It's crystal clear by the context of the story. In fact, if you demand that everything be spelled out in precise words in Bible then you may as toss the document in the trash can, because very little of the cannon (if any of it) is spelled out so precisely.



Your 1st flaw is in your inability to understand context. It's crystal clear from the story what's going on.



You're 2nd flaw is believing that someone told me that's what it meant. You may need people to tell you what things mean, but I'm quite capable of comprehending things myself. Thank you very much.



I never claimed that it was flawless. That's you're own delusion.

I simply offer it up as the obvious context of the story and await anyone else to offer an alternative view. Thus far I have not seen anyone offer an alternative view. Therefore I have no reason to even believe that an alternative view even exists.

It's crystal clear to me what the story is saying. I don't even think of it as a matter of 'interpretation'. I didn't feel that I needed to "interpret" the meaning of the story. I personally think it's straight-forward and crystal clear. No interpretation required.



I disagree. It's not encountered through interpretation it's encountered via the obvious context of the story. As far as I'm concerned that's not the same as "interpretation".

Before something would need to be "interpreted" it would need to be unclear. There would need to be more than one possible meaning that can be taken from the text. Only then would you need to considering having to "interpret" what might actually be meant.

In the case of this particular story I don't feel that it's the slightest bit vague. I also don't see where there are any alternative "interpretations" that are even possible.

Like I say, you'd have to offer a possible alternative interpretation. Otherwise, I see no reason to even believe that such a thing exists.



As far as I'm aware you don't even have one to offer. So it's no loss to me.

LOL!

I personally can't imagine why a supposedly benevolent God would suddenly turn to Eve and curse her with greatly multiplied sorrow in conception and childbirth out of the blue for no apparent reason and with no explanation. Therefore I have no choice but to conclude that the explanation is in the context of the overall story. God was delving out punishments because Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he also punished the serpent who instigated their behavior.

As far as I'm concerned of all the stories in the Biblical cannon this one is pretty straight-forward.

Even so, I still feel that this solution to God's problem here is cruel and unusual punishment. I personally would not have handled the situation by inflicting Eve with greatly multiplied sorrow in conception and childbirth. After all, if I'm the creator of life why would I want to contaminate my main purpose (i.e. creating life) with great sorrow? That doesn't make any sense to me personally.

Moreover, what good would it do?

Clearly as the history of mankind continues to unfold in these stories it's crystal clear that this curse on Eve did not solve anything. So this God would have failed in his purpose to have taught anyone a 'lesson'.

I personally don't believe that causing people pain and anguish is a wise method of teaching anyone anything. It never words, and history shows that it clearly didn't work for the fictitious God in these fables.

In fact, this is one reason why we can know that these stories are indeed false. None of this God's solutions to any of his problems ever works.

He tried punishing Adam and Eve for having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That didn't work.

Later he tried drowning out all the sinners. That didn't work.

Later he supposedly had his only begotten son nailed to a pole. Apparently that didn't work either.

Mankind is supposedly still sinning today just as much, or even worse than Adam and Eve had supposedly done in the Garden of Eden.

In short, this entire cannon of stories is nothing more than a story of a God whose solutions to problems NEVER WORK.

So it's hard to imagine that this God is infinitely wise.

For me personally, it's far easier to simply accept they are Zeus-like myths and move forward to greener pastures to consider other possible spiritual ideas, or possible even face a potential reality of an atheistic world.

I mean, clearly these stories can't be true. The God in these fables fails at everything he does. He couldn't even keep his angels under control. Yet he's supposed to be all-perfect, all-powerful, omniscient, and all-wise?

His behavior simply doesn't match up with the character traits that he's supposed to have. So rather than bending over backwards trying to make these stories make sense, it makes far more sense to me to simply recognize that they are fables and move on.

No one has ever been able to make any sense of these stories no matter how hard they try.

And people who THINK they have made some kind of sense of them have only done so because they REDUCE this God to the position of a mortal parent, or mortal solider, or whatever.

They think, "Oh well it makes sense for a parent to punish their child as a means of teaching them a lesson. Humans have been doing this for eons".

Yes, true. However, humans are not all-wise. Nor has their method of punishing their children to teach them lessons been very productive. So assuming that because humans behave like this that it should make sense for an all-wise supreme to behave similarly is their FLAW.

That's where they have made their error. They start to view God as having the same failings as they have and that's their "justification" for why it makes sense that God should be like that.

They have to strip God of omniscience, infinite wisdom, infinite power, etc., in order to justify these stories.

But what sense does that make?

