BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Jan 11 - 10:57 AM

Jaysus. This must be what Shakespeare meant when he said `Much Ado About Nothing.`

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: InOBU
Date: 20 Jan 11 - 09:02 AM

Let me see now, I think I learned the story from Johnny Keenan...

Come all ye sons of piety and listen to my durge
Some say its just a pack of lies, but its gosple every word
When God made father Adam, he laughed and he danced and he sang
and he tied off Adam's belly with a little piece of wang.

Now when the job was over, well God said, I've measured wrong
for when the wang was knotted it was just a bit to long
He said, I've made a BooBoo here, but I think I'l let it hang
so he left on Adam's belly, that little piece of wang.

Now when he finished Mother Eve, it bearly made him snort
For when the wang was knotted it was just a bit too short
He said, it leaves a bit of a gap, but I don't give a dang
she can fight it out with Adam for that little piece of wang

Now ever since that fateful day that human life began
there's been a constant struggle twixt the woman and the man
but if you ask the woman and the man they'll both agree...
that they don't care if that struggle lasts...
for all eternity

Sin e?
Lorcan

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 20 Jan 11 - 07:53 AM

So if God created Adam first man and Eve first woman what age would he have created them at as a starting point?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 09:15 PM

If it had been in front of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, Neil would have said, "This is so cool, I can hardly stand it!" and Joni would have just taken a long drag on her French cigarette and given them a cryptic glance from under her shadowed lids.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 07:24 PM

Wasn't that practically every episode? I'm currently working my way through series 2 of the original and DS9 series 3 - one of my favourite Star Trek moments today, where O'Brien and Kira get transported in front of a couple of California hippies - 'Wow!'

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 06:59 PM

Certainly not. Have you ever seen William Shatner take off his shirt and flex his pectoral muscles?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 06:41 PM

Are you implying that the rest of Star Trek isn't exciting?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 06:32 PM

They're just doing that part to give the audience a little excitement and a sense of speed.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 05:30 PM

I keep wondering when I watch Star Trek how come you see stars whizzing past the window, when my understanding of warp technology is that it entails "moving from A to B without traversing the intermediate space."

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Alan
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 12:25 PM

Backtracking a little to angels dancing on pinheads or standing on needle points, James Hannam in his fascinating book "God's Philosophers" says (if I remember right) that these were arguments made up by "the enlightenment" to try to discredit medieval philosophy.

Have to say I've never come across the Thomas Aquinas conjectures about angels moving from A to B without traversing the intermediate space. Seems that quantum theory may be old hat....

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 11:41 AM

Look, you take what you can get, eh? ;-) Never underestimate the immense power of people's instinctive desire to somehow unite with their unmanifested side (the other gender), and thereby complete themselves.

They could do the same thing by going within (themselves), but they generally don't realize that. My guess is that "Eve" would have found "Adam" pretty interesting, regardless of whether he was smelly or not....and vice versa. But what if Errol Flynn had stopped by? Then she'd have dropped "Adam" like a hot potatoe, and we'd have a different Bible story altogether.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 07:42 AM

Would Eve really have wanted a sweaty and no doubt smelly Adam squelching around her nakedness especially if the climate happened to be a bit on the warm side? It wouldn't have been an exciting prospect for poor Eve. The real story was probably something like Eve being accused of being a tease (all her fault) having to invent 'the headache'and there you are, married life as it is today.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 08:08 AM

My cats were great characters too. I used to call them Misty No.1 Cat and Misha No.2 Cat, the first oldest cat never hardly left my side and very protective towards Misha and the puppy dog I got later. She was never a terrific hunter and spent most of her time on my shoulder especially to get from A to B rather than walk and would retrieve balls of silver paper like a dog but only as long as SHE chose to do it, she was so dainty when walking over fragile breakables without once knocking anything over, Misha my black Siamese cross on the other hand was like a little Bobcat and she could leap and unfortunately catch birds in mid-air often bringing the carnage into the house as a present I don't think that she could fully understand my displeasure. Despite being so agile she was the clumsiest and most likely to knock things over or slip off the edges of things with a bump. Talking about ex's I used to 'chat' to cat No.1 a lot, she was very vocal, she could understand me sometimes too well and if he got too much I could get her to growl and hiss at him. One day he was cooking some bacon and somehow dropped off to sleep, the bacon started to catch alight and she kept clawing him until he stirred saving him. And he had always thought that she didn't care for him. Sometimes I prefer the characters of animals to some humans any day.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 04:38 PM

Penny... what a great story!

