BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 04:11 AM

Er, how could she blackmail him...?

In the way women know how by refusing love making to get what they want. She would soon learn the art of that one and Adam would have been at her mercy, being the only woman and all.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 03:44 AM

Sorry, I think we have our lines crossed here (my fault). What I'm saying is that people choose to believe things as truths that cannot be demonstrated to be true. In my mind there I was not equating "not true" with "false."

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 01:03 AM

Steve, I am not saying that people don't believe various things that you and I know aren't true. I'm saying that they don't choose to believe things that THEY know aren't true. ;-) It's simply not possible for a person to believe something while knowing it isn't true...and that's the way you seemed to be wording it in your original statement. Or were you just saying that we do wishful thinking and imagining about things we know aren't true? Well, yeah, but that's just an enjoyable use of one's imagination...we all do that from time to time.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: olddude
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:01 PM

Bruce
I am with you 100% mine is indeed personal. I also don't buy into the traditional view of everything for sure. My Christian faith is far from the cookie cutter version that is preached. I just know that there are those who do have strong beliefs in the bible, the koran , the tora, .. it is not right I think to demean .. and I never saw you do it ever. But for some it is a daily occurrence.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 07:45 PM

"Nor has anyone else?" Do me a favour. People believed the Earth was flat, that monsters ate the sun during an eclipse and that the sun went round the Earth. And don't get me started on religion. The whole problem of humanity is predicated on people believing things that are not true.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:53 PM

So...you tellin' me God's been talking to you about it, gnu? ;-)

"Lets see how many really want to believe things they know are not actually true..."

I have never believed anything that I know is not actually true. Nor has anyone else. I may, however, have an interest in things that I have no way of either denying or confirming...

The only things I categorically believe are things I have confirmed through my own direct experience and observation. Other things remain hypothetical. I may consider them probable or improbable. I may consider them almost certain in some cases...or very unlikely in others. I may be neutral on the possibility. But I neither believe them nor disbelieve them, because I have no basis for that. And I don't take other people's word on the matter as authority, though I'll certainly give their opinion some faor consideration.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:03 PM

I feel at perfect liberty, as ever, to ridicule someone's religion, but it behoves me to keep my big nose out of their private faith, which is an entirely different matter. Religion deserves all the ridicule it gets, and someone has to do it (they got away with it for millennia, let's not forget).

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 04:29 PM

olddude, the faith I have was never because of anything that's in the Bible. I respect people's right to believe as they wish. I also respect my right not to believe in the same manner they do. I do not and hopefully will not demean another's belief in a Supreme Being. Please bear in mind old friend that imo belief is a personal matter between one's God, gods, G-d or lack thereof and the individual.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: olddude
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 04:10 PM

What else in life would you folks have if you didn't have time to ridicule someone's religion on a daily basis ... sure glad you got the answers to life .. sure wish some great thinker would explain it to me ... Like LH said it would take 1000 years for some of you to get it ... but do carry on .. most people who do have faith don't really give a rats ass anymore so have fun

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:50 PM

LH... "But on what basis would you assume that animals do not have souls?"

Me? Not me. God. Ya can't take yer wiener dog with ya, LH! Not MY rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: mauvepink
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:37 PM

gnu says Then I thought, what am I thinking about this bullshit for?

Perhaps, sometimes, we all just want to believe and hope that something has enough truth in it to want to work it out on a sensible level that works. Sometimes, maybe, we need also need to find a reason not to believe further than we do.

In any case we do all seek answers to many imponerable things. It's certainly not wrong to want to try and work it out is the answer I would give you gnu. Imponderable or not... some of us have a need to seek :-)

Along those lines I'll start a thread very soon about fairy tales and Disney films. Lets see how many really want to believe things they know are not actually true... but the idea is quite enteratining and pleasant. I am sure most of us do it to a greater or lesser extent.

Good question!

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 02:57 PM

snail -that had ocurred to me,but i,m not getting into that here!

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 02:56 PM

Several cogent questions there, gnu. ;-)

But on what basis would you assume that animals do not have souls? I think that if people have souls, then animals would also. Perhaps even plants. Perhaps even rocks and clouds. Perhaps even the planet itself has a soul. Perhaps every embodied thing has a soul (meaning an energy signature or some form of consciousness)

The story about the serpent is clearly symbolic. Whatever it has to say about snakes, that would strictly be from a human viewpoint, and the snake is in any case serving as a symbol of something in human nature, I would suspect.

