Re: What Theists Can't Answer

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:33:08 -0400, "CB" <CB@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>So you're saying that rebellion against any and all higher authority is 
>good?

No.  Certainly rebellion is healthy in a society endeavoring to
practice democratic principles but obviously our relation****p with God
was not intended to be a democratic arrangement.

>> If man had really been perfect, he wouldn't have eaten the fruit of
>> the tree of knowledge.
>
>God did give us the ability to 'choose'

Then it's *His* fault, isn't it?  Assuming He's all knowing, He
already knows what all our choices will be.  If they do not suit Him,
he has only Himself to blame for giving us the gift of Choice
particularly since He already knew what those choices would be and
made us anyway.

>  Again, it was not the tree of life they ate
>> from in violation of God's injunction.
>
>So...what was it then? Was it rebellion from Thee Highest Moral
Authority?

It might be seen as an act of rebellion, yes, but again this should
come as no surprise to God who is omnipotent and omniscient.  He knew
before He made us what choices we'd make.

The most common explanation for the 'Apple' allegory that I have heard
is that it represents the, or a ***ual act.  This explains why Eve and
all women were punished by the sufferings of pregnancy and the agonies
of childbirth.  If her sin had been literally eating a piece of fruit,
would it not have made more sense to punish her by making digestion
uncomfortable and elimination an agony?

The Bible teaches us that God made man in his own image.  Physically?
Mentally, emotionally or spiritually?  In what way or ways are we
therefore the same as God.  In what way or ways are we different?

>>>No superstition please.

>> It's much too late for that.

>It's never to late to be forgiven

You misunderstand my comment.  God is not something to be derided as
we slowly discover that the OT is not *literally* true.  Many
Christians have the ability to ignore facts in evidence.  They operate
on Faith.  The trouble is, Faith once taught us that the earth was the
center of the universe, that mental illness was demonic possession,
that disease was retribution from God or a curse by Lucifer.  Then we
learned about astronomy, began sciences on human behavior and
discovered bacteria.

To me, science enhances my awe of God.  It's much more impressive to
know the size and age of His universe than to dismiss it as something
unknowable and go back to my plow.

Faith is a gift of great im****tance in everyday life unless it leads
to certainty from superstition.  In this case 'superstition' can be
defined as baseless beliefs.  One believes one's crop failed because
the neighbor is a witch.  The proof of this is that one night very
late when everybody should be asleep, one happened to wake and find a
disliked neighbor walking near the fence and moving his hands
mysteriously.

But the Tree of Knowledge has taught us that the Church's Faith is
intent on enslaving humans in a state of poverty and ignorance for
it's own aggrandizement.

The Church is not God and I do not believe it accurately represents
His will any longer.

Swill
-- 
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