LH... yes, cats can learn. My post was was meant to be humourous. Matter of fact, I taught Cheucie, Cassie and Maggie to obey commands. Maggie was quite something. She would do many things, probably because I was the one that "befriended" her as a kitten when she was first brought into my house.

The ex took her days after the separation. I actually miss her (the cat). She went nuts (the cat, the ex was already nuts) and the ex called and asked me to take her back. I said, "You knew she was MY cat and you took her for spite and put her in this trauma so you help her out of it. And if you pawn her off on anyone else... wel, just don't"

Sorry, TMI but they say it's good to get things off yer chest. I know I felt a great relief when I got... nevermind.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Penny S.
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 04:16 PM

And I've seen a hamster thinking.

We had a class hamster in a set of cages made up of Rotostak, plastic fish tanks covered with chicken wire, plastic tubes and bottles. He kept his food hoard in a plastic house partly buried in straw, at the end of the run. To get there from the Rotastak he had to go along a tube, across the inside of a plastic 2 litre bottle, through another tube and down into the first tank, up another tube and along and down into the tank with his hoard.

We fed him at many points around the assembly to make life interesting. One day we had put a carrot in the Rotastak. He found it and seized it in his mouth like a pirate cutlass, then aimed for the exit tube. After two attempts he realised this was not going to work. He went down the tube into the bottle, turned back and took the carrot by the end and pulled it after him, and then started to push it ahead. Then he stopped. He then ran along the route to his hoard and back. After that, he chewed the carrot in half so that it would go round the turns on the way, and successfully took the two parts to store. It took about 20 minutes, and we stopped the maths lesson to watch him.

Everyone in the room, including the hamster, showed much more sustained concentration than was usual in that room.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 09:10 PM

Dang! I wanted that 100. ;-)

gnu - I've seen cats who definitely could think. Their objectives remained within a fairly narrow range, but within that range...they could think. I've also seen cats who were total idiots, and everything in between. I've known one or two who were downright brilliant, in my opinion. They're kind of like people that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 06:00 PM

100

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 05:57 PM

"Cats don't think" - but they think they do.

As for dogs, thinking - my favourite!

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 05:45 PM

So, we have a dog lover here I take it.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 04:07 PM

Cats don't think... they eat, sleep, piss, fuck, shit in the garden and chase small animals. Oh, and subjugate silly human, but they really don't know what they are doing because they are not smarter than humans... well, some.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 10:07 AM

You're quite right that people's minds stay active in the more shallow stages of sleep. There are several stages of sleep, and I was referring to the deep, dreamless stage of sleep as the time when people's minds become quiet, but there are other periods of sleep when the mind is very active, as when we are dreaming. I've had many nights when I doubt that I ever got into a deep sleep, so my mind was active all night long, and I woke up hardly rested the next day. I think an overactive mind is probably the main factor in causing insomnia.

What I was suggesting is that people need a break from their overactive mind, and this is partly why they seek relief from it through using alcohol, various drugs, and through sex as well. Not that there is any guarantee that alcohol, drugs, or sex will shut down the mind...but they often help to calm or relax it a bit for awhile. ;-) On the other hand, some drugs actually complicate mental activity, so it depends how you react to the drug.

I knew a couple of young women, sisters, who were constantly tortured by the negative thoughts passing through their minds, thoughts of not being good enough, not being attractive enough, not being popular enough, etc....and their way of dealing with it was to blitz themselves with alcohol and any other drug they could find to the point of being in a stupor. They wanted to be drunk or stoned all the time in order to get away from experiencing the constant flow of painful, disturbing thoughts. That's what I'm talking about when I say that some people use alcohol...or drugs...or sex...or partying...to escape from their own compulsive mental activity, because it tortures them.

They are, unfortunately, running down a blind alley, because they need to learn how to master and tame the mind, not how to escape it or run away from it. Their efforts to escape only worsen the situation.

