The Garden

[achilles12604]

What do you think the Garden for Adam and Eve would have looked like (assume it a litteral here)?

Could our intended state according to Christianity be one of ignorant bliss? After all Adam and Eve could run around naked and not even think about it, they had no knowledge of good and evil and they had never sinned. This sounds like my 3 year old daughter.

Could this be the type of state Jesus means when he teaches we must be like little children if we are to inherit heaven?

Last one - Do you think that this is what heaven might be like?

[katiej49]

What do you think the Garden for Adam and Eve would have looked like (assume it a litteral here)?

Could our intended state according to Christianity be one of ignorant bliss? After all Adam and Eve could run around naked and not even think about it, they had no knowledge of good and evil and they had never sinned. This sounds like my 3 year old daughter.

Could this be the type of state Jesus means when he teaches we must be like little children if we are to inherit heaven?

Last one - Do you think that this is what heaven might be like?

look at the world around us now. we see hints of what the garden was like. it has been marred by sin. but we see hints...we have longings when we observe the world......it was beautiful and perfect.......the world we live in is still beautiful..obviously no longer perfect..............it will be restored to FULL perfection at Gods time. adam and eve simply trusted God. this is what little ones are like...they simply trust their fathers.......they dont have to understand him..just love and trust him....

[bernee51]

look at the world around us now.

I see a world that is only as it can be.

it was beautiful and perfect.......

]
if it is only as it can be it must be perfect...beauty, however, is in the eye of the beholder.

the world we live in is still beautiful..obviously no longer perfect......

How is it no longer perfect?

........it will be restored to FULL perfection...

How can there be PARTIAL perfection? Sort of like nearly unique? Or nearly pregnant?

adam and eve simply trusted God. this is what little ones are like...they simply trust their fathers.......they dont have to understand him..just love and trust him....

And some fathers (and mothers FTM) are child abusers. Anthropomorhizing your god does he/she/it no favours.

Are you interested in the true meaning of 'the garden'?

[katiej49]

look at the world around us now.

I see a world that is only as it can be.

it was beautiful and perfect.......

]
if it is only as it can be it must be perfect...beauty, however, is in the eye of the beholder.

the world we live in is still beautiful..obviously no longer perfect......

How is it no longer perfect?


gee i guess the death, disease, pain, suffering and such are what make me think its less than perfect now...geez dude, you are kidding right

........it will be restored to FULL perfection...

How can there be PARTIAL perfection? Sort of like nearly unique? Or nearly pregnant?

again, you are kidding me..right?
you dont grasp the concept of what i'm saying? i think you do

adam and eve simply trusted God. this is what little ones are like...they simply trust their fathers.......they dont have to understand him..just love and trust him....

And some fathers (and mothers FTM) are child abusers. Anthropomorhizing your god does he/she/it no favours.


that some are child abusers has nothing to do with the topic. if you think of anything else than the words we have to describe Him, go ahead;)

[bernee51]

[
gee i guess the death, disease, pain, suffering and such are what make me think its less than perfect now...geez dude, you are kidding right[/b]

Death, disease, suffering are all part of the 'world' - I don't necessarily see that as 'imperfection'. And they all have a cause. I'm sure you have your ideas as to the cause of suffering? Others have as well. In his Deer Park address 2500 years ago, the buddha set it all out for us. The cause and the cure. If you 'take the cure' you too won't see the 'imperfection'.

'the world' is as it should be and can only be.

How can there be PARTIAL perfection? Sort of like nearly unique? Or nearly pregnant?

again, you are kidding me..right?
you dont grasp the concept of what i'm saying? i think you do

Not at all. it is not possible for anything to be partially perfect. It is either perfect or imperfect. There is no middle ground between imperfection and perfection. it is a dichotomy. You only get two choices.