As for snakes, they may have indeed evolved from earlier reptiles which did have legs. Some of our science people might have something to say about that. And if so, that may have played some part in the creation of the original legend about the snake in the garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 02:32 PM

"... God cursed the serpent "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life"... "

My first reaction is, what a prick. Then I thought, if a snake is "just an animal" which has no soul and doesn't discern between right and wrong, why would God punish it? Then I thought, what am I thinking about this bullshit for?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: mauvepink
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 02:13 PM

Well we all start out female... which I see as the 'default setting' for mankind embryologically. But that throws up other things with it. Like Mary - is she was nor inseminated by a man - would have given birth to a girl. It has to be that way without the y chromosome which is sexually transmitted...

A quick search too of artists impressions of Adam and Eve show them both with navels. How can this be unless they were placentally connected to something?

All in the Genesis can really only ever be a poetic, sympbolic or representative suggestion the beginning because there were no pens and paper back then either. Spiritually we need to believe in something if we are to believe in God as a creator. Essentially I see no big conflict but that which we make for ourselves.

In the beginning I suspect we had as many questions about creation as we do now. Many mechanisms have been described which has to be down to the individual as to whether they believe or not. Mockery and fun aside, I can respect those still whose belief system is different than mine, because we still have no idea who is most definitely right.

I believe I have no idea what to believe...

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:41 PM

You're most welcome! ;-) I figured it was time to move beyond Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and other stuff like that...

I also find it funny that people always get hung up over this business of God claiming that man was made in God's (his or her) own image. Why not? What if everything is made in God's image?

And how could it not be, since God is presumed (by many) to be omnipresent and presumed to be the source of everything?

If God had been talking to a rabbit, and a rabbit had written a rabbit's Bible explaining everything, don't you think that the rabbits would be saying that rabbits are made in God's image? I think they would. And they'd be right, too! ;-) The only possible mistake they could make about it would be to blithely assume that ONLY rabbits are made in God's image! Now there would be a ridiculous assumption! But I bet that's what they would assume.

And that is the assumption which religiously minded humans have made. They made the human race exclusive in that sense. I don't think that is the case at all. Either everything is made in God's image or nothing is. (and one has to, of course, decide exactly what the word "God" means....which varies wildly, according to whoever you happen to mention it to...everyone's got their own idea about that. People who object to religion usually hold an idea of God in their own minds that is absolutely unbelievable and ridiculous, and they laugh at it, and then assume that anyone who is religious believes in that idea of God. This allows them to just dismiss any and all religious people as the simple-minded fools they'd like them to be. It also obfuscates any possibility of actually discussing the subject in a useful or enlightening manner...since you can't have a useful discussion between people who consider each other to be morons.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:12 PM

"Adam is symbolic. Eve is symbolic. The Garden of Eden is symbolic. The snake is symbolic. The tree and the fruit are symbolic. Even God himself is symbolic."

Fuckin' thanks for bursting my bubble.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:09 PM

". . . until it was revealed to me by special revelation."

Damn. Y'oughta write a book about that. Call it The Book of, uh--ok, now I'm lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:49 AM

Er, how could she blackmail him...?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:17 AM

"Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness"

There's apparently a Jewish legend that God was a hermaphrodite, so Adam when he was created was too, until Eve was created. There's also the use of the plural in some of the early stories, which is traditionally explained as being the equivalent of the Royal We, but could also be explained by the Jews being polytheistic, possibly right up till the exile, and the plural was too well known to be edited out.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:30 AM

Well, according to my version of the bible, at the line "God said, 'Let us make man in our own image..." there is a helpful footnote which reads; "Man, adam, is a collective nound ('mankind'); hence the plural in "Let them be masters of ..." So forget this idea that there is a person Adam; there seems to be have been a good few. Eve, on the other hand, seems to be singular.

Genesis recommends polyandry: you read it here first!

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 04:51 AM

Eve was kind of lucky because there were no other women that she could be compared to, so she was quids in really. No worries of worrying about any infidelities or Adam getting home late (unless eaten by a snake or something of course) she had it made, infact she had the power to blackmail him into anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:44 PM

Eve discarded six boobs, eh? I'm glad I'm not the only one who suffers from mammary loss...

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: TheSnail
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:34 PM

GUEST,pete from seven stars link

and of course;when it got to the snake,he did,nt have a leg to stand on.

Ah, but...

