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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The origins and spread of evil and sin within our lives
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Boogie: nice translation of this into our choices to be civilized or animal.
I took a leap yesterday, and met for a long period with a priest to discuss issues of evil and how it enters our lives. He offered a very helpful idea that God does not protect us from evil, nor is evil found under every rock or in every person's will. Rather, evil is merely a fact, and some bad things that are felt as evil in our experience are merely part of how the world has developed within a developing universe. We can call some of these things unfortunate events and remove the less ominous label of evil from them. There is Boogie's idea of choice in here, and place of God as helper and supporter. But not God as rescuer and miracle maker.
[tangent]
I've heard and thought of this before, but the way it was described and discussed made it understandable in a way I didn't get before.
[/tangent]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Except that you have no evidence for God and it is clear that the imagined God is not only good but also evil - otherwise why delay his return until many billions are to be punished for their ignorance.
It is not deceptive to state simply that one is unable to believe in something which, at its simplest, is downright silly, whether that be a flat earth, foreseeing the future or the existence of God(s) and demi-gods.
As for what is deception - those who claim certainty where it cannot exist are deceptive, those who promise rewards and punishment they cannot evidence are deceptive, and those who seek out the vulnerable - children, the poor, the aged, the gullible and the infirm - in order to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims are deceptive - but it's all OK if it's in the service of their unevidenced soul?
I'll get my coat.
If I had no evidence for God's existence I would not believe it to be the truth that God is real. Goodness, kindness and love are of God. Those of us who want there to be a perfect world where nobody will harm themselves or anybody else might recognise it as the kingdom of God, and know that we don't all currently live within that kingdom - by our own free will choice. We must live side by side with those who make choices which differ from our own, and suffer the consequences of everyone's gift of free will.
We might learn by experience and repent, ie change our ways, or we might decide that we don't care, we can't be bothered, or we rather like our harmful ways. Our choice, our responsibility. Every instinct and emotion has a good purpose, but it may be corrupted into a harmful tendency.
It is never right to harm others, however much we convince ourselves that it is for their benefit. Nor is it right to keep the truth about the existence of God's goodness and love from anybody, child or adult.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Well, chimps (and no doubt our common ancestor) are very co-operative, kind and friendly until one not of their group comes to visit. Humans are often just the same.
I still can't find 'Adam' in any of this.
I can see God as creator - 'tho I would question a lot of the way the universe works. I can also see God as helper and supporter, as no prophet says. Like quetzalcoatl says - the animal in us is also still vital for survival purposes, so we can't leave it behind but have to accept and live with it (like choosing to eat but not overeat)
Evil is a choice. We choose to rise above the animal 'raw in tooth and claw' minute by minute in all our reactions to others, in all our thoughts and deeds - or not.
This is not a Christian thing, except in that Jesus was the best ever example of it and the best ever teacher of it imo.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Evil is a choice. We choose to rise above the animal 'raw in tooth and claw' minute by minute in all our reactions to others, in all our thoughts and deeds - or not.
This is not a Christian thing, except in that Jesus was the best ever example of it and the best ever teacher of it imo.
Yes but.. many Christian will say that original sin restricts our choices for 'there is no health in us.'
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Yes but.. many Christian will say that original sin restricts our choices for 'there is no health in us.'
As ever, this is a matter of interpretation. If we are all capable of sin (and if we are able to decide between right and wrong then we must be), and if we have all actually done something wrong (after all, which one of us is perfect?) then we might assume that we have inherited the genes which give us this lack of perfection - or health - from the first man and woman.
This does not restrict our choices, but might well explain our harmful tendencies.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Like.
So, footwasher, creation is broken because it's not broken. Riiiiight. Who was Adam?
Lamb Chopped. None of those metaphors work.
The origin and spread of the evil and sin within our lives is a result of the exponential increase in complexity caused by the evolution of sapience.
Yup, just love the punnology! Adam stalled the completion of creation by not subduing his body, put to death it's capricious-ness through the Holy Spirit.
Seriously, the whole of creation waits in eager expectation for the full revelation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19).
Who, what is Adam?
Adam is the one who is inseparable from humanity. For any given reason, where Adam goes, humanity must go. Maybe he is the only one who can sign documents. Maybe he needs his family close by. You choose.
A good way to understand Adam is to imagine he is your father. Imagine also you are working in Monaco. The latter, as all are aware, is a tax free zone, as far as incomes are concerned.
Suppose your father committed a crime. This led to his deportation back to Blighty. Remember, where he goes you have to go. As a result of his crime, therefore, the full family must return home.
Now see what develops. Now, now, you must pay tax on your income. Not paying tax is an infraction, you are non compliant if you don't pay tax.
What has happened is that where you could formerly do something, not pay tax and be NOT in infraction, now, not paying tax makes you a transgressor.
You have moved from a zone which is free from the jurisdiction of law to a zone which is under the jurisdiction of law.
Well, that's who Adam is.
The guy who got you turfed out of a law free zone into a law infested zone!
When?
When Adam chose to have immediate access to knowledge of good and evil.
How?
