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08 Jan 11 - 12:15 PM (#3069900) Subject: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: frogprince Adam And Eve, The Real Story As I was thinking about Young Earth Creationism, I got to thinking about Adam and Eve, and Original Sin. In doing so, I suddenly realized, for the first time, the actual implications of the Biblical narrative. Soon after creating the ancestral pair, God remembered some of the implications of what He had done, which He actually would have known throughout eternity past. He realized that, if He didn't take action soon, they would become hopelessly accustomed to the comfort and freedom of going about without a stitch of clothing on. Obviously, this simply wouldn't do. God realized that, before long, they would observe numerous instances of furry creatures doing all the things that furry creatures do. It would be inevitable that, before long, they would get curious as to how it would feel to try some of those things themselves. The inevitable result would be children. At that point, the situation would immediately become untenable. Children who are exposed to the sight of genitals suffer hopeless psychological damage, often to such an extent that they must be destroyed for the safety of others. If our Puritan forebears recognized this as clearly as they obviously did, how much more deeply must it have troubled the mind of God himself. In fact, the very survival of mankind was at stake; any decent man, to say nothing of one with a mind totally uncorrupted by sin, would kill himself rather than allow a child to see his genitals. God saw that it would be hard for Adam, with the innocent state of his mind, to understand why he shouldn't be allowed to relax in the nude, skinny dip, and enjoy the sight of Eve walking out of the river wet and glistening, or bending over to pick berries. So, to solve the quandry, God contrived and staged the episode with the snake and the apple. While it is true that, as a consequence, the majority of mankind will spend eternity in hell, that is certainly preferable to the situation we would be in if He had not done so. |
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08 Jan 11 - 01:03 PM (#3069932) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: ClaireBear So glad you explained... |
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08 Jan 11 - 01:07 PM (#3069934) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu Pass it over here man. |
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08 Jan 11 - 01:29 PM (#3069947) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Ed T That story seems a bit unlikely to us northerners. If it were winter, Adam wouldn't walk bare pole for long, in many northern areas... except'n if he had burning newspapers (we'll, birch bark back then) between his legs to warm up his assets. What did Adam and Eve do, when they found they were different? They split the difference and raised Cain:) I know it's an old one, but ""what's a girl to do"" on a winter's day? |
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08 Jan 11 - 01:57 PM (#3069965) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw I'm glad it was hard for Adam when he was enjoying the sight of Eve. Lots of blokes aren't so lucky. ;-) |
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08 Jan 11 - 02:05 PM (#3069970) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu They didn't have Viagra back then? God dropped the balls? |
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08 Jan 11 - 02:58 PM (#3070024) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: EBarnacle Good interpretation. I had not even considered the implications of the story. |
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08 Jan 11 - 03:43 PM (#3070065) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Ebbie Hmmmm. Does God Himself wear clothes? |
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08 Jan 11 - 03:44 PM (#3070066) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink Adam and Eve were in the garden They were feeling jolly I wonder how they would have felt Had all the leaves been holly! Adam (man) = innocent All in the same line? Is that why we women are still being blamed for the fall? Somehow I think there has been some economy of truth going on But then I'm just a woman... lol mp |
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08 Jan 11 - 04:10 PM (#3070082) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu Ebbie... yes. At least the God I know. I gave him a handful of spare change again this afternoon and he blessed me. When I waved to him as I was leaving the parking lot I thought, ``Poor bugger... he`s gonna have to stand in front of the liquor store in the snow for quite a while before he gets enough spare change for the night.`` Too bad he`s not the real God or he wouldn`t be begging change in front of the liquor store and neither would anyone else!. (What really bugs me is that I knew a cop would be along and move him along but not move along the teens who are allowed to stand INSIDE the exit foyer begging for change to support their soccer team... the little fuckers don`t even wear their uniforms... when I was younger than them I was mowing lawns, trimming hedges and shovelling snow for my spare change... pisses me off to no end! |
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09 Jan 11 - 03:36 PM (#3070742) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: kendall I'll bet most of you know that they had computers? Oh yes, She had an Apple and he had a Wang |
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09 Jan 11 - 04:21 PM (#3070777) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. ;-) They are all symbolic of sigificant things that occur within every living human being's own levels of consciousness as that person develops and evolves. The entire story is, in my opinion, a simple parable about the development of the inner human....developments in consciousness, in uniting the masculine and feminine principles, in awareness of moral responsibility, loss of innocence, etc. Most of the ancient Israelites didn't get that. They took the story literally. Most of the Christians didn't get it then, and most of them don't get it now. Nor do the Muslims or Jews. And most of the anti-Christians don't get it either...they assume it's a ridiculous literal story such as they would expect, because they already figure that religions must be ridiculous, right? Thus yer mostly spinnin' yer wheels uselessly having contention over literal interpretations of an old symbolic parable, and I'm not gonna help you out, cos it probably would just irritate you and waste a bunch of my time! ;-D Carry on attacking windmills and straw men of your choice, and have lots of fun while you do it, because fun is part of what we're here for, I figure. |
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09 Jan 11 - 04:43 PM (#3070791) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: frogprince "yer mostly spinnin' yer wheels uselessly having contention over literal interpretations of an old symbolic parable" L.H., whuntnhell on this thread looks to you like anyone taking anything literally, or "having contention" over it? Go pontificate on one of the threads where people are actually taking themselves seriously, you silly Shatnerite! |
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09 Jan 11 - 05:13 PM (#3070799) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie I have it on good authority that Bill Shatner does exist (at least Leonard Nimoy says so). |
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09 Jan 11 - 06:04 PM (#3070835) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link i,m not gonna follow this thread as mudcat is threatening to take over my life! but have you heard this one- God asked adam"did you eat the forbidden fruit" adam- "it was the womans fault?" God asked eve "did you eat it?" eve-"it was the snakes fault" and of course;when it got to the snake,he did,nt have a leg to stand on. |
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09 Jan 11 - 07:30 PM (#3070904) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie While we're at it (or something like it (or something completely different)), did you know that in Welsh the Great Beast of the Book of Revelation is a duck - chwech chwech chwech! Nos da. Wela i chi yfory! |
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09 Jan 11 - 07:30 PM (#3070906) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Don Firth "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 |
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09 Jan 11 - 08:00 PM (#3070920) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu 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! |
