(March 22, 2016 at 6:22 pm)Felasco Wrote: Would members be interested in better understanding this story....

IF...

The price tag was the surrender of snarky sarcastic comments etc?
Agreement not required, just an elevated tone.

If the price is too high, no problem, I'll retire from the conversation.  Sorry to intrude.

If the price is acceptable, start a new thread, and PM me a link to visit.

So you ARE a Christian! I knew it. Funny how you left that out in all of your philosophizing in the "lack of belief" thread. I wonder why? [emoji848][emoji6]

LOL, sorry, I see my Adam and Eve question was just SLIGHTLY late to the table. [emoji13]

(March 23, 2016 at 9:38 am)robvalue Wrote: She spends a lot of time running around naked, so it's safe to assume he did intend it

Quote:God looks in the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve with no luck. After looking for hours, he finally finds Adam smoking a cigarette under a tree with a big smile on his face.

God takes one look and knows exactly what happen. He asks Adam if he enjoyed it and of course Adam said yes.

God then looks around and asks where is Eve. Adam says she is down at the river cleaning herself up.

God exclames: Shit, now I will never get the smell off of the fish!

The Adam and Eve story makes sense if you consider it as a literary and theological text. One of the reasons why I respect the previous pope is because he wrote favorably on the subject of textual criticism. Ironically, it was his book A Catholic Understanding of the Creation and the Fall that taught me about the Enuma Elish, which is where the Genesis stories party come from. I was also surprised to learn that a significant number of Christian writers throughout the first millennium didn't view it as history so much as theological "storytelling." Origen went as far as to call the Adam and Eve story a myth.

If more fundamental Christians understood this today, we wouldn't have to deal with their anti-evolution nonsense. I have my torch ready for when it's time to burn down that stupid Creation Museum. Maybe we'll turn it something useful, like a parking lot.

Anyway, here's a very brief summary of modern scholars' understanding of Genesis 1, which is more or less what the pope had advocated in his writings:

Quote:taken from Rational Wiki:

The creation of the sun, moon, and stars on day four is meant to be a theological point, rather than a scientific one. As other cultures worshiped the sun and moon and divined by the stars (astrology), the Hebrew authors are making the point that none of them is the source of the light, but rather merely reflectors of the light (as lamps) whose ultimate origin is in their God. The creation myth also uses poetic parallelism to narrate the story: Day 1 and Day 4 are paired (light; sun, moon, stars), Day 2 and Day 5 (seas and dry land; fish and fowl), Day 3 and Day 6 (plants of the earth; beasts of the earth and humanity). Furthermore, given the similarity of this narrative to the creation myth of the Babylonians, whose god Marduk creates the cosmos by slaying his sea-serpent mother Tiamat, the Hebrew presentation of God creating over the deep (Hebrew: "tehom") by means other than violence and declaring the creation to be "good" is a rebuke to the Babylonian myth. The abundance of literary and theological devices in the narrative make it clear that the text is not attempting to be a scientific account of the origin of the world, but a theological declaration of the goodness of the creation as against competing religious systems (Canaanite, Babylonian, etc.).

How many stories can you take as allegory, and not literally true, before you wonder if Jesus himself is a fictional character even within the book?)

(March 23, 2016 at 9:31 pm)Chad32 Wrote: How many stories can you take as allegory, and not literally true, before you wonder if Jesus himself is a fictional character even within the book?)

You mean he didn't spend forty days and forty nights in the desert without food and water and that he didn't fly over the rooftops while talking with Satan?

(March 23, 2016 at 9:24 pm)The Atheist Wrote: The Adam and Eve story makes sense if you consider it as a literary and theological text. One of the reasons why I respect the previous pope is because he wrote favorably on the subject of textual criticism. Ironically, it was his book A Catholic Understanding of the Creation and the Fall that taught me about the Enuma Elish, which is where the Genesis stories party come from. I was also surprised to learn that a significant number of Christian writers throughout the first millennium didn't view it as history so much as theological "storytelling." Origen went as far as to call the Adam and Eve story a myth.

If more fundamental Christians understood this today, we wouldn't have to deal with their anti-evolution nonsense. I have my torch ready for when it's time to burn down that stupid Creation Museum. Maybe we'll turn it something useful, like a parking lot.

Anyway, here's a very brief summary of modern scholars' understanding of Genesis 1, which is more or less what the pope had advocated in his writings:

Quote:taken from Rational Wiki:

The creation of the sun, moon, and stars on day four is meant to be a theological point, rather than a scientific one. As other cultures worshiped the sun and moon and divined by the stars (astrology), the Hebrew authors are making the point that none of them is the source of the light, but rather merely reflectors of the light (as lamps) whose ultimate origin is in their God. The creation myth also uses poetic parallelism to narrate the story: Day 1 and Day 4 are paired (light; sun, moon, stars), Day 2 and Day 5 (seas and dry land; fish and fowl), Day 3 and Day 6 (plants of the earth; beasts of the earth and humanity). Furthermore, given the similarity of this narrative to the creation myth of the Babylonians, whose god Marduk creates the cosmos by slaying his sea-serpent mother Tiamat, the Hebrew presentation of God creating over the deep (Hebrew: "tehom") by means other than violence and declaring the creation to be "good" is a rebuke to the Babylonian myth. The abundance of literary and theological devices in the narrative make it clear that the text is not attempting to be a scientific account of the origin of the world, but a theological declaration of the goodness of the creation as against competing religious systems (Canaanite, Babylonian, etc.).

LOL, somewhere Drippy's head is exploding.

(March 22, 2016 at 10:00 pm)IATIA Wrote:

(March 22, 2016 at 9:10 pm)Godschild Wrote: You fixed nothing only prove you're childish and have no understanding of this conversation or what free will is.

GC

It is obvious that you do not understand what free will is and will never know as long as your god has you under it's thumb.  You believe faery tales are real and I am childish?

Child prove it's a fairy tale.

GC

(March 22, 2016 at 11:01 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(March 22, 2016 at 9:07 pm)Godschild Wrote:   What makes you think that Southern Baptist as a whole believe in the death penalty. That is personal decisions people make and not all Southern Baptist believe in the death penalty. DNA has it's limits when going back in time, so the evidence you so tout hasn't refuted Adam and Eve. personally I believe in the death penalty in certain cases, each case holds it's own merits.

Most Southern Baptists are in the southern United States, which is where most executions take place, and most Southern Baptists are Republicans, who support capital punishment.  As for DNA "having limits", what scientific paper can you cite in support of that?

Dino DNA, DNA can not last that long, this is a fact.

GC

(March 23, 2016 at 3:14 pm)FebruaryOfReason Wrote:

(March 18, 2016 at 10:27 pm)Godschild Wrote: You know nothing about the Bible either, so how could you possibly judge what I have to say, I've brought a stop to him at every turn in different threads.

GC

"I've brought a stop to him at every turn in different threads"

You've "brought a stop to him" in your own judgement. You know the bible to your own satisfaction.

I know more about what the Bible actually says than 'NV' ever will. Unless he returns to God and learns the truth of scriptures.

Quote:

GC Wrote:I'm not wrong, prove where the Bible says Adam committed evil in the Garden.

FOR Wrote:Why are you interested in proof all of a sudden? You've ignored all the evidence that contradicts your beliefs on the most fundamental level.

I've never ignored evidence, unlike you I seek it all the time. I seek the truth (proof) in scriptures all the time, you've just never considered such a thing. In your own mind are there contradictions in scriptures. When Christians bring up contradictions in evolution or other sciences the atheist say we will find the truth in the future just give us time, yet you would not consider this viable for Christians to say about the scriptures, now would you.

GC