First, let's see where the explanation of how sin made its first appearance, by Augustine, went wrong and how THAT happened.
Augustine made a mistake with his use of a wrong Latin translation of Romans 5:12 which used a preposition which is considered to be the most disastrous preposition in history.
QUOTE
But Augustine did not devise the concept of original sin. It was his use of specific New Testament scriptures to justify the doctrine that was new. The concept itself had been shaped from the late second century onward by certain church fathers, including Irenaeus, Origen and Tertullian. Irenaeus did not use the Scriptures at all for his definition; Origen reinterpreted the Genesis account of Adam and Eve in terms of a Platonic allegory and saw sin deriving solely from free will; and Tertullian’s version was borrowed from Stoic philosophy.
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=227
Instead of understanding it as "because", Augustine understood it as "in whom":
Quote
Augustine took Paul’s phrase “ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον” following the Vulgate “in quo omnes peccaverunt” to be “in whom [Adam] all sinned”.
(The Greek can be transliterated ef’ ho pantes hemarton.) Well, Augustine didn’t actually use the Vulgate, which was being translated during his lifetime, but the sometimes not very accurate Old Latin translations. But his Latin version seems to have been similar to the Vulgate here. Doug continues:
the Augustinian interpretation of Paul’s “ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον” as meaning “in whom all sinned” makes it the most disastrous preposition in history. All modern translations agree that its proper meaning is “because.”
More precisely, “the most disastrous preposition” is ἐφ᾽ ef’, a contracted form ofepi meaning “on”. The Greek phrase ἐφ᾽ ᾧ ef’ ho literally means “on which”, or possibly “on whom”, but is commonly used to mean “because”, or perhaps “in that”. The problem is that the Latin rendering of ἐφ᾽ ᾧ, in quo, is ambiguous between “in which” and “in whom” (I’m not sure if it can also mean simply “because” or “in that”), and Augustine understood it as meaning “in whom”, i.e. “in Adam”.
So, according to Augustine all sinned “in Adam”, which he understood as meaning that because Adam sinned every other human being, each of his descendants, is counted as a sinner. This is his doctrine of “original sin”, that every human is born a sinner and deserves death because of it. He may have taken up this idea because it agreed with his former Manichaean theology. This teaching is fundamental to most Protestant as well as Roman Catholic teaching today. For example, it underlies the Protestant (not just Calvinist) teaching of total depravity, that the unsaved person can do nothing good, a teaching for which there is little biblical basis apart from Augustine’s misunderstanding which was followed by Calvin.
http://www.gentlewisdom.org/246/augustines-mistake-about-sin/
That's right folks, it's:
because Adam sinned that sin entered the world,
NET Bible
So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned--
NOT:
it's because we all have sinned in Adam that sin entered the world,
Douay-Rheims Bible
Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.
Who was Adam?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
The next minimalist answer to a series of nested quotes looking like something out of a demented Jenga puzzle is going to be referred to admin.
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sir.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
Hi Martin , you wrote,
Martin60 wrote :
quote:
Who was Adam?
Good question, especially meaningful for a Christian to ask.
Augustine's mistake resulted in the teaching that all humans existed in Adam and therefore when he sinned everybody sinned. We are born sinners.
Now we know that sin entered the world because Adam sinned. And because sin entered, death followed :
quote:
Quote
Not only is it absurd that Jerome made ἐφ’ into “in,” but he connected the ᾧ pronoun in the ἐφ’ ᾧ clause back to Adam instead of “death,” which is what makes the most sense syntactically. If the ἐφ’ ᾧ is connected to death instead, then “death spread to all by which all have sinned,” which would make death the spiritual reality that is the source of sin instead of the punishment for sin (which is how the Eastern Orthodox interpret this passage).
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mercynotsacrifice/2012/12/12/original-sin-part-one-romans-512-21/
IOW, the Eastern Orthodox church teaches that death causes sin :
quote:
Quote
Yes, perhaps one could say that in a certain sense death itself is the "stain" of original sin. Because of the certainty of physical death, we try to evade the inevitable. This leads us to try and cheat death, which results in sin. We store more food than we need (gluttony), we horde wealth and resources (avarice), we use our reproductive potential wantonly (lechery), etc... In the quest to cheat death we distort natural God-given gifts. Thus, death causes us to sin.
This, then, is the situation
1. Adam's sin causes him and his descendants to be separated from the tree of life
2. Death results
3. Fear of death causes selfish chasing after food, shelter and large families (all resources delaying death).
A good question then is, how does the Gospel change things. In Orthodoxy, salvation means being saved not from God’s wrath, but from the power, the control, the sting and the poison of the three great enemies: sin, death, and the devil.
So the question of who was Adam, for a Christian would be, he was the old humanity of which the believer was a part, before baptism.
Who, then, IS Christ?
He is the new humanity of which we now are a part of.
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So who was Adam?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So who was Adam?
The Jewish sages teach that if Adam had waited till the Sabbath, God would have given him knowledge of God and evil, a good thing but at the proper time, when he had tamed his body.
So Adam was the incomplete prototype, a noble spirit matched to a body of death, on the loose, bringinging forth little Adams (and Eves) with no recourse for God to initiate a recall. The damage control had to be sent out instead...
