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Post by Bango on May 17, 2006 12:29:25 GMT -5
I hear what you're saying, but that still doesn't reference that the serpent was satan. The quote you have is- "In that verse, it says for the believer, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:" WHich is all well and good, but still doesn't identify the serpent as satan. The only scriptual identification of the serpent that I've found so far is that it was the most cunning of creatures that god had created. The fact that we are later told that satan is also cunning and lies doesn't, ipso facto, really amount to a hard and fast identification of him as the serpent. At least, not as far as I can see. Oh, I thought you wanted to know why he tricked Eve. Okay, there is a verse that identifies Satan as the Serpent. [glow=red,2,300] Revelation 12: 7-9And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.[/glow] ^^^ This verse identifies Satan as "that old serpent".
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Post by PyleansDontLeaveMe on May 17, 2006 12:33:50 GMT -5
It still doesn't identify him as the seprent from genesis really though, does it?
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Post by quantumcat on May 17, 2006 12:44:55 GMT -5
Thanks,Bango!!!
BTW,
Satan has given a bad rap to reptiles,goats,cats and just about every other critter he's been associated with.
He likes to appear in the guise of something positive,right?
So what he attempts to counterfeit and co-opt is probably pretty good,right?
We had a thang at the end of October once at church where we put up pictures of moons,stars, trees,black cats,owls,skeletons,goats,wolves,crystals,rainbows,spiders,snakes,rats,bats,crones,etc. and asked but one question:
"Pick out the pictures of things God had no part in creating."
Funny how we never got anyone to pick any thing out....
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Post by Bango on May 17, 2006 12:46:55 GMT -5
It still doesn't identify him as the seprent from genesis really though, does it? I think it does. I mean, if the scripture had said, "a serpent", then you could question the validity of who was being referenced. But the scripture firmly says, " that old serpent". Strictly identifying Satan as the first enemy. For example, say a person was attacked by an old man. Usually, in court, they ask the person to identify who attacked them. Well, say the person said, "an old man attacked me." He doesn't really identify the person who is being accused. He is merely saying that an old man attacked him. Well, say the person said, "that old man", and pointed to him from where he was sitting. The accusser is identifying who had attacked him. In truth, the person was an old man, and the accusser identified him. That's what's happening here. It's talking about Satan,(pointing him out), and firmly states "that old serpent"--which strictly narrows it down to just one person. One serpent. Again, if it had stated, "an old serpent", then you couldn't narrow it down to just one person/thing. But scripture says, "that old serpent", which just narrows it down to just one person/thing. I hope that's understandable.
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Post by tjaman on May 17, 2006 23:03:56 GMT -5
And it's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. So in the spirit of the title of this thread, here's a ... Different Perspective:
The two accounts of the Creation suggest expanding worldviews.
In the first, the writer is content to assure us that all things are of G-d, including the distinction of male and female.
In the second, the land is mapped and surveyed. Points of interest are highlighted – this land has gold, that land has jewels.
Concepts glossed over in the first account.
The first affirms G-d’s oversight of creation, the evidence of the senses – that there is a dome separating heaven from earth, that there is a sun and a moon, that there is dry land until one encounters a sea, and that there are, indeed, living things besides humans on the sea and the land and in the air, and that they do multiply – as being the actions of a creative G-d.
The second confirms much of this, but explores it further and instills a moral.
It seeks to provide some answers to the questions of the human condition: If G-d is a benevolent creator of all things, why does sustenance require so much effort? Why is there scarcity? Why is childbirth attended with such pain? Why can we act selfishly? Why do we die and not live on? Where is the divinity of our birthright? Whence our separation?
In answering these questions, the writer this time took his answer not from observation but from sophistry. Surely dogs and pigs and fishes ate nothing from the tree of knowledge and yet they die. Other creatures do flourish and perish. All creatures toil for their daily keeping, all seek shelter, all bear their young with effort.
Humanity for the writer of the second account is set apart. First, as steward of all plant and animal kind (which a creature at the top of the food chain could be pleased to occupy) and also, that unique as a species, human actions have consequences.
Why are we unique? Because we were created in the image of G-d.
How can we tell? Because we’re the ones with all the parchment.
Anyway, this overlaid a moral component to our existence. How can we images of G-d be so stubbornly human so much of the time – and, in fact, inhuman? G-d’s command to Adam that he name his creature contemporaries may be seen as delegation, the bequest of freewill, but it is never explicit -- i.e. “G-d gave unto Adam free will, and ultimately saw that it was disruptive” is nowhere to be found.