I agree that resting (but awake) animals are very alert. Yes. To meditate is to be extremely alert...but silent within yourself. You silence and calm the mind...it becomes like a calm body of water with no waves...as smooth as a mirror...you become extremely alert and aware of your surroundings. Anything that touches that pond will raise ripples. You begin to notice very subtle things around you and within you that you would not notice at all if your mind was chattering on about the usual stuff that it chatters on about. You hear distant sounds that you would usually miss. It really can be beautiful, because it is so subtle.

As for sex....yeah, there can be points in sex where the mind is quite active, and there are other points when it gets right out of the way! ;-) The same goes for playing music. I love those points where the music just flows, and you're not thinking about it at all any longer, just riding the wave. That's when you play at your best. It becomes effortless.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 08:35 AM

Their minds almost never shut up, except when they are asleep or heavily drunk, stoned, or having sex

Seriously not having a go in any way but I find myself in disagreement here once again. People often have noisy minds when asleep. As somone who has been 'stoned' on prescribed drugs that sent me psychotic at the time, I also think minds can be very awake when 'stoned' (I have had dreams under anaesthetic, for instance). As for sex... I think women's minds positively scream at them in certain situations ;-)

In all honesty though. I am not in any way criticising you. This is the whole human condition in that we all think and feel things so very differently. Many animals at rest - especially prey animals - are seldom not in a sense of heightened acuity. They may be still but I would wager their senses are very much on the alert to any change around them...

I suspect even Eve would have been alert when Adam was around her!

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 12:26 AM

I've never seen an animal that didn't think. Yes, they most certainly think, they store up memories and learn from them, and they dream. They also sometimes demonstrate quite a sense of humour and play tricks on others for their own amusement.

What I was suggesting, though, is that people burden themselves with a great deal of unnecessary, absolutely pointless, and often very negative thinking of a type animals don't waste their time on. People don't just consider probable futures of a practical nature, like the cat that waits outside the mousehole, having previously realized that the mouse may again emerge from the hole.

No, people worry about all kinds of totally hypothetical and imaginary stuff that they make up all the time in their own minds, stuff that no cat would ever bother to manufacture. They are tortured by all kinds of self-criticism or issues with others that they run around and around in their minds over and over again. Their minds almost never shut up, except when they are asleep or heavily drunk, stoned, or having sex...that means they are usually at the mercy of a constantly chattering mind that won't stop. And that's what I regard as the primary difference between humans and animals. Humans have a mind that won't shut up, and it tends to make them crazy at times. I've seen some very extreme examples of this, people who never have a waking moment of peace, entirely because of their overactive mind.

If any of you here have studied Eastern spiritual disciplines and meditation, then you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, perhaps you won't. The whole purpose of meditation is to quiet down and hopefully silence the chattering mind while you are fully awake and aware. If you succeed in doing so, it's very beneficial to your state of mind and your bodily health, because it calms your whole system. It brings a feeling of inner peace.

It doesn't mean you're unconscious. It's a state of heightened consciousness, because your mind is not saying anything at all, it's just quietly resting and listening. It's heightened attentiveness to everything other than your inner chatter. Imagine how much better you could hear someone else, for example, if you weren't so busy formulating the next thing you're going to say (and that's what most people do in a conversation, they focus mainly on the next thing they are going to say...meaning they barely listen to other people at all).

I've seen animals at absolute rest...while fully awake...but at absolute rest. They do that naturally. They remain very still when they do that, and without restlessness. Most modern humans hardly ever do it, because they're at the mercy of a constantly chattering mind.

I think we could learn a great deal from the animals when it comes to that. I think they're better at it than we are.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 10:17 PM

I'm pretty sure that many animals 'think', store memories that lead to learning, and even dream. Dogs definitely dream Not all perhaps but certainly there is lots of evidence. Some of it is genetically hard wired in us all, as animals, but some of the wiring can certainly be influenced by environment and living. Only human arrogance could maintain a position of thinking only they can think and retain thought.

There are lots of references on the internet about animals dreaming, thought processes and memory retention. But even without them I would be happy to stae that many animals memorise and plan. Where it not so we would not have got to where we are. The same chemical processes that drive our thought patterns evolved in the animals... then all of a sudden Homo sp. seemed to take a giant leap in the brain size stakes. At some point we would have been pretty equal to some other promates and, even now, some primates can out perform infants to a point.

We humans are in our infancy at understanding how we think, learn, retain and call upon knowledge, use emotions and what they actually are. At a personal opinion level I really have no problem at all with allowing for many animals to have many of the human traits when it comes to mind.