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So he's a real person or not?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So he's a real person or not?
Serious scholars recognise he is both: a real person as well as archetypal of humanity after the fall.
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Which serious scholars?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
To the contrary, it is based on experience rather than dogma. Evidence is seen in a small child whose smile illustrates his recognition of goodness, and whose body language gives him away when he tells lies.
You are misinterpreting the child's body language.
You are also assuming that the child has been taught the same values of good and bad as yours.
Children learn more in the first two years of their lives than the rest of it, it's when the neural pathways explode, only to be reduced in number as they learn what is important to them. As part of that initial learning they learn how to respond so that others will look after them. When they smile it is to gain a reaction from you because they have learnt that is an occasion when the smile will bring reward and when they demonstrate the knowledge that they have lied it is because they fear/expect the repeat of earlier felt/observed punishment. No wonder religion is readily absorbed by youngsters - evolution has programmed them to be vulnerable hasn't it.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Oh rubbish to both "arguments".
@Raptor's Eye: a smile is the outer manifestation of the innate realisation of a Noble Truth. Can't prove it is not, can you?
quote:
Nor is it right to keep the truth about the existence of God's goodness and love from anybody, child or adult.
Funny, that could be as true a statement from a militant atheist or a fundamentalist Muslim as well as a fundamentalist Christian.
@HughWillRidmee: Please. We are not merely squishy robots programmed by reward/punishment. That is as silly as the "I'd slit your throat, crack your skull and feast on the goo within if it weren't for fear of God" silliness. Both are attributes of sociopathy, not normally functioning humans.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
If I had no evidence for God's existence I would not believe it to be the truth that God is real.
I accept that you think you have evidence - we probably disagree about what it takes for evidence to be valid rather than illusory. quote:
Goodness, kindness and love are of God.
That is your belief – it cannot be demonstrated to be true and it is not the only possible reason why human beings should develop such behaviours to enable them to survive within groupings larger than the family - (I recently threw "Mere Christianity" at the wall - I got to page 48 - because CSL was unable to accept, partly due to the general ignorance of the early 1940s, the irrationality of the assumption he based the whole series of lectures upon.) quote:
Those of us who want there to be a perfect world where nobody will harm themselves or anybody else might recognise it as the kingdom of God,
are you suggesting that those who do not believe in your God do not want such a world? quote:
and know that we don't all currently live within that kingdom - by our own free will choice. We must live side by side with those who make choices which differ from our own, and suffer the consequences of everyone's gift of free will.
The experimental evidence is so overwhelming that almost no neuroscience researchers accept the possibility of “free will” as generally assumed. We act the way we do because of our unique mix of genetic inheritance (nature) and our lifetime experience (nurture). Decisions are made in our subconscious mind and (under ƒMRI and other scanning systems) we can see that the course of action is set in motion prior to the conscious mind kidding itself that it is exercising “free will”. quote:
We might learn by experience and repent, ie change our ways, or we might decide that we don't care, we can't be bothered, or we rather like our harmful ways. Our choice, our responsibility. Every instinct and emotion has a good purpose, but it may be corrupted into a harmful tendency.
We can change our ways because of changes to the subconscious “balance” through additional nurture imports. No element of conscious choice exists. quote:
It is never right to harm others, however much we convince ourselves that it is for their benefit.
Questionable but not central - If I use force enough to bruise and stop someone from doing something to permanently harm themselves its wrong? If I prevent them spending a lifetime regretting an action which must lead to their long-term incarceration? quote:
Nor is it right to keep the truth about the existence of God's goodness and love from anybody, child or adult.
I would agree if it were possible to demonstrate that what is taught as truth is so. A conviction, however genuinely held, has no relevance to the validity it holds.
Where do you stand on the time-honoured conviction that lying is moral if it is in pursuit of a soul's salvation?
The truth about the existence of God is that many people believe in (sometimes very) different Gods, that none of them can demonstrate that their belief is a true reflection of reality, that there is no need for God(s) outside those needs implanted in human minds and no evidence for God(s) that does not point, at least as strongly, to alternative, non-god, explanations. And just because we don’t know something does not mean that “god” must be the answer – it might be a possible answer but not “the answer”.
To go full circle - you say "It is never right to harm others, however much we convince ourselves that it is for their benefit". and yet you propose the teaching of sometimes demonstrably harmful belief, belief that leads, amongst other things, to the subjugation of women, to deliberate physical damage to those too young to give informed consent, to the impoverishment of families (think food, education and experience) through the need to fund religious institutions, the harm that occurs because people trust miracles and eschew medicine, and the psychological horrors that some have to endure because they are terrified of imaginary concepts such as a soul, the devil, hell and eternal whatever your preference.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
If I had no evidence for God's existence I would not believe it to be the truth that God is real.
I accept that you think you have evidence - we probably disagree about what it takes for evidence to be valid rather than illusory.
Here, as with most of our areas of disagreement, I point to where observation by experience ends and where conjecture begins. Each of us might point to the other as having picked up conjecture rather than having validated observed experience. There is nowhere to go, other than to agree that we disagree as to where the truth lies.
quote:
are you suggesting that those who do not believe in your God do not want such a world?
