literally?
Can you say anything that is not a distortion of what is said?

Because I want to refute it as Christian literalist...

No distortion at all. Either you belief it should be taken literally or you haven't refuted a thing I've said, as your arguments have assumed a literal take and I don't hold it to be literal.

I even entered this thread with the clear expression that I don't argue it literally.

Why do you insist upon taking allegory so bleeding literal?

 

[Greatest I am]

Done here.

Regards
DL