Holy book plot holes tangent

I know I'm not ready to try it out just yet! That said technically (according to the Baptist church) EVERYBODY will have eternal life - but the two zip codes will differ greatly.

So it's just a bunch of blokes toking around the fire and making shit up? Thanks, that was easy.

As to 'good', there's enormous evil in the way the universe works. Virtually all animals including us exist by killing. That's 'natural.' Thanks God.

So the omniscient guy didn't bother to warn them ahead of time what he'd do to them, even though the serpent told them the truth. Nice.

Nah, that's bullshit, obviously so. God explicitly says the ground will create thorns and thistles because of you. You guys really don't bother to read your own book critically at all, do you?


17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

God's omnipotent. He could have done anything he wanted to. He is omniscient. He knew they 'd fall. He could have not created the tree of knowledge in the first place, right? Let alone put it right next to them. But then the guys toking up around the fire didn't know much of anything, and to them the world was the area around the Tigris and Euphrates. If the book had predicted ANYTHING that could be proveable that they didn't know then there would be a lot more credence to it.

But because they didn't know that Switzerland or Swaziland or Saipan existed, when they made up Eden they put it somewhere they knew.

Hell, if God wanted his tree of knowledge that could doom mankind, he could have put it on a planet in the Triangulum galaxy. God must have known there were other planets out there, he created them right?

But no, he put it right next to Adam and Eve. Funny that.

I doubt you understand there are dozens of versions of it, depending on which of the hundreds sects is talking about it. But ultmately it's largely based on the greek concept of Hades, which is the word that was used more often in the Coptic greek bibles that existed in the first days of the church.

LOL. Physically or spiritually? And why couldn't omniscient, omnipotent guy told them in a way that they would absolutely understand what he was saying, instead of leaving any doubt whatsoever?

They knew they were told not to do something, and they were told the consequences - they would surely die. That's not knowing right from wrong, or good from evil. How can you not understand the difference between obedience and morality? Oh, right, the source material.

But that's not what the consequences ended up being. They brought evil into the world, cast us all with original sin, and instead of God showing his infinite love he absolutely cursed them to hardship and misery.

I seem to have hit a nerve. LOL. And my own little hell is great, thanks for asking.

You are so small-minded. Why does God need to test them, if he already knows everything?

In your analogy, why does God then put the pink paint in the room with them? Why does the creator of everything even make pink paint?

In that vein, in the original fable why does God let the serpent live there with them, and give the serpent the power of speech to tempt them? God created EVERYTHING, and he knows EVERYTHING, right?

If I give my 3-year-old a fork, and put him down next to an electrical outlet, and tell him whatever you do, don't put the fork in the electrical socket, I know there's a chance he wants to find out himself. And I'm far from omniscient - I'm just a better parent than that.

I've got a pretty good understanding. Either God isn't what he claims, or of course doesn't exist. He can't be moral and do what he does if he has the ability to stop it. The bible explicitly says God brings evil into the world. And he kills vast swaths of humanity, even innocent children, without mercy on multiple occasions. Cleary he could make the world better if he wanted to, but the problem of evil exists.

It's a book of stories that smart people outgrew a long time ago. Some people use it as motivation to try to do good, though I tend to think they'd do so anyway. And lots and lots and lots of folks use it to hurt others, and always have.

But you don't get to talk down to the smart people for not going along with the lie. You are a child, and you need magical daddy. Reality still is amazing without the self-deception. You should try it some time.

That's an interesting subject. Jews originally had no concept of an afterlife, but by the era of the Second Temple various ideas had begun to form, having been imported from various places. From Hellenism they got Hades, which is a shadowy underworld, not a place of torment. From Zoroastrianism (see their own apocalyptic literature) they got dualism and theodicy, which are connected to the existence of a domain of evil.

Just saw this. Go back to the source material. It leads you to believe Abel’s offering was of higher quality i.e. the blood sacrifice. What you are talking about is a retcon that comes later on.

Either way, Cain and Abel both offered sacrifices. God rejected Cain’s offering. God could have accepted both sacrifices. So the question becomes, why is God playing favorites? And if God knew Cain had evil in his heart, why would he allow Abel to be murdered? God had a choice to make, and he made the wrong choice.

Coming into this thread late but if we're discussing fiction books, one of my all-time favourites is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

It's far more entertaining, and has better ethical lessons, than the work of fiction being discussed in this thread.

Who fucking wants it? I'm 46 and the thought of living till 80-90 fills me with crushing despair. MORE of this fucking shit? Piss off.

The point has been missed.

He chose...poorly.