What gives you that impression?
quote:
Questionable but not central - If I use force enough to bruise and stop someone from doing something to permanently harm themselves its wrong? If I prevent them spending a lifetime regretting an action which must lead to their long-term incarceration?
We might go into all kinds of scenario's - is it right to cut someone's arm off if it is caught in a machine, with no other way of extricating him before he will die? It isn't right to harm ourselves or other people, but it is right to do good to each other.
I don't know why you think that anyone would think it necessary to tell lies 'in pursuit of a soul's salvation.'
There is only one living God, the God that is never buried under words, thoughts, deceptions or disbelief, the God who always surfaces again and is revealed to people. The truth is always with us, and we do know it in our 'hearts and souls' - those aspects of us so elusive, so impossible to pin down.
God is not the answer as much as the question. God is not someone who fills gaps in our knowledge, but someone who opens up more of them.
Your examples of where people have and do use man-made rules they have incorporated into organised religions to do what is against God's good will is all the more reason to share the teaching of Jesus, who was so condemning of such behaviour that they crucified him.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The experimental evidence is so overwhelming that almost no neuroscience researchers accept the possibility of “free will” as generally assumed. We act the way we do because of our unique mix of genetic inheritance (nature) and our lifetime experience (nurture). Decisions are made in our subconscious mind and (under ƒMRI and other scanning systems) we can see that the course of action is set in motion prior to the conscious mind kidding itself that it is exercising “free will”.
We had a neuroscience researcher on the Ship until recently (IngoB) and he did believe in free will. Perhaps not Cartesian free will, if that's what you mean by 'as generally assumed'.
There are problems with generalising from the kinds of decision - when to press a button - that can be measured and predicted when scanned to decisions in general life. Most notably, the claim that the conscious mind plays no role in decision making and only kids itself that it does does not explain why we have evolved a conscious mind that kids itself. Assuming the conscious mind is an inaccurate model of the subconscious which is doing all the work, then we must run the model at some cost in energy. For the conscious mind to evolve the cost must pay off in some way. The leading hypotheses of how it pays off of which I'm aware - for example, that the conscious mind monitors decisions and evaluates or second guesses them - require that actually the conscious mind is able to step in and alter decisions.
quote:
We can change our ways because of changes to the subconscious “balance” through additional nurture imports. No element of conscious choice exists.
The thing is, I'm not convinced you really believe this, even if you've convinced yourself you do.
Earlier in the thread, Raptor Eye opined:
quote:
The good in us, the kindness we might show to a complete stranger, the self-giving love that leads to actions against our own interests, has its origin in God. We know that instinctively.
And you replied:
quote:
Nonsense - I know nothing of the sort.
Now, your position about the conscious mind being simply an illusion that kids itself commits you to the view that we may subconsciously/ instinctively know things that we consciously think we don't know or even deny. So the strongest response you're consistently entitled to would have been: 'I have no evidence that I know anything of the sort'. But that's not what you said, and the rest of your post implied a reaction only justified by the stronger position you actually said.
It looks like all this stuff about conscious/subconscious is - whatever you've consciously convinced yourself - something you use as a weapon in polemic when it suits, but don't subconsciously believe and therefore tacitly forget about whenever it doesn't suit your present purpose.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Which serious scholars?
Wright quotes from him:
quote:
Quote
In my view, Adam and Eve are historical figures—real people in a real past. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the biblical text is more interested in them as archetypal figures who represent all of humanity. This is particularly true in the account in Genesis 2 about their formation. I contend that the formation accounts are not addressing their material formation as biological specimens, but are addressing the forming of all of humanity: we are all formed from dust, and we are all gendered halves. If this is true, Genesis 2 is not making claims about biological origins of humanity, and therefore the Bible should not be viewed as offering competing claims against science about human origins. If this is true, Adam and Eve also may or may not be the first humans or the parents of the entire human race. Such an archetypal focus is theologically viable and is well-represented in the ancient Near East (p. 89). - See more at: http://biologos.org/blogs/jim-stump-faith-and-science-seeking-understanding/interpreting-adam-an-interview-with-john-walton#s thash.UcoEH80U.dpuf
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
So, somewhere, once upon a very long time ago there were two perfect humans who were innocent about sin, pure.
Animals?
They then disobeyed God's warning and received the knowledge of good and evil before they were ready.
Became human?
Then, 2000 years ago another human/god came along and sorted it all out?
All we have to do is believe this and we can share in the sorting out and leave evil behind.
If we don't/can't believe it then tough shit.
Meanwhile people who don't believe it go on living ordinary lives, most of them good lives. They make mistakes but, by and large, are kind to each other and their neighbours. Yet, somehow, they are not considered part of this 'kingdom'?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
From the quote, I quote: "Genesis 2 is not making claims about biological origins of humanity, and therefore the Bible should not be viewed as offering competing claims against science about human origins".
As any serious scholar would have to say.
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Love wins
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So, somewhere, once upon a very long time ago there were two perfect humans who were innocent about sin, pure.