How often have we all pondered what it must be like to be another creature? Watching an octopus sort out an extreme maze and being mischevious in it's lab tank? Seeing how a jumping spider uses prior experience to plan its next attack and lie in ambush of prey. Looking at our pet dog dreaming when asleep and wondering what is going through their heads? Two goldfish sitting in a bowl and one saying to the other, as they look at the people in a room, "I could site here all day and watch them" ;-)

WE got it from the animals so they must have had it in the first place

I think!

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 09:14 PM

I don't see any reason to doubt that your cat is doing some simple planning ahead in regards to the mouse, Steve. I had a dog who did the same kind of thing in regards to specific squirrels and chimpmunks on our property whom he wanted to catch, and he was quite clever about it. He did catch a number of them by lying in ambush at prearranged places (such as right around the corner of the house) and he was willing to lie in wait for an hour or two to do it.

I think we and the animals are, as you say, on a continuous spectrum or a sliding scale in that sense. I wasn't attempting to suggest that we are not animals. We are very complex animals. The Indians, for example, regarded the animals as their relatives, but they did say that human beings bore a mental and spiritual burden that animals do not, having "forgotten" the universal harmony, and that a human being spends his life trying to remember what an animal already knows, but doesn't spend any time worrying about. To say that can indicate a complete dichotomy...or it can just indicate being at a different point on the spectrum.

I have noticed that pets can pick up a lot of mental problems and hangups from their relationship with their owners...so some of our complexities can get transferred to a receptive animal.

If souls exist....then I am pretty sure that every living thing would have a soul, not just humans. If an afterlife exists, then I think every living thing would have an afterlife, not just humans.

The egotism of a race often results in them imagining a deity that is like themselves (only bigger and better)...so if rabbits were to imagine a deity, I bet they'd think it was like a rabbit, thus seeing themselves being made "in God's image". ;-) I prefer the viewpoint of the North American Indians who imagined some kind of omnipresent Spirit that couldn't be described in bodily terms. That's the way most of the Asians see it also...once they move beyond the simpler metaphors (like the many Hindu gods and goddesses). While simple people in India might actually believe literally in those gods and goddesses, more advanced students of spiritual matters in that tradition realize that those are just metaphors for various aspects of existence. They are archetypes, not depictions of supposedly literal being. To put it another way, they are symbols of various primary thought-forms.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 08:55 PM

Monty, my cat, has taken in recent weeks to wanting to sit outside the back door, a few feet along under the kitchen window, for several hours after dark. We think he may have spotted a rodent presence and this intrigues him sufficiently for him to want to keep vigil. He will "ask" to go out at irregular intervals during the evening (he's out there now). Now I have to think that some kind of thought process goes through his tiny feline mind that involves some "thinking ahead." He's all nice and cosy in front of the fire, stomach full after tea, then he gets this sudden penchant to go rodent-spotting. In order to do this he has to agitate to get the back door opened. This is not at all the same thing as wanting to go out for a pee. I don't see how it can be any way other than he takes thought, thinks he'd like to outside, thinks mouse and so pesters to go outside. This is forward thinking after a fashion. I have no idea whether he thinks about tomorrow or dreams of what he did yesterday or whether he has ancestral fantasies about hunting big game. I can't exactly ask him. There are far more "intelligent" beasts than cats but we can't ask them either. I suppose some experimentation may be possible. What I strongly suspect is that us and all the animal kingdom are on some kind of continuous spectrum in these matters. Actually, I find that a very attractive idea. I think we humans can get very arrogant about what we perceive as our special intellectual/spiritual qualities, and then, pride going as it does before a fall and all that, we end up flat on our arses, knickers all in a twist, when we attempt and fail to define what these special qualities are. I'm happy to be a member of the Fifth Apes' League meself.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 08:49 PM

So who says you have to eat ribs? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: gnu
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 08:28 PM

Can you believe the price of ribs at Sobeys? Unreal. Adam would crap in the garden if he saw the flyer this week.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 08:18 PM

I think, Steve, that it is extremely probable that animals and humans think differently in certain respects, primarily that animals don't focus their minds on the past and the future (specially more distant past and future), nor do they make up all kinds of bizarre stuff in their heads to worry about, like people do. Rather, they deal directly with reality in the now, and they do it very effectively, within their obvious limitations.