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09 Jan 11 - 10:20 PM (#3070998) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: EBarnacle 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.] |
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09 Jan 11 - 11:22 PM (#3071021) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Beer Love your post Dean and your theory as well. Hope you can make it this way come the sunshine. AD |
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10 Jan 11 - 06:35 AM (#3071168) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie Get rid of the plosives and you'll be close, EBarnacle, though would anybody be speaking in Yiddish in New Testament times? |
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10 Jan 11 - 08:44 AM (#3071246) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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!! |
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10 Jan 11 - 08:50 AM (#3071250) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Beer Dean, John f.Weldon would have fun with this thread. ad. |
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10 Jan 11 - 09:12 AM (#3071264) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: SINSULL Was incest a sin in the Garden of Eden? I can't figure out how else they could have propagated. |
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10 Jan 11 - 09:26 AM (#3071273) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie If you take the story literally, then we must all be inbreeds (which explains a lot) |
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10 Jan 11 - 09:41 AM (#3071279) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink The snake must have been male. That says it all! ;-) NOT us women's fault after all lol mp |
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10 Jan 11 - 09:47 AM (#3071283) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: EBarnacle I have also heard it called a pomegranate, rather than an apple. |
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10 Jan 11 - 10:56 AM (#3071334) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy Agreed mp, agreed! Well according to Stephen Fry all europeans derive from the same man so that explains why we are so nutty then. |
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10 Jan 11 - 10:59 AM (#3071338) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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10 Jan 11 - 11:11 AM (#3071349) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw 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?? |
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10 Jan 11 - 11:23 AM (#3071357) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: frogprince 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. |
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10 Jan 11 - 11:31 AM (#3071364) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie I think it's name was actually preboolea, and it disappeared around the time that logic was discovered |
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10 Jan 11 - 12:01 PM (#3071387) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: JohnInKansas 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 |
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10 Jan 11 - 12:10 PM (#3071392) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: SINSULL Are you serious, John? I need that link. M |
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10 Jan 11 - 02:47 PM (#3071509) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink 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 |
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10 Jan 11 - 03:08 PM (#3071531) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST, topsie 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. |
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10 Jan 11 - 03:42 PM (#3071560) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu SINS... good one!!! |
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10 Jan 11 - 04:33 PM (#3071592) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Don Firth 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 |
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10 Jan 11 - 05:24 PM (#3071642) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: frogprince 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. |
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10 Jan 11 - 05:58 PM (#3071669) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp 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 |
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10 Jan 11 - 06:22 PM (#3071687) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink 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 |
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10 Jan 11 - 08:16 PM (#3071757) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu mpink... sounds as plausible as other stories I have heard. |
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10 Jan 11 - 08:34 PM (#3071765) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: TheSnail 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. |
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10 Jan 11 - 08:44 PM (#3071769) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw Eve discarded six boobs, eh? I'm glad I'm not the only one who suffers from mammary loss... |
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11 Jan 11 - 04:51 AM (#3071931) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 05:30 AM (#3071949) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: DMcG 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! |
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11 Jan 11 - 06:17 AM (#3071973) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie "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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 08:49 AM (#3072049) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw Er, how could she blackmail him...? |
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11 Jan 11 - 12:09 PM (#3072205) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,999 ". . . 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 12:12 PM (#3072208) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,999 "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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 12:41 PM (#3072228) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 02:13 PM (#3072291) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink 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 |
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11 Jan 11 - 02:32 PM (#3072308) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu "... 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? |
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11 Jan 11 - 02:56 PM (#3072329) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 02:57 PM (#3072333) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link snail -that had ocurred to me,but i,m not getting into that here! |
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11 Jan 11 - 03:37 PM (#3072354) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink 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 |
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11 Jan 11 - 03:50 PM (#3072366) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 04:10 PM (#3072381) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: olddude 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 |
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11 Jan 11 - 04:29 PM (#3072394) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,999 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 06:03 PM (#3072459) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw 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). |
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11 Jan 11 - 06:53 PM (#3072499) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 07:45 PM (#3072542) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw "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. |
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11 Jan 11 - 08:01 PM (#3072555) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: olddude 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. |
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12 Jan 11 - 01:03 AM (#3072683) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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12 Jan 11 - 03:44 AM (#3072729) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw 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." |