It was only after the incident with the apple that God cursed the serpent "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" so the pre-lapsarian serpent must have had legs.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:16 PM

mpink... sounds as plausible as other stories I have heard.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: mauvepink
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 06:22 PM

I don't think any primate could breed like a rabbit! The teeth are all wrong for one thing ;-)

I heard Eve was born with 8 breasts though. When she was asked if she liked the garden she said it was fine but she found it hard to sleep with all those boobs. In an effort to help she had 6 removed, thrown on a compost heap at the bottom of the garden, and setlled in. A while later she was again asked how she was doing. She said she was lots better but none of the other animals would have anything to do with her now as she only had two breasts. They had thrown her outside of their community. She asked for a companion to sleep with as she got lonely at night. They could not decide how to make her a companion. She did not like the idea of giving up a rib or anything... so they turned the spare boobs into a companion! Legend has it anyway ;-)

To this day bonobos are still affected badly by it all

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 05:58 PM

The real story is this: First there was Chimps, Gorillas, and Baboons. The Chimps and Gorillas was God's chosen, and was marked as such cos they didn't have no tails, but the Baboons had tails, so God put them to work in the garden cleanin' up all the garbage and waste, while the Chimps and Gorillas got to eat from the fruits of the garden. God peopled the garden with many Chimps and Gorillas, male and female he made them, and they was thrivin' by the millions in the Garden.

From the Baboons eventually came all the other monkeys. From the Chimps and Gorillas came all the other apes.

After awhile the Gorillas began tamperin' with the natural order of things cos they was coveting the Chimpettes, and that wasn't right. The Gorillas had seen that the Chimpettes was far more beautiful than the Gorilla females. (Ever seen how ugly female Gorillas are? I have. I am not all that surprised that the male Gorillas started lookin' around for new possibilities...but they shoulda known better!).

God got plenty ticked off about this, and he called all the Gorillas together and gave 'em a stiff lecture: HANDS OFF THE FEMALE CHIMPS! OR ELSE!!!!!!!

That put a scare into the Gorillas, so they backed off for awhile, but in secret they was still plottin' to get even somehow.

Well, there was this one Gorilla who had no scruples, see? His name was Canoodle. This here Canoodle decided that if he could not have a female Chimp, then he would have somethin' else instead just to get back at God, so he found the scrawniest gal Howler Monkey you've ever seen and bribed her with a boatload of premium bananas from the East end of the Garden. Her name was Easey.

I don't want to get too graphic, but they did it up, down, and sideways in a totally lewd fashion. After Canoodle had done the dirty deed and fully satisfied his carnal desires, he was stricken with guilt, and he ran off and hid out in the bushes. Everyone said, "Where's Canoodle lately? Anyone seen him?" But no one knew where he had gone. Easey kept her mouth shut about their illicit liason, but she soon realized, with horror, that she was pregnant!

Some months after that the female Howler Easey gave birth to twins, and they was really strange lookin'! They looked sorta like real puny hairless apes of some kind, and they didn't have no tails. She named one of them Adam and the other Eve. Bein' as how these two was some kind of genetic abberation, they was moved off to one part of the Garden where the sight of them wouldn't upset the rest of the primates, and there they grew very slowly to adulthood.

It was them two who became the forerunners of the entire human race, and it proved to be a disaster for the entire planet, as anyone can see. They was primates all right, but they was half ape and half monkey, and I don't have to tell you that that is not a good combination! They was soon breedin' like rabbits and overrunnin' everything, and that is why God kicked them both outta the Garden. Then they started murderin' each other and havin' wars. Then they started cuttin' down all the trees and diggin' up the land. They made deserts where forests once had stood. They multiplied all over the place, and there was hardly a place left where they did not go and mess things up for the apes and monkeys and the other creatures. Everything basically went to shit.

To this day the Chimps still blame the Gorillas for what happened, and all because Canoodle done what he did. Without Canoodle, Adam and Eve would never have happened, and there would be no human race on this planet.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 05:24 PM

As sexist as a lot of fundamentalist doctrine tends to be, JohnI.K. discovered some stuff that goes way past anything I've ever heard in that regard. I can just picture the fool sputtering and turning beet red if he heard John's conclusion based on his preaching: "totally promiscuous homosexual love must be the only perfect love". Whatever anyone might think of the Biblical views of male and female, I think it's safe to say the vast majority of even hard core Christian fundamentalists would be dumbfounded to hear anyone claim to get that out of the Bible.

The majority of fundamentalists catagorize other fundamentalists who come up with views that extreme as being cultists, not fundamentalists. On the other hand, some fundamentalists who are that far out on their own twisted limb insist that they are not fundamentalists, but rather a group apart as the only true keepers of the flame.

Incidentally, I've never heard any protestant group, fundamentalist or otherwise, hold to the concept of purgatory.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 04:33 PM

I understand that classic guitar virtuoso Andrès Segovia was once heard to say that if in heaven he had to set aside his belovèd guitar and play the harp, he didn't want to go.

