Makes you wonder really, if good and evil were already in existence, but man was simply ignorant to it, what was the concept behind not being defended from evil?

What was the microcosm of protection from evil, represented by the garden of Eden?
What was its mechanism? If the story was a metaphor for trusting God and ignoring evil, it could be seen as a sign from God against free thought.

Even animals recognise an evil of a threat to their existence, and protect themselves by flight or fight strategies.

A confusing story to deal with, outside of superficial acceptance.

Peter,

<<Scripture must be read through the lens of theology.>>

I consider this is an imposition on the biblical text of one's own theology.

Theology often is divided into ...

1. Biblical Theology where the facts of God's revelation in Scripture are classified from the era of the apostles. This theology comes FROM the text and is not read through a lens into the text.

2. Historical Theology pursues the development of biblical doctrines from the apostles to the present, and deals with the impact of this development on the life of the church.

3. Systematic Theology includes the material from Biblical and Historical Theology and arranges this in an organised structure to provide knowledge of God and His relations with the universe, including all people.

4. Practical Theology is a gathering the truth of Scripture to assist human beings in growing in their faith by renewing the mind and sanctification (being set apart for God's use). This is theology put into practice in one's life.

<<It is generally accepted that the first narrative from Gen.1-4a was written by the Priestly writer whose focus was on the six days of creation and the Sabbath rest.>>

That is the modernist view of JEDP authorship, supposedly based on sections of the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible) authored by J = Jawist (Yahwist); E = Elohist (Elohim); D = Deuteronomy; P = Priestly. No ancient Hebrew or Christian scholar has mentioned such a view of authorship.

JEDP is refuted by the NT:

a. Jesus (Mark 12:26) stated that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that the account of the burning bush (Ex 3:1-4) was in the book of Moses.

b. In Acts 3:22, Luke records Deut 18:15-19 and states that Moses was the author of the passage.

c. Paul, in Rom 10:5 speaks of the righteousness Moses described in Lev 18:5.

If the JEDP theory of Pentateuch authorship is true, it makes Jesus, Luke and Paul liars or mistaken in their understanding of the OT.

Instead, JEDP is an invention of modernist theology.

If God wanted humans to behave well why forbid them to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? It is unfair to punish humans for doing wrong when they had not the knowledge of Good and Evil.

It is a fairy tale like the story of Bluebeard who forbids his bride to go into a room knowing full well she will go into the room. The fairy tale was to set the scene for that which follows.

I think we know good from evil if never ever having read a bible or holy scripture.

Good as we know and understand it has its foundations on love. Evil produced at all levels by similar if converse levels of hate?

The Christian Bible and the lessons as espoused by the Rabbi Jesus, was very-very different from the one reinvented, revised and massively edited by the cronies of Constantine and Constantine at the first synod, around 350 AD?

And relied on mainly four, non-eyewitness, plagiarised and systematically embellished gospels, for its Alleged authority?

And used as Authority to rape small children and mass murder whole ethnic communities, in the name of God! And without Question inherently evil, as is excusing or protecting any of it.

The sacrament of the confessional is clearly a manmade contrivance to exercise absolute control and was only invented by men/mere mortals some 700 hundred years A.D. Not by Jesus or any of his apostles!

No man/mere mortal, has any right whatsoever, to forgive or relocate pedophiles so they can continue with their evil and defile the very Church they claim to serve!

If the church needs to do anything?

It needs to surgically excise this inherent evil from its midst and stop protecting it with the alleged sacrament of the MANMADE confessional.

One is quite capable of confessing to an all powerful, everywhere present supreme being without a possibly conflicted or also tarred with the same brush, evil personified, eavesdropping!

Get your head out of books of alleged theological text and back into the real world, the one you seem trying so hard to avoid looking at with clear eyes?

Then do something real inside your political organisations to clean out the evil at its very heart. The time for covering it up/excusing/justifying it? Is well and truly over!

The cleanout a thousand years overdue!
Alan. B.

In only 1 special limited case , s74 of Australia constitution allows appeals to UK monarch in privy council. Then in only 1 case did Adam have to accept higher authority , the tree in the middle of the garden among all other plants available to him.

Many object to the single limitation in both cases . The motives are very alike.

Dear Dan,

Good questions indeed:

«if good and evil were already in existence, but man was simply ignorant to it, what was the concept behind not being defended from evil?»

Evil exists, but only in the mind, so if one (presumably Adam and Eve) has no mind then where can evil enter?

Yes there is death, yes there is physical pain and disability, and yes, the brain functions as best it can to prevent those, but if one doesn't MIND about pain, disability and dying, then this is their defence from evil.