It seems self-evident to me, both from observing animals and from observing what they choose to do with their time, that this is the case.

Many religions and philosophies have commented on this mental difference between animals and people. The Native Americans, for instance, said that people were different from animals in that they had lost touch with "the universal harmony" and had become unhappy thereby, and that they had to spend their lives searching for the inner harmony with Nature that animals already have.

It's an interesting assertion, one worth thinking about. Does our complex thinking reduce our peace of mind in a way that doesn't afflict animals (except if they hang around people too much, as pets do)? If you can suggest a way of providing evidence for it, go right ahead. I can't. Not unless you can find a way of interviewing animals about it and translating whatever response you get from them. ;-) We can't do that. All we can do is observe the way animals behave, what they do and don't do, and that would give us some pretty strong clues.

I've read about it in practically every ancient philosophy out there. It's very old news. Rather than just denying it because you didn't think of it....why not think about it instead? It's an interesting subject to consider, and that's all I would expect anyone to do: consider it.

There are a vast number of philosophical questions in life, Steve, and they cannot be confirmed or denied by some sort of physical evidence, because they don't deal with the outer phenomena of life. They deal with thought itself. How will you put someone's thoughts in a test tube, Steve? Yet without the capacity to think....you wouldn't even have a response to this discussion and we wouldn't have test tubes either. Thought is real. It's powerful. Without it, you have no human experience. It's also invisible, can't be measured, can't be captured, cannot be "proven" in any specific way...yet we all know it's real.

I am not backpedaling, I'm explaining what it was that I was talking about. I don't think the Adam and Eve legend had much to do with outer phenomena or with history in tbe usual sense, I think it mostly had to do with talking in metaphor about significant changes in consciousness of the collective human race in a very ancient time. That's simply my theory. It's not something I believe, it's something I consider fairly probable. No one has any way of proving it.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 07:35 PM

No, LH, I don't know whether it's true or not. I have no agenda on that score. I'm mentally trained to request evidence for apparently unsupported assertions, which this appeared to be. You didn't actually say it was just your opinion, did you? I'm more than happy to accept your back-pedalling.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 06:48 PM

I don't suppose anybody's interested but :

"A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's Storehouse of Human Knowledge
Did medieval scholars argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin?
Dear Cecil:

When people want to express total pointlessness, they sometimes say a thing is as silly as "arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin." This argument is supposed to have taken place between Byzantine theologians or medieval scholars, or somebody. But I'm beginning to think the fathers (and mothers) of the church are getting a bad rap. Try as I might, I can't find any source that identifies when this argument took place, who discussed it, and what they said. Did this arcane debate really occur, or is this a case of ecclesiastical leg-pulling?

— David F., Belle Fourche, South Dakota

Cecil replies:

I see from your letterhead that you're a minister, Dave. What's the matter, you couldn't query the home office?

Let's get a couple things straight. First, you're misquoting the saying in question. According to unimpeachable sources, it's not how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it's how many can do it on the point of a needle — which, of course, makes more sense. Second, the earliest citation I can find is from a book by Ralph Cudworth in the 17th century, which is suspiciously late in the day.

Insight on this question is provided by Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848), the father of British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. Isaac was an amateur scholar who published a series of books called Curiosities of Literature (the first volume appeared in 1791), which were quite popular in their day. D'Israeli lampooned the Scholastic philosophers of the late Middle Ages, notably Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-1274), who was famous for debating metaphysical fine points.

Aquinas wrote several ponderous philosophical tomes, the most famous of which was called Summa Theologica, "summary of theology." It contained, among other things, several dozen propositions on the nature of angels, which Thomas attempted to work out by process of pure reason. The results were pretty tortured, and to later generations of hipper-than-thou know-it-alls, they seemed a classic example of good brainpower put to nonsensical ends.

For example, D'Israeli writes, "Aquinas could gravely debate, Whether Christ was not an hermaphrodite [and] whether there are excrements in Paradise." He might also have mentioned such Thomistic puzzlers as whether the hair and nails will grow following the Resurrection, and whether or not said Resurrection will take place at night.

Now to your question. D'Israeli writes, "The reader desirous of being merry with Aquinas's angels may find them in Martinus Scriblerus, in Ch. VII who inquires if angels pass from one extreme to another without going through the middle? And if angels know things more clearly in a morning? How many angels can dance on the point of a very fine needle, without jostling one another?"