Animals?
They then disobeyed God's warning and received the knowledge of good and evil before they were ready.
Became human?
Then, 2000 years ago another human/god came along and sorted it all out?
All we have to do is believe this and we can share in the sorting out and leave evil behind.
If we don't/can't believe it then tough shit.
Meanwhile people who don't believe it go on living ordinary lives, most of them good lives. They make mistakes but, by and large, are kind to each other and their neighbours. Yet, somehow, they are not considered part of this 'kingdom'?
We don't have to believe your interpretation, or any interpretation, of the Adam and Eve story. Stories are there to help us as we think about our relationship with God, not to hinder us. It is possible that the people who originally passed the stories on had no such thoughts in their minds as those some theologians have thought up and handed down since, and yet they were God's people.
We have Jesus to thank for helping us to jettison the man-made handbook, but then we made more handbooks which are not always helpful.
The Kingdom of God as I think of it is the perfect place we might want to and aim to live in, the world which is in alignment with God's will, where God's will is good. I don't rule anyone out of it. I think some people rule themselves out of it, not by what they find they can or can't believe, but by behaving in ways which are not loving or kind to all people, ie by not living in alignment with God's will.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So, somewhere, once upon a very long time ago there were two perfect humans who were innocent about sin, pure.
Animals?
They then disobeyed God's warning and received the knowledge of good and evil before they were ready.
Became human?
Then, 2000 years ago another human/god came along and sorted it all out?
*All we have to do is believe this and we can share in the sorting out and leave evil behind.
If we don't/can't believe it then tough shit.
**Meanwhile people who don't believe it go on living ordinary lives, most of them good lives. They make mistakes but, by and large, are kind to each other and their neighbours. Yet, somehow, they are not considered part of this 'kingdom'?
As for point marked*
The gospel is that we can be part of the new humanity that is putting to death the deeds of the body. Paul says where the conscience, knowledge of good and evil, was of no use in taming the body, because of the weakness of the human will, God fixed it by sending His Son:
Romans 8:3For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Now you are part of the new humanity which can enter the Kingdom, can be a blessing to the world, can subdue the earth...
By putting to death the deeds of the body by the Holy Spirit.
To answer the point marked **
There are different levels of salvation, as confirmed by Christ, when some will sit at His right hand, whilst others will sit further down the table. Those who without the law, keep the requirements of the law, will not God regard them as if they were believers? Romans 2:26
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
I don't know why you think that anyone would think it necessary to tell lies 'in pursuit of a soul's salvation.'
I’ve been there when it was done – A “well-regarded Youth Evangelist” said “Faith is easy, you have it every time you turn on a tap” That’s lying about what faith is – when I turn on a tap I have a reasonable expectation based on thousands of past experiences. It’s an old tradition, some say going back to Eusebius or even earlier. Martin Luther is reported as saying ”What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them". It is the attitude which permits belief to be presented to the vulnerable as though it were demonstrable fact.
quote:
There is only one living God, the God that is never buried under words, thoughts, deceptions or disbelief, the God who always surfaces again and is revealed to people. The truth is always with us, and we do know it in our 'hearts and souls' - those aspects of us so elusive, so impossible to pin down. .
Hearts are easy to pin down, they’re the pump that causes our blood to circulate. Souls on the other hand cannot be pinned down – and the most reasonable explanation as to why is that they don’t exist. quote:
God is not the answer as much as the question. God is not someone who fills gaps in our knowledge, but someone who opens up more of them.
And I’m sure you believe this to be true -it’s just that you cannot demonstrate that it is. Just because you do not doubt it doesn’t make it true. I accept that you do not need evidence – I do, and there seems to none available. quote:
Your examples of where people have and do use man-made rules they have incorporated into organised religions to do what is against God's good will is all the more reason to share the teaching of Jesus, who was so condemning of such behaviour that they crucified him.
Teaching and crucifixion as, IMO, inconsistently presented in a rather dodgy collection of many years past the event marketing literature. If it is not possible to demonstrate the existence of God it is also impossible to demonstrate that he has a will – if such a will cannot be demonstrated we end up with the God who reflects our own wishes, desires and self-justifications - which may go some way to explaining why so many people are content to hijack the concept for their own wicked purposes.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The experimental evidence is so overwhelming that almost no neuroscience researchers accept the possibility of “free will” as generally assumed. We act the way we do because of our unique mix of genetic inheritance (nature) and our lifetime experience (nurture). Decisions are made in our subconscious mind and (under ƒMRI and other scanning systems) we can see that the course of action is set in motion prior to the conscious mind kidding itself that it is exercising “free will”.
We had a neuroscience researcher on the Ship until recently (IngoB) and he did believe in free will. Perhaps not Cartesian free will, if that's what you mean by 'as generally assumed'.
There are problems with generalising from the kinds of decision - when to press a button - that can be measured and predicted when scanned to decisions in general life. Most notably, the claim that the conscious mind plays no role in decision making and only kids itself that it does does not explain why we have evolved a conscious mind that kids itself. Assuming the conscious mind is an inaccurate model of the subconscious which is doing all the work, then we must run the model at some cost in energy. For the conscious mind to evolve the cost must pay off in some way. The leading hypotheses of how it pays off of which I'm aware - for example, that the conscious mind monitors decisions and evaluates or second guesses them - require that actually the conscious mind is able to step in and alter decisions.