Instead, in preserving G-d’s perfection while explaining humanity’s imperfection, a morality play was required.
Any play requires a cast of characters. Appearing on the world’s stage then alongside a Motive Force, the Prime Mover, the Creator, is Adam. The setting is a garden, in which everything anyone could possibly want is available and free for the having with no work.
Add to the mix a love interest. Eve. And there seems to be a suggestion that childbirth was once painless, which seems unlikely. And there’s no mention of other kids so maybe they just never had any before. Anyway, the second account draws Eve from Adam, so that she’s beholden to him in some way. And she just causes all sorts of problems. She’s wandering around, she’s talking to snakes (and there was a casting coup), they’re talking to her, and they’re telling her to do stuff that she’s been told specifically not to do, and then …
… and then …
She does them anyway.
Every play needs a conflict. So G-d gave the humans one restriction. Just one. And then G-d turned G-d's back for a second and BAM! They’re breaking the rules.
Well, G-d just made knowledge too attractive. The fruit was pleasing to the eye and good to the taste ...
Wait a moment.
Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil suggests a moment in time in when we, as a race, were entirely innocent of the notion of good and evil. That we were entirely amoral. If it felt good, we did it. And how long, honestly, can any society survive in such a world?
Well, not to fret. Because of Eve and Adam’s great sin of eating forbidden fruit (underlying message: We would be sin-free if not for wimmenfolk – they’re responsible for all of our nasty uncontrollable desires and the vast majority of the silly ideas we have) G-d still comes off as perfect and all of the stresses of the human conditions – that is, living in this imperfect world – are our own fault.
It’s ingenious storytelling, really. In one brief passage, women are made justifiably subservient to men, the nature of why, if we’re created in the image of G-d as we believe ourselves to be, we’re in anyway drawn to sin. Why there is death. Why sex is so tittilating.
And that works out really well if you’re a patriarchal society. Guys get to make all the rules and women just have to lump it because Eve is responsible for everything going wrong in the first place.
Also, a biological aside. From Gen. 3:14: “The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures. Upon your belly you shall go.’”
Er, um – how were they getting around before?
Anywho, now that we failed the one test, G-d opens the legal floodgates. At about the same time as this charming story – one not greatly dissimilar to the creation stories available in wisdom traditions across the globe -- was committed to parchment, a small group of scholarly men of presumably good intent were setting down all manner of laws. And they justified all of them, not on the social contract that if everyone behaved in a just and equitable manner (according to the social mores laid out in the Talmud – and don’t worry, we’ll be getting to all of those soon enough), but because G-d said such-and-such behaviors were “sins,” and committing them would bring about consequences – maybe not always in this world, but certainly in the next.
Not society’s leaders, not the Sanhedrin, not the scribes or the high priests. But G-d. The same G-d from whom all of their authority was derived (and we’ll get to that soon enough as well).
Between Adam and Moses there are many, many lives. And they all had to make their way in this world without a carefully structured, fine-tuned, well-ordered codex of laws as to what is good and what is evil.
One can argue that all the world’s populace had to go on before the Laws were set in stone and on parchment was G-d’s prohibition against the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And some lesser direct ostracism of Cain after that whole, y’know, fratricide thing. But mostly the tree thing.
So when G-d destroys most of humanity in a flood and burns a city to the ground in later chapters of this book because mankind, in G-d’s opinion, is misbehaving … well … it’s not like G-d had been terribly explicit about what’s a sin and what isn’t up to that point, and it feels like G-d’s not playing fair, but then we reflect that it took thousands of years and countless generations for Abraham’s progeny to grow to a nation that needed government by laws, which seems to be about when all the laws showed up.
A final note:
The meaning, for me, of these first three chapters, basically says that G-d is the source of all Creation. In that I agree with that might cause some to wonder. But in truth, I agree that when G-d chooses for his title “I AM,” that the implicit truth in that designation is that G-d is a G-d of all Reality, of all Consciousness, of all Truth. And naturally Satan is a source of confusion, of division, and of lies.
Is the Genesis account of the Creation story – either of them – true?
Yes.
G-d is the source of all that is. I believe a higher power guided creation and that that creative force is still creating, is still active.