Martinus Scriblerus ("Martin the Scribbler") was a pseudonym adopted by the 18th-century wits Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Thomas Parnell, and John Arbuthnot, who collaborated on a satirical work entitled Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus, published in 1741. Turning to chapter VII of this book, now available online courtesy of Google, we find the first two questions cited by D'Israeli but not the one about dancing angels. Did D'Israeli make it up? Nah — he undoubtedly cribbed it from the aforementioned Cudworth, who in True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) writes: "… some who are far from Atheists, may make themselves merry, with that Conceit, of Thousands of Spirits, dancing at once upon a Needles Point …"

We find this last quoted in Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study by Teun Koetsier and Luc Bergmans (2004). Koetsier and Bergmans have nosed out a few still earlier antecedents: William Chillingworth in 1648 wrote of clergymen disputing, "Whether a million of angels may not sit upon a needle's point," which in turn may refer to Swester Katrei, "a fourteenth-century German mystical work," in which a character observes, "doctors declare that in heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle."

Not to drag this out, but you see what's going on: wise guys at work. All the items quoted above are burlesques of actual treatises in Aquinas's Summa. Fact is, Aquinas did debate whether an angel moving from A to B passes through the points in between, and whether one could distinguish "morning" and "evening" knowledge in angels. (He was referring to an abstruse concept having to do with the dawn and twilight of creation.) Finally, he inquired whether several angels could be in the same place at once, which of course is the dancing-on-a-pin question less comically stated. (Tom's answer: no.) So the answer to your question is yes, medieval theologians did get into some pretty weird arguments, if not quite as weird as they were later portrayed.

— Cecil Adams"

From a mathematical point of view, it's a similar problem to Achilles and the Tortoise from Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 05:31 PM

LOL!!!

Yeah, right...

I'm stating an opinion of mine, Steve, one which a great many people share, but that doesn't prove it's true. I don't particularly mind if you don't agree with it nor will I ever demand "evidence" to prove one of your opinions. We're having an informal conversation here, not conducting a trial in front of the Spanish Inquisition, the British High Court or some other nitpicking body of authoritative stuffed shirts. If you want to prove how many angels can stand on the head of a pin to someone, go right ahead. I'm discussing ideas here.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 04:08 PM

There are clear differences between human and animal consciousness. One is that people worry about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow, next week, or five years from now. Animals don't do that, they live in the present at all times. People spend a great deal of their time living mentally in either the past or the future...something that an animal would never think of doing.

Evidence please.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 01:18 PM

Good point, Alan. Of course nakedness is fine. When one is in a state of innocence, as I think is probably pretty much the case with animals (and with very young children), then nakedness does not cause any embarrassment or self-doubt.

I think what the legend probably refers to is the arising of a kind of self-consciousness in the early humans when they passed through a certain evolutionary stage. There are clear differences between human and animal consciousness. One is that people worry about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow, next week, or five years from now. Animals don't do that, they live in the present at all times. People spend a great deal of their time living mentally in either the past or the future...something that an animal would never think of doing.

This allows people to plan complicated things to do in their hypothetical futures, and to build on the stored knowledge of the past, and it has allowed the development of very complex civilizations, but it has also caused people a lot of psychological problems that animals don't have.

So a person feels ashamed of his or her nakedness under certain circumstances. An animal wouldn't do that. People also worry about not looking as good as some other person looks or having a "bad hair day". Animals probably don't do that either, they just deal with reality as it comes.

I think the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes a point where primitive humans separated from an animal consciousness into a more complex consciousness which began to have doubts about things like: "Is this a good thing to do or a bad thing to do? Am I a good person or a bad person? Am I worthy or unworthy? Do other people like me?" "Am I attractive?" etc...

The snake is probably the little inner voice of doubt that utters all those troubling questions that bedevil people and cause them stress and insecurity and loss of sleep....but also spur them on toward efforts and endeavours which animals simply can't be bothered with.

It's both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it casts you out of the "Garden" (a natural state of innocence and simplicity). On the other hand, it gives you the chance to rise to a much higher level of consciousness and to take on far greater challenges.

So there's a price for that. And there are rewards for that.