Needless to say, this specific defence is no longer available to us.

«If the story was a metaphor for trusting God and ignoring evil»

No, there was not yet a trust of God at the time, because having no mind, no preferences, what would an animal-like primitive trust God to do (or not to do)?

If you are so innocent as not to differentiate between gold and hot coals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_in_rabbinic_literature#Removes_Pharaoh%27s_crown), then evil cannot touch you.

«Even animals recognise an evil of a threat to their existence»

Animals certainly respond to threats, but do they have and recognise some abstract concept of "threat"? I doubt it.

Galaxies collide, whole stars are squashed, torn up and swallowed by black holes, but is this evil? No, because they do not mind.

---

Just an error I spotted in the article: the tree of life was never forbidden to Adam and Eve, only the tree of knowledge.

Greed is evil & greed comes courtesy of stupidity !
Stupidity evloved via courtesy of do-gooders.
Do-gooders evolved from successfully exploiting the good-natured.
It really is a viscious circle. Now that education has entered the ring of refining stupidity greed is getting out of hand.

Peter,

Throughout your article, you have given us your presuppositions, not based on the text, but from your philosophical/liberal theology. This is not a comprehensive list:

1. 'in the form of saga or legend, the relationship between God, humanity and the world'. That's not what the text of Genesis states. The 'legend' idea is your assumption.

2. 'Our heritage from this narrative [of Gen 1-4a] is that the world is an objective reality and not a dream and that it is natural ie does not contain spirit'.

To the contrary, it definitely does contain 'spirit': 'Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.' (Gen 1:26-27).

An attribute of God is: 'God is spirit' (John 4:24). So to state that 'our heritage ... an objective reality ... i.e. does not contain spirit' is false. It's your presupposition imposed on the text.

3. 'Eden is a paradise but a paradise with a contradiction at its centre, two trees, the fruit of which may not be eaten'. It's not a contradiction but human free-will in action, which is the power of alternative choice.

4. 'The second creation narrative is attributed to the Yahwist because the name for God that he uses is the unpronounceable tetragrammaton YHWE'.

Again, that's your theological liberal presupposition of JEDP authorship. You've done it again with 'the second creation narrative'. Why must you impose your assumptions on the text?

5. 'The narrative provides an explanation for the parlous state of our lives in the form of a legend with mythical elements ie not a history of what actually happened. It is not entirely incorrect to describe the story as a morality tale'. A 'legend with mythical elements' and not history amounts to your presuppositions again.

(continued)

(continued)

Peter,

Where was Eden located? I don't know the exact location in the 21st century, but it was located in a place at the beginning where rivers came out of Eden: The Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates (Gen 2:8-14). The exact location of them could have been changed by Noah's Flood.

For you to state Eden had 'legend and mythical elements' when it was historically a place, is to draw attention to who is promoting a myth.

6. 'After both have eaten they do not die but, unexpectedly, they realise that they were naked and felt shame and sowed clothes for themselves'.

Sadly, this is not an accurate assessment. Did Adam die physically? Adam lived 930 years and then died (Gen 5:3-5).

The apostle Paul confirmed that Adam was a man who died and brought sin/trespasses into the world:

'But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: the judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!' (Rom 5:15-17).

If I read the Brisbane Courier-Mail or Encyclopaedia Britannica with the kind of interpretations you've imposed on the Bible and published them, I'd expect a knock on my door.

Jujutsu.

*…Evil exists, but only in the mind…*

Your theory of the recognition of evil as identifying the only evil is flawed.
What if one was to meet Hitler, or any other despot, on a sunny afternoon at a tea party.
Not knowing his history exempts him from evil?

Let's say we are in a vegetative state of awareness, therefor no evil exists because of our lack of awareness?

Evil exists on earth because God threw out the wicked angles from heaven to sojourn on earth awaiting judgement day.
One would need to argue the point from chronology. Which came first, the throwing out from heaven of the wicked angles, or Adam and Eve and the serpent?

This is the whole point of Noah and the flood story. So the point is, is the serpent the harbinger of evil on earth, OR is it the act of God himself, who deliberately implanted evil on earth to cleanse heaven, the source of evil?

So we can't argue the existence of evil, since it's always been on earth, (biblically speaking).

The sin of Adam and Eve was their acknowledgement of evil. They could suddenly classify it; categorise it even. Knowledge.

Ver strange indeed. So God intended (so it seems), for man to live in total ignorance of his surroundings. As a worm.