If the meanings attached to these accounts seem a bit imposed, I humbly suggest that the account does not concern itself with how all Creation came into being.
Only that at its source, it was divine.
And it was good.
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Post by tjaman on May 22, 2006 9:16:48 GMT -5
Well, I see my post engendered some stunned silence.
Are we discussing anything else this week or did that pretty much shut us down?
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Post by Rebelman on May 22, 2006 9:30:29 GMT -5
Until Py decides to move ahead I'll respond.
What do you mean the writer observed? Are you saying that God was showing information from small minded interaction because we can't comprehend?
Remember there was no sin Yet Free will can't be disruptive if they haven't sinned. Plus if you do not know what sin is and can't do it then how can you? Thats like being in that time knowing what a car is and finding a way to do it. Its not happening
I see you reformatted Creation into Macbeth or Othello.
Knowledge can't be attained in that way if they don't have it yet. That is why Satan used his trickery to make the LORD's creation fall. But take a peak at how loving the LORD is even after the perfection wasn't perfect anymore.
Wars, famines, hating, sin, homeless, killing, suicide, homicide and a whole lot of vast arrays show how lovely society is today. Now you see why the LORD says NO
If it pleases the flesh that is a good indicator that its sin. So you blame the LORD for a lot of those issues?
And God's opinion is the only opinion. Ours mean nothing. We can state it but it cant reflect over the Almighty
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Post by quantumcat on May 22, 2006 12:01:12 GMT -5
Reb,I think you may have bought into one of the most popular diabolic falsehoods around.
"If it pleases the flesh,that's a good indicator that is sin."
So,if breathing feels good,it's wrong.
That fits.
We know *eating* is evil-and sleeping.
Wearing comfortable clothes and bathing have been frowned upon.
We can't even show naked bodies or admit we breastfeed.
Just about all of our natural functions have been treated as if they were shameful or farcial.
Even thinking......
If we've been made to despise our senses,we distrust our ability to reason even more.
Logic and ratiocination have been equated with cold,amoral attitudes at best and downright Godless evil at worst.
If these things are ungodly or brutal then a stupid,miserable person is closer to the Almighty,right?
If pleasure is sin,then if you're really,REALLY sinful,you must be having a great time.
Let's see: I'll trash my body,then I'll trash your body then we can commit wholesale genocide and destroy the planet's ecosystem.
While we're at it,we'll form some destructive interpersonal relationships and avoid anything resembling responsible behavior.
(Are we having fun yet?)
Satan is served by that because if he can turn us off of joy or make us turn to him,he's won a battle.
If we avoid thinking and learning or equate being smart with being morally dead,then he gains another victory.
If we live our lives as if pleasure is a natural result of God's plan for our lives,(not mandatory and not forbidden but just kinda *there*) then we don't confuse the effect with the cause.
We neither live for sensual delight nor struggle to avoid it.
We neither seek nor tremble over our own anguish.
We don't have to OBSESS over anything.
We can understand being happier in Hell with God than in Heaven without him yet we don't panic at the idea of spending an eternity in a world of nothing but delight.
Don't get me started on freewill.
We know how wrongheaded humans can get when you add freedom to the mix.
They make all kinds of dumb choices and act as if justice and autonomy were more important than keeping things orderly.
You'd think God would prefer that every soul he ever made or died for would be lost to the flames of Hades rather than enter Paradise as a smiling programmed machine.
I think I go along with the idea that the creation story is a dilute version of the truth.
Somewhere,we lost the idea that getting smart would mean a larger brain which meant a harder delivery for the mother,etc.
We also got a reason for why all our reptiles are small and non-sentient.
Did we have any notion there were big,maybe even clever serpents years ago that were gone by the time Man took over?
As tj pointed out,some misogynistic garbage got overlaid onto the account but even then,it reveals that God is no good at curses.
He tells the boy he'll have to work hard to survive and the girl she'll be stuck wanting her husband and wanting to meet his needs.
Ask the average person who hasn't worked and can't stand their spouse if that fate doesn't sound perilously close to a blessing.
If God's *curses* are that desirable,can you imagine the happiness to be derived from his blessings?
But if the things that please our bodies and minds and spirits are evil then abiding by God's will in our lives could make us very wicked indeed!
(Huh???)
Thinking must be sinful because that little computation's given me a headache.
Maybe I ought to clear my head with something so uncomfortable,it's got to be virtuous.