Do you grasp what I am saying?

adam and eve simply trusted God. this is what little ones are like...they simply trust their fathers.......they dont have to understand him..just love and trust him....[/b]

And some fathers (and mothers FTM) are child abusers. Anthropomorhizing your god does he/she/it no favours.

that some are child abusers has nothing to do with the topic. if you think of anything else than the words we have to describe Him, go ahead;)

you are the one giving your god human qualities.

if my father was a capricious, jealous, genocidal, filiocidal, racist tyrant would he be deserving of love and trust?

[Greatest I Am]

I may have indicated before that I think Eve made the right choice in leaping joyfully away from the garden of ignorance.

It was no doubt beautiful there with the tree of life but God always meant for man to seek knowledge and wisdom, thus the tree of good and evil. Not really a tree, right, just the idea of good and evil thoughts and actions, right.

When Adam and Eve left the garden, the words spoken by God to them have always been translated with fire and brimstone and anger on the part of God.
Read them again and if you place a benevolent accent or emphasis on the same words you get an impression, not of rebuke but of just relaying information with regret.

We could have stayed in the garden but thanks to Eve we are not at present dumb animals not knowing anything.

Regards
DL

[McCulloch]

When Adam and Eve left the garden, the words spoken by God to them have always been translated with fire and brimstone and anger on the part of God.
Read them again and if you place a benevolent accent or emphasis on the same words you get an impression, not of rebuke but of just relaying information with regret.

To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you."

Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return."

Hey, you're right! These words are not a rebuke, but a benevolent relaying of information from a loving God. How could I have been so mistaken!

[Greatest I Am]

When Adam and Eve left the garden, the words spoken by God to them have always been translated with fire and brimstone and anger on the part of God.
Read them again and if you place a benevolent accent or emphasis on the same words you get an impression, not of rebuke but of just relaying information with regret.

To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you."

Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return."

Hey, you're right! These words are not a rebuke, but a benevolent relaying of information from a loving God. How could I have been so mistaken!

I can appreciate the attitude, as I have said, we have misinterpreted these word for a long time. Now if God knew ahead of time that Eve and Adam were going to make the right choice, then why on earth would He be angry. I should have thought that an attitude of "her we go again" would have prevailed and God if any thing would have likely been boredom, so why would His emphasis have been negative. No. Especially when the option leaves God sitting with ignorant humans who have life but no purpose. Dumb animals in other words.

Is this your better view of where we should be??

Regards
DL

[frozencell]

Greatest I Am,

You give a very perceptive take on the passages in the Bible that have long been considered "doom and gloom" circumstances. I am Catholic and take the stories in the Bible both allegorically and literally (depending). Many people have a negative take on the "punsihments from a loving God". I have read what you have to say and see that you have dedicated a decent amount of thought to your interpretation of the passages. While I do not hold all your beliefs (destined to not be "dumb animals"), I do think you have struck a truth in your idea that God was not so much being mean and sadistic as He was simply relaying the consequences of actions. After all, the universe does run on the simple notions ofcause and effect. These examples are as commomplace and everyday as parents disciplining their children for disobeying or doing something that would harm them, either in the long ir short-term.

Saying that God is a sadistic and malevolent being based on the consequences of OUR actions is like blaming the homeowner for someone else burning down their house and going to jail for it.

[Metatron]

Greatest I Am,

You give a very perceptive take on the passages in the Bible that have long been considered "doom and gloom" circumstances. I am Catholic and take the stories in the Bible both allegorically and literally (depending). Many people have a negative take on the "punsihments from a loving God". I have read what you have to say and see that you have dedicated a decent amount of thought to your interpretation of the passages. While I do not hold all your beliefs (destined to not be "dumb animals"), I do think you have struck a truth in your idea that God was not so much being mean and sadistic as He was simply relaying the consequences of actions. After all, the universe does run on the simple notions ofcause and effect. These examples are as commomplace and everyday as parents disciplining their children for disobeying or doing something that would harm them, either in the long ir short-term.

Saying that God is a sadistic and malevolent being based on the consequences of OUR actions is like blaming the homeowner for someone else burning down their house and going to jail for it.

No, the analogy would be if the homeowner left a couple of 3 year old children alone at home with matches and kerosene and then threw them in jail for burning down the house.