And maybe that is the point. This story is an argument against the evolutionary theory. An argument for creationism. Especially since genetics entered the picture at that point. We began the evolutionary period right then. We moved on from the worm; the way God obviously intended us to stay.

The Bible cites God as the source of both good and evil:

Isaiah 45:7

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things.

Oh so suddenly you are a believer David f just because you think you have found a verse that backs up your very flawed narrative. Strange how god deniers desparately grab a verse to confirm their predujices.

Dear Dan,

I cannot comment on this speculation of fallen angels which is based on the book of Enoch that is not even in the bible and the verse about the "sons of God" (Genesis 6:2): modern research indicates that this term was used to denote high-class/royal/noble people, rather than some sort of angels.

If one was to meet Hitler on a sunny afternoon at a tea party, then their mind would likely be affected by Hitler's evil mind, whether they be aware of it or otherwise, therefore: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful" [Psalms 1:1]. Good company is the gateway to spiritual advancement.

Even when our body is in a vegetative state, our mind can still be receptive and while the evil within it is not manifesting at the moment, it still lurks in there.

Now to the extent that we speak of creation literally, David is correct: if God created good than He also created evil. However, "creation" is a dualistic approximation - as if God and His creation are separate. Describing this Creator/created relationship between God and men is a good idea, a useful tool to make men thankful and encourages devotion, yet it is factually inaccurate: nothing was in fact ever created because all there is is God. There could never possibly be anything else, including this which seems to be good and that which seems to be evil - All is God!

1. Evil?

Take the High Church for example.

Where from priests to their bosses accrue Morality Credits.

Then they can, almost always above the law, expend said credits on little children.

http://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-hold-priests-accountable-for-sex-abuse-101947

______________________________________________

2. Excommunication?

But there is "Threat of Excommunication" you say.

Threat of Excommunication is levelled against those priests in Confessional who would do their civil duty by telling Police of other priests interferring with little children.

Meanwhile the priests who actually interfer with little children are not Excommunicated...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_excommunicated_by_the_Catholic_Church

any member or supporter of planned parenthood is equivalent to Hitler. They both used the same tactics in dehumanising and murdering.

Oh so suddenly you are a believer David f
runner,
Stop twisting words. Nowhere did he say he was a believer. You're the hypocritical one here because you're always dragging out psalms & verses when it supports your arguments that you can't prove.
I can't say if there is or isn't a God. If there is he's definitely not at all how religion portrays him.
I'd say the religous would incurr more of his wrath than the genuine humans who don't subscribe to the hypocisy that is religion.

"if God created good than He also created evil. "
Or is that "free will"? Did Adam choose to eat the 1 fruit or did God choose? Surely God's intent was to limit human inhumanity.

Jesus had the choices when Satan gave him the option ( Matt 4.8) and Jesus quoted God and refused, as Adam had been able to do.

really Individual. So you don't see the irony of continually criticising and calling the bible a fairytale and then using it in defense of your arguement. I would hardly call that twisting words.

'I can't say if there is or isn't a God. If there is he's definitely not at all how religion portrays him.'

fair enough however the claims of who Jesus said He was, man's corrupt nature, what He achieved and His resurection are pretty simple for even the uneducated. The bible actually says man is without excuse and I would believe that above lies.

I believe Dan is right, that we are indeed fallen angels and as such capable of great and heroic deeds and great evil if we surrender to the seduction of power and greed.

And here to win back our original places in heaven where ever that be. Personally, I believe it is some sort of reunification with a larger whole that is one unified field of energy, but still many individual conscious self-aware personalities. Experiencing unbelievable all consuming euphoria and overwhelming pure love.

Heaven, therefore, is probably not a place, but rather a state of being? Its opposite is a place of eternal darkness where total all-consuming, unimaginable, unbelievable, terror imposes its all-consuming and terrifying will as it consumes our immortal souls? And far-far worse than being buried alive.

Our finest hours have been when we were in conflict with pure evil personified, i.e., Mr Hitler and various counterparts that have emerged since the dawn of time, that would enslave and predate on other humans unless resisted by our finer selves.

Moreover, saw the best side of humanity, our better angels and their most evil counterpart. those who manned the death camps and committed atrocities many can't believe were true because the depravity was so all-consuming and evil.

Even as Herr Goebbels and co turned up at their church each Sunday morning and sang Christian hymns and recited Christian prayers from a Christian prayer book.

Without question, they were hypocrites pure and simple as are those who protect, forgive and succour paedophilia and paedophiles.

And like an evil disease predate on the poor and downtrodden as they turn them into conditioned robots, without the will to say no, this isn't right!

But instead, quote chapter and verse to justify any position however awful, inherently evil, depraved indefensible or untenable?