I think your assumption is incorrect.
quote:
We can change our ways because of changes to the subconscious “balance” through additional nurture imports. No element of conscious choice exists.
The thing is, I'm not convinced you really believe this, even if you've convinced yourself you do.
Earlier in the thread, Raptor Eye opined:
quote:
The good in us, the kindness we might show to a complete stranger, the self-giving love that leads to actions against our own interests, has its origin in God. We know that instinctively.
And you replied:
quote:
Nonsense - I know nothing of the sort.
Now, your position about the conscious mind being simply an illusion I don't think I suggested the conscious mind is an illusion did I?. that kids itself commits you to the view that we may subconsciously/ instinctively know things that we consciously think we don't know or even deny. So the strongest response you're consistently entitled to would have been: 'I have no evidence that I know anything of the sort'. But that's not what you said, and the rest of your post implied a reaction only justified by the stronger position you actually said. It is, in fact, exactly what I said. I know nothing of the sort, where "know" means I am conscious of it as a provable truth. Could it be true but unknown, yes, as could the whole supernatural caboodle, but in the absence of both evidence and need the rational response is to ignore the unknowable possibility.
It looks like all this stuff about conscious/subconscious is - whatever you've consciously convinced yourself - something you use as a weapon in polemic when it suits, but don't subconsciously believe and therefore tacitly forget about whenever it doesn't suit your present purpose.
If you can do so I recommend that you watch the television series “The Brain with David Eagleman”. The first two shows are available on the BBC iPlayer - BBC4 .
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Can't we create a special forum where people can go to say "You don't have scientific proof for the existence of God!" and then we set up a rota where we take turns of going into that forum and reply "We know!" ![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
[ 30. January 2016, 21:51: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Can't we create a special forum where people can go to say "You don't have scientific proof for the existence of God!" and then we set up a rota where we take turns of going into that forum and reply "We know!"
It wouldn't be difficult to rig up a program to scan for key phrases and automatically post a reply. It could even join the ship as a member. Would we notice?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm extremely grateful for HWR's contributions, as they are close to my other side of the same coin: Rigorous atheism with Christ.
[ 31. January 2016, 09:27: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
But this thread isn't about God - it's about evil.
Yes, we've had a lot of 'God is the answer to evil' posts, fair enough. She may be.
But, if evil isn't us giving in to animal desires without thought for others - then what causes it?
Even if there were an original, first, Adam who was aware of evil and chose to do it anyway - that means nothing really. The genes he passed on wouldn't cause every descendant to behave as he did. Human behaviour is far, far more complicated than that.
I don't think many people are evil. We make mistakes, we learn. By and large we do our best to care for others, both people known and unknown to us. We get on amazingly well, even in very large groups.
Some (sociopaths, psychopaths) have, one way or another, gone badly wrong and now have no empathy. But - although the damage they cause is terrible - they are very much in the minority.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Christ radiates God, Martin: the goodness and love, peace and light of God.
There is no place for evil or sin, for deception or denial, in the presence of Christ.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
But this thread isn't about God - it's about evil.
Yes, we've had a lot of 'God is the answer to evil' posts, fair enough. She may be.
But, if evil isn't us giving in to animal desires without thought for others - then what causes it?
Even if there were an original, first, Adam who was aware of evil and chose to do it anyway - that means nothing really. The genes he passed on wouldn't cause every descendant to behave as he did. Human behaviour is far, far more complicated than that.
I don't think many people are evil. We make mistakes, we learn. By and large we do our best to care for others, both people known and unknown to us. We get on amazingly well, even in very large groups.
Some (sociopaths, psychopaths) have, one way or another, gone badly wrong and now have no empathy. But - although the damage they cause is terrible - they are very much in the minority.
Most people think of evil as the very worst actions, like murder or rape, while sin covers every little harmful thing we do, or good thing we neglect to do.
I am not convinced that everyone does continue to learn, or want to learn, nor that everyone does their best for others. I include myself here. I could do better, I could do more. I have harmful traits to continue to capture and overcome. In some matters I feel helpless in my neglect, and unsure how to proceed, using that as an excuse rather than finding a way forward. Am I giving in to animal instincts here? As you said, this seems far more subtle and cerebral than basic animal behaviour dictates.
I do know that my impetus to put away sin and draw my behaviour nearer to God's will arises from my love of God and the love of other people which comes from God.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Most notably, the claim that the conscious mind plays no role in decision making and only kids itself that it does does not explain why we have evolved a conscious mind that kids itself. Assuming the conscious mind is an inaccurate model of the subconscious which is doing all the work, then we must run the model at some cost in energy. For the conscious mind to evolve the cost must pay off in some way. The leading hypotheses of how it pays off of which I'm aware - for example, that the conscious mind monitors decisions and evaluates or second guesses them - require that actually the conscious mind is able to step in and alter decisions.
I think your assumption is incorrect.