(looks at the 'church' clothes: necktie,girdle,etc.)
If tight,pointy,high heeled shoes weren't so good for spiking snake skulls without getting heel-bit,I think I'd stick to my mules.
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Post by Bango on May 22, 2006 13:36:05 GMT -5
And that works out really well if you’re a patriarchal society. Guys get to make all the rules and women just have to lump it because Eve is responsible for everything going wrong in the first place. Here's the thing, the Bible blames only one person for the fall of man, and that person isn't Eve. It's Adam. He's the one the Scriptures blame. They both sinned and ate, but they were just one. ADAM, meaning man, or mankind, sinned. They were of one flesh, and came from one body. Both were given free will. And both chose to eat what God said was forbidden. How do you know there wasn't? Sure, no 10 commandments, but how do you know there wasn't some sort of structure? People still followed God, and carried down tradition of Abraham, Issac and Jacob prior the 10 commandments.
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Post by tjaman on May 22, 2006 16:12:55 GMT -5
I'll grant that Enoch walked with G-d (in whatever amount of literalism you wish to take that statement), but for most people, it might just have been a pang of conscience.
And what is that pang of conscience? The reminder to do what is right.
It's hard for us to know what is right, tho. There are instances in which doing what is right -- feeding the hungry, for instance -- could be brought about by committing theft or worse. You could shelter thousands of people in one of the new WalMarts but you'd commit theft of services, criminal trespass, loitering and open up a thousand opportunities for petty larceny.
But yeah, you can gas up a fleet of buses that you own and travel the countryside collecting the dispossessed, drop them off at a WalMart and in your mind and by G-d's law, you've done a good deed.
But in the process, you've probably brought about an even larger human tragedy.
So people listening to G-d, not listening to G-d, getting flooded and killed for behaving wickedly, that's all ahead of us in the reading.
I'm just suggesting the seeds of that are sown in these first three chapters.
Thanks for all the responses. I'm not sure I completely understand Reb's, but I think q made some excellent counterpoints so I'll just leave it at that.
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Post by Rebelman on May 23, 2006 21:40:47 GMT -5
We're going to have to define a natural function. First off pleasing to the eye is not breathing. God made that clear that he breathed life into a soul therefore He breathes as well.
God made it clear with what you stated as not being sinful. Its even in the Gospel.
Now when people start getting selfish and do the lusts of the eye and flesh which are sinful then we are in the sin area.
The reason many start the "i don't care it just feels good" argument is made clear. They have no Spirit! And if they have no Spirit they cannot whatsover know the Mind of God.
But some just love to do the wordly incorporated argument which is false all together.
Now we got to define Godly pleasure. Godly pleasure is the fruit of the Spirit which are gentleness, joyfulness, patience, self control, giving, etc.
BUT if you are a drunkard, sex fanatic, sick perverted body gratifier of sick ungodly actions then you are sinning once again and apparently selfish to a new extreme.
We are suppose to be in the Image of Jesus. If you are doing something that IS NOT in the Image you are Sinning completely! There is no argument to counterattack that!
Not at all. Scripture is God breathed therefore if someone does the bits and pieces that would make them a heretic. Which is basic falseness to a brand new level.
We have no right to judge God. We are not the judges.
God can give curses as He pleases because He is the El Shaddai. We have a curse for death and death we shall see. The only way out of it is Christ. No leaway, no side room and if anybody comes up with something they made it up.
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Post by quantumcat on May 24, 2006 3:19:55 GMT -5
Reb,I can't disagree about there being a difference between the right experience of God-arranged pleasure and the perversion of that into sin.
The problem comes in when Man (with maybe a little help from you-know-who) starts acting like *anything* that feels good is o.k. or NOTHING that feels good is o.k.
See,the enemy thinks he can win whichever way we go.
If all pleasant things are fine and dandy,then all he has to do is hide the sting until it's too late-or convince us that we're not _really_ uncomfortable. This is the fun stuff,right?
If all pleasure is danger waiting to bite us in the backside,then he gets us to mistrust and miss out on some of God's greatest perks.
Remember,God is the Creator.
He is the author of all things.
The enemy just infringes on the copyright to market his own shoddy versions of the Almighty's blessings.
What's the result?
The same as with any other counterfeit: It leads people away from the true product and, when it turns out to be substandard, it discredits the worth of the true,worthwhile thing it perverted.