It's a greater victory to attain truth and goodness AFTER the loss of innocence than it is just to remain unconsciously in truth and goodness by remaining innocent, like an animal or a very young child.

Maybe that's why we became human. We wanted a greater challenge and a greater victory. I would definitely go for that if I had the chance, and I would eat the fruit of that tree.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Alan
Date: 15 Jan 11 - 10:43 AM

Nothing like a forum commenting on creationism for seeing straw men being so authoritatively knocked down!

Going back to the original post, if you actually read the relevant passage it's pretty obvious that God had no objection to Adam & Eve's nakedness. In fact, He sounds pretty miffed when they say they hid because of it. "So - who told you you were naked?" Look around - ain't no one but the serpent could have said it. Whether they were were real or just symbolic, the serpent was no friend to the couple. Can you trust what the serpent says about clothing?

So from God's viewpoint, nakedness is fine. The problem is that mankind has swallowed and passed on the serpent's viewpoint that it's dirty, immoral, etc etc, and to their shame pretty much every religious body has outdone each other in agreeing with the serpent rather than God.

As someone said, "if we were meant to go about naked, then we wouldn't be born with any clothes on."

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 12:32 PM

I never shrank away from little girls. I thought they were really neat. It was pretty common, though, for boys under the age of maybe 12 or 13 to shrink away from the girls as if they had "cooties", as the saying went. There was something that scared them about girls...and they covered up that fear by banding together and acting like girls were creepy or weird in some way.

There's some hilarious stuff about that in the famous comic "Calvin & Hobbes". Calvin constantly tries to play dirty tricks on his neighbour, Susie, but she usually gets the best of him.

Girls usually mature faster than boys, they tend to be more articulate, and they are better students on average. I think what's really going on with the young boys is...number one: they're afraid that the females are smarter than they are....and number two: they're insecure about their own masuculinity and the pecking order among their mates, so they shore it up by acting like idiots in front of each other and treating the girls like alien lifeforms.

Given that I was always a conscientious objector to the whole damn "man's club" bullshit business I describe above, I got along fine with the girls...but I had to put up with quite a bit of crap from the boys. Thankfully, most of us have grown up since then! There are a few who never did, of course, but I think they're all hanging out down at "Broken Road" (the local sleazy bar in my town) or else they're in jail, so I don't seem to encounter them a lot these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 06:24 AM

Penny, in the mid 80s my youngest son had a similar reaction when he admitted to his grandparents that he wasn't bothered about 'manly' sports or sport in general neither playing them or as a spectator. My ex-partner's reaction was that he had been short changed by his son by not accompanying him to football matches or sharing as much interest. If there was a family event going on he would be more inclined to help out arranging the food, candles or flowers. My father commented that he should be interested in sports and things of that nature instead, rather than laying up a table.

When I was at junior school the boys reacted the way you describe shrinking away from girls as if they had some kind of disease. That feeling of inferiority didn't go away when I got my first job then I was face to face with a boss who had set ideas about women. Politics or world issues were mostly only discussed by male colleagues or perhaps one or two matriarcal type women and when I commented on something he would tell me 'not to worry my little head about it' luckily things have moved on since then, hopefully.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: mauvepink
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 08:23 AM

Two things are most definitely true about women. They are NOT inferior in any way but they are very different from men.

They are treated inferior by many men but by no means all. On average the differences are very set, though there are crossovers of course in traits and abilities, just as it is with other animals. Where I think it is massively different in humans is that their intelligence - or in many ways a lack of it - actually leads them to believe women truly are inferior. The sad part of this is that some women also believe it.

Of course as men and women we will always treat each other in some ways differently. That is part of the animal/human condition too. But where one treats the other in some inferior fashion is where a lot of life's evils come from.

As in most things in human life, the sooner the differences are accepted between genders, ages, sexualities, creeds, colour and disabilities, the sooner true progress will be made toward no-one being thought as, nor treated, inferior in any way.


We can hope...

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Penny S.
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:46 AM

I remember a science fiction story - can't remember the author (Bradbury?) - called "In the House, an Other" in which the other in the house is described as an alien, and only at the end is it revealed that the other is the wife. As a woman, it was quite scarey to read that. I had grown up not thinking that there was that sort of difference between men and women.