Why do you think it is incorrect?
The conscious brain believes it is making the decisions, but in fact the decisions are already made. Why is that not an inaccurate model?
Or are you disputing the main statement, and claiming that consciousness somehow evades the laws of thermodynamics?
quote:
quote:
[qb] Now, your position about the conscious mind being simply an illusion that kids itself commits you to the view that we may subconsciously/ instinctively know things that we consciously think we don't know or even deny. So the strongest response you're consistently entitled to would have been: 'I have no evidence that I know anything of the sort'. But that's not what you said, and the rest of your post implied a reaction only justified by the stronger position you actually said. [qb]
It is, in fact, exactly what I said. I know nothing of the sort, where "know" means I am conscious of it as a provable truth.
That's not what 'know' means. I know lots of things of which I am not presently conscious.
(And if you were genuinely using such an idiosyncratic definition of 'know', it was careless not to say so in response to someone explicitly using 'know' to cover stuff of which we are not fully conscious.)
(I also know lots of things that are not provable: for example, I know that the birds I saw in a tree yesterday were woodpigeons, which is not provable, because there's no documentary evidence; and that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.)
quote:
If you can do so I recommend that you watch the television series “The Brain with David Eagleman”. The first two shows are available on the BBC iPlayer - BBC4.
Firstly, I've read a fair amount of New Scientist and also a fair amount of philosophical discussion of these experiments, stroke victims, change blindness, etc. Therefore, I have what I consider a justifiable belief that the probability of me learning enough that I don't know already and that significantly affects my understanding of these matters is low compared to the time I would have to spend on it.
If you can't be bothered to take the time to make your points yourself I can't be bothered to do your work for you.
In any case, my point is that if you really think that the conscious mind has no choice in what decisions it makes, and that all the work happens at the subconscious level, it makes no sense to talk about basing beliefs on evidence available to the conscious brain. If the subconscious brain decides what it believes based on whatever evidence it chooses, and then lets the conscious brain kid itself that it was making the decision on rational criteria, then you cannot claim for yourself any warrant to claim that your beliefs are actually more rationally grounded than anyone else's. This requires a bit more modesty towards other people's epistemological positions that you've so far shown.
[ 31. January 2016, 14:15: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I'm extremely grateful for HWR's contributions, as they are close to my other side of the same coin: Rigorous atheism with Christ.
Very nice, Martin. It reminds me of Simone Weil's famous remark, atheism is the purification of religion.
I quite like sloppy Christianity with a dash of sloppy atheism.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Can't we create a special forum where people can go to say "You don't have scientific proof for the existence of God!" and then we set up a rota where we take turns of going into that forum and reply "We know!"
Then we need a bot-thread, so that when people say, 'we know X comes from God', or 'we know X does not come from God', it will automatically reply, no, we don't.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Christ radiates God, Martin: the goodness and love, peace and light of God.
There is no place for evil or sin, for deception or denial, in the presence of Christ.
Amen mate.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I'm extremely grateful for HWR's contributions, as they are close to my other side of the same coin: Rigorous atheism with Christ.
Very nice, Martin. It reminds me of Simone Weil's famous remark, atheism is the purification of religion.
I quite like sloppy Christianity with a dash of sloppy atheism.
Coo q! I'll buy that fer a dollar! ME!! The sloppy man's Weil.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I could join a Weilist sect. Her understanding of sin: 'every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness'; also, 'evil when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity or even a duty'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Superb. I'm such a pleb, all I knew was her name and the odd aphorism if that.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
But this thread isn't about God - it's about evil.
Yes, we've had a lot of 'God is the answer to evil' posts, fair enough. She may be.
But, if evil isn't us giving in to animal desires without thought for others - then what causes it?
Even if there were an original, first, Adam who was aware of evil and chose to do it anyway - that means nothing really. The genes he passed on wouldn't cause every descendant to behave as he did. Human behaviour is far, far more complicated than that.
I don't think many people are evil. We make mistakes, we learn. By and large we do our best to care for others, both people known and unknown to us. We get on amazingly well, even in very large groups.
Some (sociopaths, psychopaths) have, one way or another, gone badly wrong and now have no empathy. But - although the damage they cause is terrible - they are very much in the minority.
What causes evil?
You are sitting in a restaurant, quietly eating your meat and potatoes, when the waiter sails past you with the lobster that arrives on the table next to you. What a beautiful dish! If only you had the means to dine that way!
Then you notice the diners. One of them is like a statue of a Greek god. And the other looks like he or she stepped out of a magazine for high society. Beauty rewarded by wealth. Wealth rewarded by beauty. Oh how wonderful to be rich or beautiful!
You offered a significant sacrifice. Your brother tops you with a better sacrifice, receiving praise. Oh to be appreciated!
Resentment builds up within you. Anger, hatred, even murderous thoughts.
Evil lies at your door. You must conquer it.
Genesis 4: 6Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7“If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
What causes evil?
Covetousness. For treasure, for popularity, for power.
The animal will use force, the law of the wild. It is not evil, they have no conscience to guide them.
Man must master covetousness, the mental acting out of the law of the wild. If they do not, it will consume him.