SUGGESTED READING, historically correct and essentially ACCURATE if dramatized, Pillars of the earth.
Alan B.

Any then there's Clericalism that puts Church institutional perpetuation ahead of questions of Good or Evil.

In a justly pejorative sense "clericalism" denotes ecclesiolatry, ie.
excessive devotion to the institutional aspects of an organized

religion, usually over and against the religion's own beliefs or faith.

This means that all issues, even those that may be beyond the religion's jurisdiction, must be addressed by either clergy or their supporters.

"Clericalism" is also used to describe the cronyism and cloistered political environs of hierarchical religions,

usually Christian denominational hierarchy, and mainly in reference to the Roman Catholic Church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clericalism
___________________________________________________________

BTW: Celibacy has little to do with woman being the centers of original sin.

Celibacy is the Church's strategy of securing all of a priest's money and possessions without competition

from a priests children who would have had a just claim to inherit his money and possessions.

Batman may need Robin, but an all-powerful, all-knowing God should have no need of Jesus or anybody else.

david f

'but an all-powerful, all-knowing God should have no need of Jesus or anybody else.'

no God doesn't but someone as corrupt as yourself does.

Dear runner,

You keep accusing me of being corrupt and having other bad qualities. I guess it's because I do not believe in your superstition. However, you have a right to believe in nonsense, and I support your right to remain gullible. I support your right to be wrong and think you're probably a good person who is mired in superstition. You are not alone.

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Indestructible Light

http://www.beezone.com/adidajesus/adamnervoussystemeveflesh.html

Section 4 of this essay also refers to Adam & Eve in the Garden, and the subsequent universal Scapegoat drama

http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/there_is_a_way.html

This essay summarizes the situation we are now in

http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/ontranscendingtheinsubordinatemind.html

Ah runner, as usual here to sit in judgement on everyone else and decide on which commentary is cosha and which isn't.

Must be such a comfort to know with such absolute certainty, that you are always right as you stand in God's place of judgement on all your fellow humans and decide what's sin/sinful and what is not.
Alan B.

runner,
There you go again saying things that aren't true. I didn't criticise the Bible, I pointed out the hypocrisy of religion.
The Bible is not religion nor is religion the Bible. The bible is supposedly the word of God. Religion isn't, religion is a man-made tool for the manipulators. religion is hypocrisy plus.

//Where was Eden located? I don't know the exact location in the 21st century//

I do. It was in Bedford.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panacea_Society

david f,

<<If God wanted humans to behave well why forbid them to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? It is unfair to punish humans for doing wrong when they had not the knowledge of Good and Evil.>>

It is not unfair at all to warn children of the consequences if they misbehave. When the first human beings were gifted with free will (the power of alternative choice), God gave them the test and they failed.

<<It is a fairy tale like the story of Bluebeard who forbids his bride to go into a room knowing full well she will go into the room. The fairy tale was to set the scene for that which follows>>.

That is your presuppositional understanding imposed on the text. Don't you know the difference between the content of the creation of a fairy tale and that of an historical narrative? These are not the details of a fairy tale:

"A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin[d] and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates" (Genesis 2:10-14).

The Garden of Eden was historically located at the headwaters of rivers that were named.

The ancestry of Jesus Christ was traced back to Adam (Luke 3:23-38). We are not dealing with a fairy tale but with genealogical reality from Adam to Jesus. David, you are imposing your presumptions on the text to make the tree of the knowledge of good and evil part of a fairy story.

"they had not the knowledge of Good and Evil"
God asked Adam who blamed the woman. God asked Eve who blamed the serpent for deceiving her. She knew alright , she was being evil and accused Adam of harassment and indecent exposure which he denied , she asked for it the hussy in a public park frightening the horses.

Jujutsu

The book of Enoch is an essential in the complete understanding of the fall of man since Adam.
The New Testament references quotes from it. The Quran quotes verses from Enoch, the Jews acknowledge it's importance, it was held in legitimate esteem in the early Christian church, until the Catholic Church removed it officially five hundred years ago.
Without the book of Enoch, the fall of man and its consequences are conflicting and incomplete.
I'd make a bet our Pete will be opposed to the idea of fallen angles interbreeding with humans and producing Nephlin giants. Of interbreeding with with animals, of Noah's rejection of these animal offspring. Etc. Of a pre-hell, of the ten percent of the evil spirits allowed to roam the world until the final judgment, (Christ's encounter with them re New Testament).
All this and more, is the true Christian message of the war between good and evil, and the fall of man.

.