Now I become aware of the appalling differences in attitudes between some men and women, I have to accept that men are not like women at all. But nothing of those differences makes me accept that they make men superior in any way, for women to be "joyously obedient" to, to acknowledge as their spiritual heads. I know it isn't all men who objectify women, dominate them, abuse them and children, and see the satisfaction of their sexual and reproductive wants as the only reason for our existence. I know it isn't all men who fear those traits in themselves and blame women for them. Grown-up men aren't like that. I can't call them adults, because the others have hijacked that word for the own puerile ends. I resent the word adult having been taken so that it doesn't apply to women.

I don't like the way the company who provides my Freeview access has on its website, as if perfectly OK and normal, reassurance to its customers that, if they pay for "adult" content, it will not appear on bills as such. So it's OK for said customers to cheat on the person most likely to see that bill. And the company assumes that their reassurance will not be read by women?

In Christopher Hitchens debate with Tony Blair, Hitchen's raised the way in which the churches have done nothing to eliminate the abuse of women, by endorsing the view of women as inferior. Blair linked this with discrimination against homosexuals as a fault in the church, and I felt it revealed that he felt that women were a minority group of similar size, not half of humanity and over half of church attenders. Apparently as PM he discussed women in dismissive ways with Alistair Campbell. It was interesting that the atheist clearly recognised that women are as human as men, and the supposed Christian did not.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Penny S.
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:26 AM

Patsy, I suspect it did this for some of them - along with the fear of blood - but that these deep feelings are not shared by most modern men. They learn the stuff as an external layer of belief. My nephew, on going to school, did something regarded by others as girlie - can't remember what - and was told in no uncertain terms by his four year old peers that it wasn't acceptable for a boy. He came home from his first day with a set of beliefs he had not had until that date. Boys I taught would shrink away from girls if asked to sit next to them or work with them. They would not have taken on board anything about wombs, menstruation or any adult ideas about us.

My first conscious memory, aged about two and a half, is being posed for a photo by a lake, with two boys who were pretending to fish with sticks. I asked for a stick and was told by them (about the same age) that girls did not fish. Being quite aware of the differences, I could not see the relevance, but could not verbalise this, and did not win the argument. (I know this is real memory, not the artifact of the photo, because I can remember details out of the view of the camera.)

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:22 AM

I have a friend who studied Anthropology. Her Prof said that women who were the food gathers, used to tell the men to bugger off "Go Hunt or something!" to get them out from underfoot. Then sitting around under a tree (you guys have been hunting/fishing, you know what I mean) doing "secret men's business"....


eventually they got the idea that women were inferior....

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:09 AM

I think the real truth is that men really knew our true potential and have brainwashed (bullied) every female into accepting 'our defectiveness' since the year dot in all races one way or another. It seems to me more a case of womb envy rather than being incomplete minus a penis, like it or not we are the carriers of new life and it mystifies and scares them.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:36 PM

Then of course there is the story of Adamus & Evemus

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:35 PM

I would have thought so, unless they wore the same nappy non-stop for 18 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:32 PM

Going back to the original post, was either Augustine or Aquinas exposed to the sight of genitals as a child?

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Penny S.
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:29 PM

That sermon about women having imperfect souls is old medieval (or earlier) rubbish. Apparently the great Augustine of Hippo toyed with the idea that women were only a necessary encumbrance to ensure the continuation of humanity (after dumping his concubine and child without concern). He could not otherwise explain our existence. (What was his relationship with his mother Monica like?) Aquinas felt that because female bodies are obviously incomplete (what would he have argued had he known about the missing part of the male genome) that women are defective. Others wondered if women had souls (as people would later wonder about black slaves). In the gospel of Thomas, Jesus is made to tell the Apostles that Mary Magdalene would be made as a man in heaven.

I feel that there is too much of a trait of men thinking that women are not completely human and then getting to enshrine this in law. Not all men, but enough.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:08 PM

Just had a look. Amazon isn't exactly crawling with DVDs of any of Aristophenes' plays. I'll just ahve to get back to Eve (Myles in 'Torchwood')

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 06:58 PM

Frogprince, I point you to another view point on Adam and Eve ...

We Are the Other People

Read it all ...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 10:54 AM

That reminds me. I haven't seen any Aristophenes for years. I remember a good 'Lysistrata' on the Beeb 'way back in the nineteen-sixties (I think).

Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 11 - 05:22 AM

Withold love making? Are you saying that there were no sheep in the Garden then?