Likewise:   no women? No Firth!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 03:42 PM

SINS... good one!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 03:08 PM

Seems to me the proposal was for a heaven without women rather than a world without them - a prospect that is not worrying me in the least as it is so unlikely I will find myself there.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: mauvepink
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 02:47 PM

I don't mind being in a man's world... as long as I can be a woman in it (Mae West). I so agree with her

Heaven forbid we all become men ;-)

I am not against men. My Dad was one, and a fine man, but a world without women is unthinkable I suspect even for men!

I'm all disturbed now :-(

lol

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 12:10 PM

Are you serious, John? I need that link.
M

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 12:01 PM

Some months ago, when some other controversy was being discussed, I visited a web site that a news report said was "the voice of ..." some fairly large conservative xtian segment.

The transcripts of sermons in one section of the site discussed the burning queston of whether women, whose souls are inherently imperfect, could go to heaven like men do.

It was apparent that this was a matter of great importance to many people in the congregation(s) to whom he spoke, and he went into some detail regarding the various interpretations of the true word.

Among the assertions was that a woman is "made more perfect" by being married to a pious man, and if he went to heaven she could "take joy in perpetual purgatory" in having helped him there, even if her soul was excluded. (This was, in part, the evasion he used to evade an answer for unmarried women.)

His ultimate conclusion was that all souls can be admitted to heaven if they have not "offended god" but once there "all souls will be made perfect in heaven so of course they'll all be made to be like men."

In a separate sermon he asserted that in heaven all souls will love each other perfectly, and since it will be perfect love and all souls will be "men souls" it appears that totally promiscuous homosexual love must be the only perfect love. Apparently he believes that it's forbidden here just so that those in heaven will appreciate it more when they get there, but his explorations of this topic were not completed to my satisfaction, although he gave me the distinct impression that, in the famous words of Custer's scout, - - - "I don't wanna go."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 11:31 AM

I think it's name was actually preboolea, and it disappeared around the time that logic was discovered

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 11:23 AM

The fruit was actually a prebolia; you can't get them at the market, because there has never been more than that one tree. If it's still alive, the location has been lost and never rediscovered. The name was never mentioned in the Bible, so no one knew it until it was revealed to me by special revelation.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 11:11 AM

Teacher to class: Does anyone know who the first woman was?


Class: no response


Teacher: Here's a clue: something to do with apples...


Boy at back of class: Granny Smith, Miss??

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 10:59 AM

How would they have known what goes where, most of us at least have had diagrams hey? Not knocking us British but it would have taken ages to get that together.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 10:56 AM

Agreed mp, agreed!

Well according to Stephen Fry all europeans derive from the same man so that explains why we are so nutty then.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: EBarnacle
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:47 AM

I have also heard it called a pomegranate, rather than an apple.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: mauvepink
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:41 AM

The snake must have been male. That says it all! ;-)

NOT us women's fault after all lol

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:26 AM

If you take the story literally, then we must all be inbreeds (which explains a lot)

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:12 AM

Was incest a sin in the Garden of Eden? I can't figure out how else they could have propagated.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Beer
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:50 AM

Dean,
John f.Weldon would have fun with this thread.
ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:44 AM

I have heard say that the forbidden fruit really was a tomato not an apple. Can't imagine either filling Adam with excitment and desire unless it really was a juicy peach peeled of course because Adam being a man (wimp) probably would have whined about the furry skin. The juice from the peach dripped down on the fig leaves they were wearing which had to be removed for drying and voila nakedness!!

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 06:35 AM

Get rid of the plosives and you'll be close, EBarnacle, though would anybody be speaking in Yiddish in New Testament times?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Beer
Date: 09 Jan 11 - 11:22 PM

Love your post Dean and your theory as well.
Hope you can make it this way come the sunshine.
AD

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: EBarnacle
Date: 09 Jan 11 - 10:20 PM

gnu, it was a test. That really was God to see whether you still followed the Golden Rule. All the others are merely commentary.

Dave, that sounds like the Yiddish: Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. [Complain, complain, complain.]

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 09 Jan 11 - 08:00 PM

Zildjian, and then Sabian cymbals (a convoluted family infighting story) have been made in New Brunswick for many years. Perhaps there was a snake in the ass when Eden when to hell. Cymbolic... perhaps.

BTW, Dave, would that be a duck aèlèorange... aggghhhh... my keyboard is still messed up!

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Jan 11 - 07:30 PM

"Adam is symbolic. Eve is symbolic. The Garden of Eden is symbolic. The snake is symbolic. The tree and the fruit are symbolic. Even God himself is symbolic. . . ."

Well, son-of-a-gun!! And all this time, I. . . .

Don Firth