Good and evil seem an odd couple. Good is an ethical term whereas evil is distinctly religious. Perhaps “good and bad”, “right and wrong”, for ethical parallelism and “virtue (or righteousness) and evil” for religious parallelism – which would seem more to the author’s propos.

The word "theology" comes from two Greek words, “theos” meaning “God” and “logos” meaning “word, reason” (Gaffiot,1934).

So-called “systematic theology” is an attempt by a certain number of Christian intellectuals to apply scientific method to their religious beliefs and practices in order to develop their Christian doctrine and dogma – apparently with little success.

A contemporary proponent of systematic theology, not mentioned by Peter Sellick, is an Irish intellectual and former atheist, Alister McGrath who wrote a set of three books on “Scientific Theology”. He, himself, admitted that the end result left much to be desired :

« The process of unfolding what seemed like a bright idea back in 1976 has proved to be far more difficult than I had imagined, and its execution less satisfactory than I had hoped. Initially, it seemed to me that the vast spaciousness offered by these three volumes would be more than adequate to deal with the issues I knew had to be addressed in articulating a coherent and plausible vision of 'a scientific theology'. ... [however] What I had hoped might be extensive discussions of central methodolgical questions have ended up being rather shallow; what I had hoped to be close readings of seminal texts seem to have turned out to be little more than superficial engagements...I have certainly not achieved real closure on the issues which it aimed to address » :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Theology
.

Karl Barth whom Peter Sellick apparently holds in high esteem was a Swiss intellectual who opposed any attempt to closely relate theology and philosophy. His approach in that respect was predominantly Christocentric.

He was considered more "kerygmatic", than "apologetic", kerygmatic meaning that Jesus’ message appealed to the humanity of individuals, rather than to their reason – their affectivity rather than their rationality.

How "scientific is that ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth

.

Dear Dan,

No doubt the stories of Enoch ('Chanoch' in the original text), probably from Persian sources, were popular and well-known amongst the Jews, but the Rabbis in the Talmud warned against reading them and so has eventually the Catholic Church. Was it for no good reason?

The reason is that this book is antithetical to monotheism as it questions God's absolute authority and unlimitedness.

The fall of man can be explained in simpler ways without the need to recourse to angels.

Alan B,

<<I believe Dan is right, that we are indeed fallen angels,,,,>>

Instead of believing Dan, why don't you obtain your understanding from Scripture? We are human beings, created in the image of God. Adam corrupted that and we would have done the same (Gen 1-3; Rom 5).

<<Personally, I believe it [heaven] is some sort of reunification with a larger whole that is one unified field of energy, but still many individual conscious self-aware personalities. Experiencing unbelievable all consuming euphoria and overwhelming pure love>>.

When you invent 'I believe' personally, you are off into presupposition land.

<<Heaven, therefore, is probably not a place, but rather a state of being?>>

Even though your statement ends with a question mark, there is no need to hypothesise like this. Jesus was clear: 'My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?' (John 14:2). Heaven is definitely a place, so says the Messiah.

<<But instead, quote chapter and verse to justify any position however awful, inherently evil, depraved indefensible or untenable?>>

I agree, Alan, that some horrible things have been done with a label of Christianity or singing Christian songs. I do not endorse any of these.

This I know; '"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"--and I (the apostle Paul) am the worst of them all' (1 Tim 1:15).

We can point fingers at Hitler, Goebbels, church child abuse, etc (and we should), but when God examines me, His conclusion is, 'The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards,according to what their actions deserve' (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

We are all not fallen angels but wicked human beings, from the inside out. That's God's assessment, not my invention.

Allan B,

<<I think we know good from evil if never ever having read a bible or holy scripture.>>

Without God's moral absolutes in Scripture (e.g. 10 commandments), each person does what he/she believes is right. Lenin chose the Gulag, many men rape women and children, etc.

<<Good as we know and understand it has its foundations on love.>>

Yep, sexual love of children, erotic love of porn and prostitution.

<<The Christian Bible and the lessons as espoused by the Rabbi Jesus, was very-very different from the one reinvented, revised and massively edited by the cronies of Constantine ... at the first synod, around 350 AD? >>

Are you an historical theologian and professor of bibliology who knows the development of the Bible to write that kind of postmodern deconstruction?

<<And relied on mainly four, non-eyewitness, plagiarised and systematically embellished gospels, for its Alleged authority? >>

Are you talking about the 4 Gospels? Luke's Gospel differs from your deconstruction where he obtained his information from those who handed down eye-witness accounts (Luke 1:1-4).