Seriously?

Doesn't it make far more sense to just realize that these stories are superstitious rumors? Then there's no longer any need to keep degrading God to being as helplessness and ignorant as mere mortal men.

Just my thoughts for whatever they're worth.

Oh Dear Lord......Noooooo...some of you have it all wrong

here, folks.....it was not about God punishing Eve...God was

simply explaining the consequences of sin entering the

picture...in other

words, it was the sin of disobedience that now opend the

door to suffering in the world....it was NOT about God

putting suffering on Eve ,as punishment.

God was simply explaining the consequences of sin entering

the picture now.


Look at the animal kingdom giving birth..they too , go thru

birthing pains...

Now,did God punish the cattle and the other female animals

giving birth, too????

No.....of course not...but sin has affected us all...and all of

creation groans because of sin entering the world....but

one day, there will be a new heaven and new earth.....

where sin and suffering will be no more.

I would argue that this apologetic excuse does not make sense in terms of the actual words used in the story.


[16] Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

This isn't God explaining to Eve the consequences of sin entering into the picture. This is God clearly saying to Eve
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow"

This is God placing a curse on Eve just as he had placed a curse on the serpent. He's not explaining to Eve the consequence of her actions. He's clearly delving out a very specific punishment.

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow"

He doesn't say, "Now look what you've done. You've caused yourself to experience greatly multiplied sorrow in your life because of your actions."

No, no, no!

That IS NOT the biblical story here. That's just an apologetic excuse from people who wish the story had been written differently.

The biblical story actually has God stating:
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow"

So God is doing this to Eve. He also does this in the same context of a story that has him placing a curse on the serpent in the previous verses.

~~~~~

The problem with these apologetic arguments is that they truly are attempting to pretend that the Bible is saying things that it's clearly NOT saying.

This only verifies to me that even they recognize the absurdities contained in the stories as they are actually written. They need to twist the stories all around just to pretend to make sense of them.

But that's not accepting these stories for what they are. That's just a pretense that the stories are saying something other than what they actually say.

Apologists would re-write the entire Bible if they thought they could get away with it.

Again...God was basically stating what the

consequences of sin would be.....

and once more, sin has affected all of creation....


But of course, we already know of God's redemption plan, that He

has already carried out.. ..and paid for in full....

and what God did in our place, now sets us free from the

consequences of sin.....once and for all.....and is now

available...and freely offered unto us all ..

just waiting for us to receive ...

Again...God was basically stating

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow" .....

and once more, God's curse has affected all women..

OR,...

You can just recognize that birth is painful for almost all sexually reproducing animals, and it's just a natural part of this dog-eat-dog world, and it has absolutely nothing at all to do with any superstitious tales about humans being tricked by a serpent into disobeying a judgmental God who cursed the serpent to crawl on his belly for the rest of his days.

I have problems with a God who would even do that. But part of the story most certainly can't be denied, that's spelled out as bluntly as anything possibly can be spelled out.

He cursed a serpent to crawl on his belly and eat dust for the rest of his days?



Did he view this serpent as being beyond rehabilitation? And if so, then why punish him by ripping off his legs and making him crawl on his belly? If he's beyond rehab then why not just BLESS him with euthanasia and get it over with?

These are serious questions.

If this God knows that in the end times he's going to crush the serpent's head, why not do it now? What's the point in procrastinating?

spiritual laws in effect......



God can NEVER go against his Word

or Who He is.....

For not only is God a God of Love and Mercy...

but God is also a JUST God.


also....

God's Timing is Always Perfect.

LOL, that's exactly what I'm saying that you do!

No, we don't know of any such thing.

All we know is that there exist outrageous rumors that make this claim. Even the HONEST clergy acknowledge that it requires FAITH to believe in these tales.

The problem is that before a person can have "faith" that this system of salvation is valid, they must FIRST have faith that a nasty judgmental God is a threat to them in the first place.

I see no reason to place my "Faith" in an idea of a God who is out to harm me to begin with.

But I absolutely must place my "Faith" in that before it would even make sense to place my faith in the idea that this nasty God has designed what I see as a truly rude and crude means of "salvation".

~~~~~~

As I continue to ask endlessly, which makes more sense?