We have to use discernment (The Spirit helps with that.) to determine if we're enjoying the genuine article or buying into some lie that's going to drag us under.
The great thing about this is where there's a fake,there's an authentic version that's even better.
If all we've known is the copy of a copy of a copy,how much more joy will we get when we experience the real thing?
As for the curse comment,I was pointing out that God's curses can do a person more good than the devil's 'blessings' any day.
I'm not sure it's in God's nature to break a leg except when He needs to to set it straight and help get rid of the crippling and the pain.
Even the death and destruction he's meted out must have been a necessary means of making our walk what it should be.
The lion's share of the misery we encounter comes *in spite* of God's will-not because of it.
This reminds me of another lie our foe uses.
If anything goes wrong in our lives,either :
1.God did it to us because we're awful and deserve it. 2.God didn't care enough to prevent it. 3.God was unable to prevent it (too weak,non-existant,dead,whatever...)
The nature of evil and why it's allowed is a whole other can of composters but making good seem evil and evil seem good has long been part of the attack against us.
We have to refuse to see anything as wrong or ugly or shameful or dangerous in itself.
We have to insist on discovering what God meant it to be rather than what we've let it get turned into.
If we say "It's all good and it's all God's " and yield it completely unto Him,then what we receive from Him will be without taint or distortion and we can enjoy it freely as the Lord intended.
THAT's when pleasure and sin will no longer be mistaken for one another.
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Post by tjaman on May 24, 2006 6:32:44 GMT -5
Well said, q.
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Post by quantumcat on May 24, 2006 12:52:55 GMT -5
Thanks,tj!
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Post by Rebelman on May 26, 2006 11:06:47 GMT -5
The biggest issue comes in when people wont ask the LORD what is correct. They depend on their low manered minds to make up a reason and an excuses and just to be pleasant tweek scripture to make it mean something entirely different. I can point that out real fast when I read or hear people speak to me. Hence the reason people get so mad at me.
If we are living off feelings we are bound to destruction. Feelings never get people anywhere. The reason believer and unbelievers clash is because they do not have the Gift of the Spirit therefore they cannot comprehend God whatsoever. Its just what the humanistic mind wants to re create. When I speak to an unbeliever they look at me funny because I do not appeal to humanitic garbage, and they seem overwhelmed that what i say is not of the mind but of Godly sounding reasoning.
Spiritual discernment is what I use fully. The trick comes in when an unbeliever tries this and it don't work. No Spirit of God in them to discern a thing Godly.
I know the authentic version of happiness and joy. Its called love. But even love can be distorted to mean something else. But true genuine Godly love transends all kinds of love this world provides.
Another one is the gifts of the spirit. There are 7 motivational gifts that are installed within each believer. One that fully embodies them. The most joy for a saved person comes out of that gift because that is how the LORD equipped them to serve teh Kingdom in Spirit and in Truth. If it is not from those 2 is not from God whatsoever.
The LORD clearly points out as I said before that eating, clothes wearing are not flesh walking. But Idolatry in body gratifying outside of what the LORD says is Idolatry of worshipping yourself and just plain out being full of it. I use to feel this before I was saved but transformation took place and that ended immediately. An example of the Spirit operating inside of me, something many still can't understand.
Your comment on God breaking a leg reminded me of Israel in the time of the Exodus. It took God one day to take them to a blessing but it took 40 years to get the Egypt (in our case) the world out of them. That shows the LORD will have you be Godly or you can just do as Israel take randomness laps around the mountain. They complained and moaned and made up crap and God said "ok I have all the time in the world take another lap around the mountain". They wouldn't transform so they got the basics and nothing more than manna and water.
In that same way I compare myself. I use to be a stubborn rebel of the world. I'd flesh please all day and come up with the stupidiest excuses for myself. But when I was saved the bottom dropped out. I knew how the LORD gifted me and I know part of my purpose and the LORD is still working the world out of me. Something I am truly thankful for. Then the basics will turn into the greatest.
I am not sure what you mean by refuse anything wrong? That would implicate doing evil and just letting it be and distort things drastically. The idea is to discern First then act. When you get The LORDs answer then act. Because if we act first then later on God does it for us then we have our nice pleasant wrong answer.
I discern spiritually what is correct, then implicate it. I do it based of Gods Mind not of wordly mindedness. That is how a decision is brought forth. Any other way is walking up a steep mountain taking a risk the other side won't be too pleasant to go down.
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