You don't like the idea of the sacramental confessional. Neither do I. However, Jesus' exhorted us to seek Him for forgiveness: 'forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us' (Matt 6:11). This is not an appeal to father confessor but to Jesus himself.

<<Then do something real inside your political organisations to clean out the evil at its very heart. The time for covering it up/excusing/justifying it? Is well and truly over!>>

Do you really mean that? It was you who stated: <<Evil produced at all levels by similar if converse levels of hate?>>

What is your cure for getting rid of the evil in the human person, political establishment and terrorists?

'You keep accusing me of being corrupt and having other bad qualities'

no David f I am just agreeing with Jesus assesment. He includes me in the same boat.

'There you go again saying things that aren't true'

what things might they be Individual? You butt in on a conversation, get your facts wrong and then make accusations with no evidence. You really are in need of a moral conscience. Instead of sitting on the fence with your 'biblical' belief I suggest you embrace the truth.

David f 'You keep accusing me of being corrupt and having other bad qualities'

runner, “no David f I am just agreeing with Jesus assesment. He includes me in the same boat.”

Dear runner,

I have no evidence that you are corrupt, and you have no evidence that I am corrupt. I prefer to use my reason than go by the word of Jesus. I do not believe in what you believe. That does not mean I am corrupt nor does it mean that you are corrupt. One is corrupt if one takes bribes or is corrupt in other ways. Corruption is defined by corrupt action – not by the assumption that one is corrupt because some religious mumbojumbo says we are all corrupt. I have never committed a corrupt act as far as I can remember. As far as I know you are an honorable person. If you have never acted in a corrupt manner you are not corrupt, and to take on that guilt is sick.

free country David f. You could and are probably in the majority as far as your belief in human nature. Every human has the seed of corruption. You don't need to teach a child to be bad, dishonest, nasty. It comes automatically. You need to teach them not to be dishonest etc etc. Anyway a day will come when you will face judgement and declared guilty or I will be a fool just trying to rescue you from the 'non existant' judgement or Judge. I am just glad that mercy is available to those who accept the truth as lived out by Jesus Christ.

Dear runner,

You and I will both die. That will be the end for both of us. There will be nothing more for us after that then there is for an ant, a koala or a tree. There is absolutely no evidence that there is anything more after our death. I hope it is a long time before it happens to you.

david f.,

<<You and I will both die. That will be the end for both of us. There will be nothing more for us after that then there is for an ant, a koala or a tree. There is absolutely no evidence that there is anything more after our death. I hope it is a long time before it happens to you.>>

To the contrary, there is much evidence. Since Jesus rose from the dead (established by historical investigation), all human beings will rise again. Some to everlasting life and others to everlasting damnation.

I didn't invent that position. It's straight from Jesus himself. Take a read of Matthew 24 and 1 Corinthians 15 in the New Testament.

Yes, we will die, but that will not be the end: 'Just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment' (Heb 9:27).

According to God's promise, where will you be one minute after your last breath? Scoffing at runner and me or dealing seriously with God Himself?? I encourage you to pursue God now so that what happens in eternity will not take you by surprise.

Dear OzSpen,

The stories in the Bible are only evidence that some humans wrote down the fantasies or legends around at their time. Those stories are no more a historical record than the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita or the Muslim Koran. It is no more factual than any of those documents and no more to be believed than any of those documents. All these other religions have their sacred literature, and there is no reason to accept the Bible rather than the documents cited above. The man-god Jesus was an attempt to make the newly invented religion acceptable to the world which had many human/divine figures. The Bible just is an expression of the superstition runner and you share. After my last breath I will breathe no more. I will still be dead. There is no evidence for the existence of any deities or any of the religions mentioned above. You and runner will probably retain your superstition. I will retain my reason. Christian and Muslim missionaries encourage people to adopt their superstitions. I would rather be free of superstition. God and Allah exist only in the imagination of some humans.

A few thoughts to add.

One way people read the story of Adam and Eve regarding eating the forbidden fruit, is that this was a good thing. That we now have a moral attribute to differentiate good from evil. Or that by eating the fruit we have obtained free will, But that's not the context of the bible. In the beginning God made Adam and Eve. And it was good. He gave the fruit from plants to mankind, and the grass and leaves to the animals. There was no murder, there was no killing, there wasn't even predator and pray.

Then there was the conversation between Eve and the serpent. This is a conversation close to what a conman might have with someone else. Take the truth and try to twist it, or just out right lie. Eve though this through, and with Adam they both choose to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were tricked, but they chose it themselves, and they considered it on their own. Therefore the ability to have a free will, and the ability to consider moral decisions existed before eating that fruit.