What causes evil, the mental and sometimes real acting out of the law of the wild? The body of death, which without being in the Garden, in the Promised Land, in the Kingdom, in Christ, cannot be controlled by the conscience. The conscience, without which force is not evil.
Adam was appointed as a priest in the house of God, heaven being the throne, earth the footstool. His job was to be a rallying point for all men. Had he subdued creation, in partnership with God, all those who were in him, were loyal to his ideology, would have been like him, a blessing to creation.
Adam failed, Christ did not.
[ 31. January 2016, 17:46: Message edited by: footwasher ]
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
You are sitting in a restaurant, quietly eating your meat and potatoes, when the waiter sails past you with the lobster that arrives on the table next to you. What a beautiful dish! If only you had the means to dine that way!
You are joking? It may be a passing thought - with me it wouldn't be a lobster but spying a gorgeous car. But that's all it is - a passing 'if only' - not something which eats away or causes any kind of problem!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
You are sitting in a restaurant, quietly eating your meat and potatoes, when the waiter sails past you with the lobster that arrives on the table next to you. What a beautiful dish! If only you had the means to dine that way!
You are joking? It may be a passing thought - with me it wouldn't be a lobster but spying a gorgeous car. But that's all it is - a passing 'if only' - not something which eats away or causes any kind of problem!
Matthew 5: 21“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Everybody gets angry from time to time - it's how you deal with the anger that matters, the feeling itself isn't evil.
But you didn't answer my point about envy/jealousy. It's usually a fleeing, passing and harmless 'if only'. Like buying a lottery ticket so that you can dream for a moment.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Everybody gets angry from time to time - it's how you deal with the anger that matters, the feeling itself isn't evil.
But you didn't answer my point about envy/jealousy. It's usually a fleeing, passing and harmless 'if only'. Like buying a lottery ticket so that you can dream for a moment.
Anger is crime enough to do time. You can't be a little pregnant.
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
I don't know why you think that anyone would think it necessary to tell lies 'in pursuit of a soul's salvation.'
I’ve been there when it was done – A “well-regarded Youth Evangelist” said “Faith is easy, you have it every time you turn on a tap” That’s lying about what faith is – when I turn on a tap I have a reasonable expectation based on thousands of past experiences.
A lie is an intentional falsehood. Using a bad analogy is not a lie if you don't think it's a bad analogy. The youth evangelist was only lying if he shared your opinion as to how bad the analogy was. It seems unlikely.
Unless you have some evidence as to the evangelist's intentions you haven't presented, you're choosing the most malign interpretation with insufficient if not no evidence.
quote:
It’s an old tradition, some say going back to Eusebius or even earlier.
And would these 'some' be reliable sources?
A tradition is a custom handed down from generation to generation. To claim the existence of a tradition it's not enough to just exhibit instances of behaviour; you have to show that they exist as part of a continuous custom. This you have not done.
The Martin Luther quote seems, from an internet search, to come from the affair over Philip of Hesse's bigamous marriage. It is not as far as I can discover recorded in the form you give it in the sources. There is no evidence that Luther advocated it as a systematic policy, or as part of evangelistic strategy. (Details from Wikipedia, also the wikipedia page for Martin Luther.)
One might as well write of an atheist tradition of lying on behalf of reason, based on the invention of the claim that the medieval Church taught that the earth was flat, the claim that Christmas is based on the myth of Mithras, and on a general willingness by atheist polemicists to allege the worst of Christians.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Everybody gets angry from time to time - it's how you deal with the anger that matters, the feeling itself isn't evil.
But you didn't answer my point about envy/jealousy. It's usually a fleeing, passing and harmless 'if only'. Like buying a lottery ticket so that you can dream for a moment.
Anger is crime enough to do time. You can't be a little pregnant.
Nonsense. Perhaps in a heaven of your construction anger might be absent, but it is grievous poppycock to suggest that you can reconstruct this turdly world into that heaven. In the various heavens of others' construction, there is a wrathful god taking his anger out on all sorts of people, including nameless Canaanite children slaughtered per his orders and Noah kids' playmates.
And yes you can be a little pregnant. Just like you can be slightly drunk. There are two uses, at least, of prego and tipsy, and at least two for anger, one of which might be righteous anger. To suggest one use of a word is the only usage possible is not correct.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Adam who?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Nonsense. Perhaps in a heaven of your construction anger might be absent, but it is grievous poppycock to suggest that you can reconstruct this turdly world into that heaven. In the various heavens of others' construction, there is a wrathful god taking his anger out on all sorts of people, including nameless Canaanite children slaughtered per his orders and Noah kids' playmates.
And yes you can be a little pregnant. Just like you can be slightly drunk. There are two uses, at least, of prego and tipsy, and at least two for anger, one of which might be righteous anger. To suggest one use of a word is the only usage possible is not correct.
The anger condemned by the text is the anger of Cain, resentful anger, clarified in the examples I provided. No one suggested only one use of the word, or posited that ALL anger is wrong, so you can put that strawman back in storage, to use on an actual hayseed.
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Adam who?
Adam Ant?
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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