Re: Jesus Christ

From: Bettrel (bettrel_at_aol.com)
Date: 06/21/04 

Date: 21 Jun 2004 21:30:50 GMT

>Thus, free will
>was handed over to man and that's why you can sit where you do and say what

>By eating the apples, the eyes of man were opened, awareness
>of right and wrong was realized, and the path of free will and choice was
>opened to man until the last day.

Having just re-read this Adam and Eve "incident" in the KJV Bible, what you've
said really doesn't all add up. If free will and knowlege of right and wrong
was granted only after eating the fruit, then man's eating of the fruit was
inevitable; it wasn't a "choice" as the very concept of choice assumes free
will. (of course, this hits close to the whole idea of god's omniscience and
whether or not that precludes man's free will, but there's no point in going
into that right now, and Augustine did pretty well with it, too, I believe,
whether or not you actually have faith in the Christian religion) If man had
free will and chose to eat the fruit, then punishment is appropriate... but if
he had free will already, then how was this "path of free will" granted him as
a result of eating the fruit? Yes, there's the awareness of right and wrong
that was granted, too.. but that goes part and parcel with free will, as I see
it. If man has no concept of right and wrong, he can't know that to disobey
god is wrong or even that obeying god is good. It can easily be seen as god
setting up adam and eve since with no free will and no concept of right and
wrong why would they not simply do whatever anyone told them to, the latest
request or order taking precendence since there's no reason for them to believe
that it's wrong to disobey a previous request or order. The analogy of the
child being told they can eat anything but that particular plate of cookies is
a false one since the child does have some concept of right and wrong, and,
thus, the free will necessarily to call what the child does a choice. Adam and
eve, not having this concept of right and wrong or free will, had no choice in
the matter. The story in the bible (again, the KJV) says absolutely nothing
about any deliberating that took place, which, if we take the bible as
literally true (as many seem to assume is the only way to understand the
bible), indicates that no deliberations took place, which further indicates
that they never questioned the matter... eve did what the snake told her to and
adam followed right along. This fits with them having no free will and no
concept of right and wrong... which says to me even more strongly that they
were, in effect, set up by god, if the story is to be taken as literally true.
I, personally, don't recommend taking the bible as the literal truth... but
many do and will and maybe if they get enough of these glaring inconsistencies
shown to them, something might penetrate and eventually open their minds up a
tad. One can only hope.

My apologies for contributing to an off-topic post, but sometimes it's very
hard to sit back and say nothing.

Tonya

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