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What happened afterward continued on throughout this book in the bible. Now men and women were aware of sinful options, they are handicapped with their moral judgement by considering to do evil. It's not that they are better at discerning right from wrong, but now instead that doing wrong is part of the judgment call whether they know it's wrong or not.

This is evidenced by Adam and Eve's first children. Two brothers, and one killing the other out of jealousy. Since then this trait of choosing evil continues on with more generations told from Cain's lineage. Eventually leading to the decision God had before the flood. Mankind has turned to evil in all they do, and is bent towards that direction. Pre flood and post flood this is talked about in the bible our state towards sin, selfishness, and outright evil. Mankind hasn't changed from this.

However, even from the very beginning, when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit (it was only forbidden to eat from one tree. It wasn't forbidden to eat from the tree of life. That decision occurred after eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil); after they ate from the fruit, they say their nakedness. And tried to cover themselves up with fig leaves. God however gave them better clothing. He killed an animal made clothes for them. To this day God has helped us to cover our nakedness, and our sinfulness. From giving the laws to the Israelites to direct us away from evil, and point out that it was there; to later Jesus coming teaching, and dying for our sakes so that we can have God's salvation and the Holy Spirit. We can be continually cleansed and clothed because of God so that we are not naked in our sin.

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The choice to eat the fruit of knowledge or turn from that sin in Adam's day continued on in Cain's day to choose God's direction and not be angry or jealous, or to kill his brother. It continues in Moses's day when God provided laws and rules for a nation to live by. And it continues today to listen to God's teachings and to follow Him, by believing and following Jesus.

david f.

<<The stories in the Bible are only evidence that some humans wrote down the fantasies or legends around at their time. Those stories are no more a historical record than the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita or the Muslim Koran.>>

What are your criteria to determine the accuracy and trustworthiness of any document from history?

How is it that a non-Christian publication such as the Huffington Post, can report the following:

"2,500 year old Babylonian tablets have been discovered in Iraq which provide a glimpse of Jewish life in Babylonian exile. Put simply, the tablets corroborate the Biblical tale....” of Ezekiel 1:1 and the Jewish return to Jerusalem (Nehemiah 6:15-16).

See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simcha-jacobovici/2500-year-old-jewish-tabl_b_6579996.html

What does the Huffing Post, a decidedly non-Christian paper, conclude? "This discovery is a remarkable confirmation of the historical reliability of the Biblical text'. It is not a david f. fantasy but reliable history.

This archaeological find and droves of others confirm the authenticity and reliability of Bible. You're too late to try to convince me of "the fantasies or legends" in the Bible.

See my article, "The Bible: fairy tale or history?"
at: http://spencer.gear.dyndns.org/2014/04/14/the-bible-fairy-tale-or-history/

<<The man-god Jesus was an attempt to make the newly invented religion acceptable to the world which had many human/divine figures. The Bible just is an expression of the superstition runner and you share. After my last breath I will breathe no more.>>

Your presuppositional bias against Jesus, the Bible and Christianity speaks. In your 'reasoning', I read no attempt to deal with the historical basis of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. You have presented no evidence to defend or refute the Bible and 'superstitions' and no life after death.

However, we did get your opinions or assertions, which are not evidence.

To Jujutsu

Some random history...

*...WHY IS ‘THE BOOK OF ENOCH’
NOT IN OUR BIBLE
A historical council in A.D. 90, in Jamnia, fixed the canon of the Old Testament for the Jews. This followed the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The fall of Jerusalem had caused many Jews to repudiate much apocalyptic literature and return to the Law as the only source of guidance.

Quotations of "Enoch" in the "Testaments of the Patriarchs", and in the "Book of Jubilees" show that the "Book of Enoch" was considered as "inspired" in 200 B.C. Although Jude and Barnabus quote it in the first century as inspired, the Jews rejected it as part of their canon of scripture.

The early church oft quoted and referred to the "Book of Enoch."

Jude vv. 14-15
Barnabus 4:3, 16:15
Clement Alexander
Origen
Tertullian
Anatolus of Laodicea
Ireneas
Justin Martyr
all referred to the "Book of Enoch" as inspired.
Nearly all the writers of the New Testament show that they are familiar with"Enoch" and were favorably influenced with it.

Yet around the 4th century, after having been accepted for a few hundreds of years, the Catholic church removed"Enoch" and added some "apocryphal" books to the canon of Scripture for their church.

It was due to the efforts of Jerome and Augustine that the "Book of Enoch" was rejected. They objected to it because of the story of angels being promiscuous with earthly women, and thus producing a race of giants. To encourage the elimination of "Enoch", Jerome caused a vote to be taken to decide between the "Book of Enoch" and the "Book of Revelation." (This is like choosing between "Matthew" and "Luke.")