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12 Jan 11 - 04:11 AM (#3072734) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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12 Jan 11 - 05:22 AM (#3072752) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw Withold love making? Are you saying that there were no sheep in the Garden then? |
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12 Jan 11 - 10:54 AM (#3072960) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie 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). |
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12 Jan 11 - 06:58 PM (#3073388) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: The Fooles Troupe Frogprince, I point you to another view point on Adam and Eve ... We Are the Other People Read it all ... :-) |
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12 Jan 11 - 07:08 PM (#3073396) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie 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') |
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12 Jan 11 - 07:29 PM (#3073402) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Penny S. 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 |
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12 Jan 11 - 07:32 PM (#3073406) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie Going back to the original post, was either Augustine or Aquinas exposed to the sight of genitals as a child? |
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12 Jan 11 - 07:35 PM (#3073410) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw I would have thought so, unless they wore the same nappy non-stop for 18 years. |
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12 Jan 11 - 07:36 PM (#3073411) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: The Fooles Troupe Then of course there is the story of Adamus & Evemus |
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13 Jan 11 - 06:09 AM (#3073598) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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13 Jan 11 - 06:22 AM (#3073606) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: The Fooles Troupe 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.... |
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13 Jan 11 - 06:26 AM (#3073607) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Penny S. 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 |
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13 Jan 11 - 06:46 AM (#3073622) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Penny S. 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 |
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13 Jan 11 - 08:23 AM (#3073661) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: mauvepink 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 |
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14 Jan 11 - 06:24 AM (#3074299) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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14 Jan 11 - 12:32 PM (#3074533) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 10:43 AM (#3075127) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Alan 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." |
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15 Jan 11 - 01:18 PM (#3075213) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 04:08 PM (#3075302) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 05:31 PM (#3075345) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 06:48 PM (#3075376) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 07:35 PM (#3075398) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 08:18 PM (#3075419) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 08:28 PM (#3075424) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu Can you believe the price of ribs at Sobeys? Unreal. Adam would crap in the garden if he saw the flyer this week. |
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15 Jan 11 - 08:49 PM (#3075431) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk So who says you have to eat ribs? ;-) |
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15 Jan 11 - 08:55 PM (#3075434) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 09:14 PM (#3075441) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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15 Jan 11 - 10:17 PM (#3075464) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,mauvepink 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 |
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16 Jan 11 - 12:26 AM (#3075488) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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16 Jan 11 - 08:35 AM (#3075620) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,mauvepink 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 |
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16 Jan 11 - 10:07 AM (#3075661) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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16 Jan 11 - 04:07 PM (#3075872) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu 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. |
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16 Jan 11 - 05:45 PM (#3075930) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Steve Shaw So, we have a dog lover here I take it. |
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16 Jan 11 - 05:57 PM (#3075941) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie "Cats don't think" - but they think they do. As for dogs, thinking - my favourite! |
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16 Jan 11 - 06:00 PM (#3075944) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Richard Bridge 100 |
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16 Jan 11 - 09:10 PM (#3076057) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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17 Jan 11 - 04:16 PM (#3076643) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Penny S. 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 |
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17 Jan 11 - 04:38 PM (#3076653) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: gnu 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. |
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18 Jan 11 - 08:08 AM (#3077042) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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19 Jan 11 - 07:42 AM (#3077801) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy 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. |
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19 Jan 11 - 11:41 AM (#3077928) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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19 Jan 11 - 12:25 PM (#3077964) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Alan 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.... |
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19 Jan 11 - 05:30 PM (#3078193) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie 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." |
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19 Jan 11 - 06:32 PM (#3078249) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk They're just doing that part to give the audience a little excitement and a sense of speed. |
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19 Jan 11 - 06:41 PM (#3078257) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie Are you implying that the rest of Star Trek isn't exciting? |
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19 Jan 11 - 06:59 PM (#3078264) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk Certainly not. Have you ever seen William Shatner take off his shirt and flex his pectoral muscles? |
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19 Jan 11 - 07:24 PM (#3078275) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Dave MacKenzie 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!' |
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19 Jan 11 - 09:15 PM (#3078351) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: Little Hawk 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. |
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20 Jan 11 - 07:53 AM (#3078536) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,Patsy So if God created Adam first man and Eve first woman what age would he have created them at as a starting point? |
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20 Jan 11 - 09:02 AM (#3078573) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: InOBU 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 |
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20 Jan 11 - 10:57 AM (#3078650) Subject: RE: BS: Adam and Eve, the Real Story From: GUEST,999 Jaysus. This must be what Shakespeare meant when he said `Much Ado About Nothing.` |