1. These tales are the design of an all-wise supreme being?

2. These tales are the superstitious fears of men?

~~~~

When I ask myself which makes more sense to me, it's clear to me that it's the latter. The former simply makes no sense to me at all.

So why should I place my "Faith" in a nasty God who is out to harm me, when it makes far more sense to me to place my "Faith" in the conclusion that these stories are nothing more than superstitious rumors?

If this God did exist he would need to condemn me for simply not believing in these fables and for having publicly spoken out against them.

So this God would indeed be an extremely hateful and harmful demon with respect to me. He would have no choice in the matter according to these tales.

The only way I could avoid his evil wrath would be to "claim" to believe in these stories. But even that would necessarily be a lie.

The TRUTH is that I cannot possibly justify these stories in a way that make them believable to me. Therefore I truly do not even have the option of "believing" in them. At best, all I could possibly do is to "pretend" to believe in them simply because they claim that if I fail to this God will harm me.

So what does this tell me?

It tells me that this religion has created a God who doesn't even respect or see any value in TRUTH.

If the TRUTH of the matter is that I don't believe in these stories, then wouldn't this God want me to be TRUTHFUL about that?

Or do you think this God would be more pleased if I LIE about it and pretend to believe it when in fact I don't?

How can religion be true, that requires that the only way I can get to their supposedly all-righteous God is through LYING?

That makes absolutely no sense.

Therefore, the religion must necessarily be false.

True.

The only problem is that you have nothing to support your frivolous claim.

On the other hand, I have supported my position in depth.

Not at all actually...


All you did was try to argue "context" to support your delusional premise...


My claim was that your premise that Eve was "punished" for "disobedience" is NOT in the Bible.


If you supported anything, it's that I was correct several months ago when I tried explaining "context" to you and you dismissed it as irrelevant.


But hey, if you wanna debate "context", I'll show you how wrong you are about Eve....

God is Spirit....

Intellect is good....but it requires spirit to meet with Spirit....

That is why we must come to God in spirit and in truth....


You are trying to understand the things of the Spirit with

just your Intellect only, Abra.....that's why it doesn't make sense

Well put...


I would like to suggest that perhaps "disobedience" was not the original "sin" and that perhaps there was another, more detrimental "sin" that affects mankind.

Sadly, the bible wouldn't be a good moral guide for humans for aliens who know nothing of humans.

Reason being that it is so contradictory and confusing. Interpretation can be at both ends of the spectrum.
White supremacists use it to justify their sickness.
Fundamentalists use it to justify their sickness.
Prejudice people use it to justify their perpetration of prejudice ie homosexuals.
Terrorists use it to perpetrate their terror.
Misogynists use it to continue to treat women as inferior and substandard to man.
Political leaders use it to "put the fear of god" into the gullible members of society to push legislation not good for most of society.
Etc...

If we are to believe extraterrestrial llife to have superior intelligence, IM sure they could find all nature of man in the examples of the bible.

There is nothing there that isnt or hasnt been true of mankind,, good and bad,

human nature is not simple

it is complex

humans are not contradictory , they just have behaved differently at different times, in different situations, and they have adapted to different cultures


and I would imagine anyone/anything of above average intelligence could figure that out fairly easily.

Sadly (not really), your bolded words above state that it can be a good moral guide, just pointing out the obvious....

Peterpan, Sin causes separation from God....

God is Holy...therefore,God and sin don't mix.

Basicaly, whether it was the sin of disobedience, or whatecver

the sin ,sin is still sin...

and the consequences of sin follow.


When Jesus was bearing the sins of the whole wide world on

that cross,and became sin for us , God looked away, because

God could not look upon sin .....that was when Jesus said," My

God My God, why has Thou forsaken me......"


(btw, there is so much more, as to why God turned away when

Jesus became sin for us.....God would have destroyed Jesus on

that cross ,HAD God looked upon Jesus, as he was carrying the

sins of the whole wide world).


Ahh....but We have barely even scratched the surface, of all

that is contained within God's Holy Word....Amen?




God IS the Word.......now How Awesome is that....

What an Amazing God !!!!!!!

Were you addressing my post?

You misread it.

I did not speak of the contradictory nature of man at all.

I wasn't speaking of a moral spectrum so wrong as usual.

Christianity is a man-made religion built to support religious prejudice.

I see no spiritual value in it.

And that's the TRUTH.

The one thing that I will agree with you on is that if there exist a divine entity it probably values TRUTH above all else.

I offer God TRUTH.

According to the Christians their God spits on my TRUTH and condemns me anyway.

And I'm supposed to view that picture of God as being a righteous picture?

I don't think so.

you mentioned aliens, and the bible not being a good guide because of its being 'contradictory'

Im pointing out the bible as an excellent resource for the capacity of man throughout mankinds history, whether good or bad, and that I think an alien could figure it out without feeling too confused,,,