Thus, the "Book of Enoch" was omitted entirely. It gradually passed out of circulation, and later when the Protestant "reform" came, the book had been lost except in a few isolated areas...*

you will tick-off your own doubts about this ok.

But my research has led to the conclusion, contrary to your claim, Enoc was actually credited for

Then what exactly does Enoch change in the Biblical account and why is that significant?

*...Then what exactly does Enoch change in the Biblical account and why is that significant?...*

Well nnn, that's for you to find out and me to know!

"All this and more, is the true Christian message of the war between good and evil, and the fall of man."_ The Right Reverend His Grace Daniel Diver LOL, ( peace be upon him) ( and all his angels , Aum).
I found out you don't know , by my vision with weeping and wailing.

This concept (probably from Persian origins) as if God has rivals, like evil angels who want to take His place, is not only ridiculous but also a mockery of God.

It portrays a god that is limited, a god who is only one entity among many. Yes, this god is the strongest among them and he eventually prevails and defeats his evil enemies, but only with some effort and cunning.

- This is not God, this is a caricature!

Nothing can logically exist outside of God - it is meaningless gibberish to speak of anything outside God and if a book promotes such stupid ideas then it is well and good that some people had the sense to exclude it from the bible.

There is no such entity as "evil" - evil is simply the attribute of darkness and ignorance, the absence of light and knowledge, particularly the knowledge that we are all one in God, so if you hurt another then in fact you are hurting yourself!

Yes there are such people whom we call evil, but it is superstitious to assume that some evil entity entered them - all it means is that due to their ignorance they seek pleasure/relief at the expense of others, oblivious to the fact that by doing so they only hurt themselves.

There is never a total absence of light and truth, but we start off with only limited truths and our journey takes us to increasingly greater truths and ultimately to the eternal absolute Truth in the light of God.

We pray to God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavamana_Mantra):
"Lead me from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality"

Thank you nnn, I like that, *...Reverend His Grace Daniel Diver LOL..* and Pauline Hanson likes it too. Can you suggest an angelic name for her that suits?

Yuyutsu

I think the concept of a God sharing heaven with his angles is hardly confined to the book of Enoch.

Most things in the Bible are a way-out concept in a modern world such as this.

Your problem with Enoch seems to stem from your imagined threat to God.
God does have rivals of his own making. Akin to wayward children to parents on earth. Nothing at all odd about that concept.
And fallen angles is a concept not unique to the book of Enoch.

What is unique to Enoch, is the specifics of the fallen angles, and the introduction of the watchers.

To dismiss it as inconsistent lacks an understanding of the whole of the Bible, the whole of it is full of inconsistencies. It's why preaching from it is such a slippery experience.

So I conclude you just plain old fashioned don't like it. And strangely you back up with the Catholic Church on this one. A highly suspect operation, especially five hundred years ago!

The watchers come in and disappear . But some fallen Angles return.
The return of the lapsed Anglican - Sydney Anglicans
https://sydneyanglicans.net/blogs/modernministry/the-return-of-the-lapsed-anglican

Church attendance declines, the Pastor whines
(While on the other side),
Stakeholders lament, cries the guardian news,
Authorities count the shoes and ignore the views
The old King carries the cross.

" Pentecostal pastor says Scott Morrison’s leadership 'a miracle of God’ –
Pentecostal leaders have warned their congregation that “darkness” will spread across Australia if Scott Morrison does not win the next election. ,, so God intervened to ensure he beat the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, in the Liberal leadership spill.

Thompson, who says he can interpret dreams and that supernatural signs and manifestations accompany his ministry, said he’d received a message from God that Morrison and the Coalition must win the election. “The Lord woke me up at 4.30am this morning,” Thompson told the Hope City Church congregation on Sunday, . “Just as Scott has come to the fore, unexpected Lord, you’ve kept him hidden for a time such as this,” Beale said.

Morrison is Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister."

Enoch Powell in UK fell from grace and gets no wake-up calls.

St Andrew's church in Ukraine was fire-bombed. “We're seeing that Moscow’s henchmen are trying through such 'transparent hints' to 'scare off' representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch, to whom St. Andrew’s church is being transferred,” Zorya said.. . On November 3, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I thanked Poroshenko for the transfer of the church's building to the Ecumenical Patriarchate."

Holy Mother Russia and all angels strike back at the evil tenth of fallen Ukrainians who worship in sin and bad knowledge of uncivilised thermonuclear hell.