Simple really:
- A talking snake with legs convinced Eve, who was made from a rib, to eat a fruit that made her realize she was naked.
- ???
- Jesus had to be born of a woman, obviously.
step four: preach about the sins of being wealthy and hold out your hand with a cheesy grin.
profit after this?
Or is there a step five, just waiting to reveal itself, in all it’s impossible glory?
If god created the whole universe. Why did he also create the snake in the first place? Was it because he wanted us to have to overcome evil tempations? Or did evil exist before hand, meaning god didn’t create everything in the universe?
Either he’s omniscient and omnipotent and everything has happened exactly as he intended, proving he’s an asshole, or he’s not and lied about it, proving he’s an asshole.
There is at least one other possibility: nothing that happens in this plane of existence is evil because this plane of existence ultimately doesn’t matter. Or maybe just individual suffering doesn’t matter because it’s all temporal while we are (or are a part of) something bigger.
Perhaps we are an eternal being that started all this into motion and watched it or caused it to develop life that we could enter and experience this creation through. That would be a scenario where there can exist a “God” that has omnipresence, omniscience, and maybe even omnipotence (depending on what exactly such a being would be capable of when not playing an avatar that limits all of that) without any more evil than what exists in a video game or movie.
No idea if that’s the case, though I do believe it’s a more plausible scenario than the one described in the Bible. I have yet to think up a reason as to why a being as powerful as the “God” character would be so jealous and wrathful other than humans wanting to use that character to cause fear that could be leveraged for control. The old testament reads just like an abusive relationship only the abuser was all-powerful (but still needs to rely on threats).
Because when the story was conceived there were other gods, the snake may represent evil but it more so represents the “evil of enlightenment brought about by others whispering tales” or the pill of other gods.
Judaism was unique in that it was monotheistic as well as intolerant of other gods which was kinda very much against the grain in those times.
Christianity took the torch from them started a new fire.
To reduce your question down, you seem to be asking, “Why did x thing get created if it caused evil?”
I like to think that the answer is in how things are created. To create matter, you have to also create antimatter (if i understand that right). Perhaps, for God to create Good, he had to also create evil. A point that I have seen argued is “did god create everything from nothing” like was taught by the Catholic church, or “did god create from existing things” like organization.
In conclusion, what god did and why has a lot of questions around it, and it is easy to split a definition like “create” and get in a heated argument while talking past each other.
I personally think that “being as gods having a knowledge of good and evil” being the boon that the fruit of the tree gave is key to your question as there is no perception of good without the contrast of evil and vice versa.
**Source for personal belief: ** https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 3&version=NIV The serpent lies to get past the reticence of eating/disobeying by saying “you shall not surely die” then persuades with an assertion that I take to be fact: “be like god having knowledge of good and evil”.
The story goes that after the snake convinced Eve to eat the fruit, God cursed the snake and said that part of the snakes curse was that “on your belly you will go” which leads one to believe that before it must not have been on it’s belly… Moral of the story: If an animal crosses God, it’s gonna loose it’s legs. Would have been funny if it was an Elephant instead of a Snake…
Oh, yeah, I never really made the connection that the snake would have had to have some sort of appendages first. Interestingly, the ancestors of snakes did have legs.
Let’s just be honest here,
They kinda gloss over exactly how Mary got preggo.
I’m just wondering, did he pull a Zeus and show up as one variety of animal or another?
Virgin birth was meant as born without sin. So she did the mortal nasty
Which makes the whole Religious Right trying to paint it as her being magically pregnant all so they can make sex ebil even more hilarious
I mean… Jesus DID had brothers and sisters, both from the same mother and some side work Joseph had with another woman.
Sin eventually caught up.
Do you have a source on your claim? Why do you say this when it’s completely false? You are spreading misinformation.
Source:
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
Parthenos Definition
NAS Word Usage - Total: 15
a virgin
a marriageable maiden
a woman who has never had sexual intercourse with a man
one's marriageable daughter
a man who has abstained from all uncleanness and whoredom attendant on idolatry, and so has kept his chastity
one who has never had intercourse with women
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
There’s your answer.
Virgin in this context means unwed.
But good luck convincing a Christian of that ;-)
Do you have a source on your claim? Why do you say this when it’s completely false? You are spreading misinformation.
Source:
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
Parthenos Definition
NAS Word Usage - Total: 15
a virgin
a marriageable maiden
a woman who has never had sexual intercourse with a man
one's marriageable daughter
a man who has abstained from all uncleanness and whoredom attendant on idolatry, and so has kept his chastity
one who has never had intercourse with women
“The angel came in unto her.”
Interpret that as you will.
-
The angel came through the door and into her abode?
-
Or the angel CAME into her vagina?
I’ve had a lot more fun with Bible stories since I started subbing in “teenage Jewish hoodlums who know how to get shit done” every time “an angel of the Lord* appeared. I mean, why would actual magical angels need blood painted on doors to know which houses to avoid? Hoodlums, however, can use a code like that. Or how about removing the tombstone and telling the Marys " why do you look for the living amongst the dead?” That’s a place for a bunch of enthusiastic, anti-empire teenagers if I ever saw one.
He ran out of 9th level spell slots and had to use an 8th level slot to create Jesus.
The question really starts before that. Yahweh is supposed to be “omnipotent” or “all powerful”. So, why was The Christ necessary at all? If Yahweh could shape reality just by saying things and they became real, couldn’t he just say “I forgive you” and “Original Sin” would be forgiven?
So either Yahweh isn’t all powerful and there is some greater power to which he is subservient; or, Yahweh just wanted to dip his dick in an unwilling woman to create his son/self to torture to death. All hail Yahweh!
Apparently bro has a pretty serious code of conduct and adheres to it to a T
The thing is how you want to view it.
Option 1:
Neutral view of religion and history.
People tried to explain their existence and what they could observe. The Bible is just a big collection of stories that tried to explain their understanding of the world. Why it is how it is and who made it and why they made it like that. Why they have to suffer and can have fun…
Option 2:
Overall religious.
God is omnipotent but likes to do shit in a weird way for a reason. This is fine because this is important for some reason and not only what the result in the end is important but the way to it too. Gods decision is always the best.
Option 3:
Sarcastic
God is an asshole who just likes to play with the humans from time to time. Nothing he does is needed to make sense. He could in an instant remove all our problems and create a world where there is no need to suffer. However that would be boring. I mean look around most humans are assholes and we are being created in the image of God.
A person with a background in philosophy ought to be able to make a good faith (hehe) argument that God is not benevolent in any capacity and is doing the same as a toddler in a sandbox.
I had a professor make that exact argument… or perhaps he was quoting an argument of one of the greats. Anyway, the argument goes like this:
- if there is evil, and god has the power to stop it, but he doesnt due to his knowledge, then he is not omnicient
- if there is evil, and god has the power to stop it, but he doesnt and he has all knowledge, then he is evil
- if there is evil, and god does not have the power to stop it, then he is impotent
The first person then smugly smiles that they put God into a box and waits to hear the mental gymnastics from the Christian Philosopher.
The christian philosopher then brings up a few points that were straw manned:
- incomplete understanding of whether what we are seeing is “evil”
- the illusion of choice - are we simply clocks that were preprogrammed back when the big bang occured? Can a clock have “evil” within it?
- moral agents with ability to make meaningful choices - The actions of the omnipotent being (God) are tied by pesky rules regarding choice because the being (God) could eliminate choice: the being could choose the perfect stimuli to create an exact copy of an ideal AI in a bio-mechanical body instead of moral agents who choose to be a dick or not. Therefore, if this fact pattern is reality, then there must be “something special” about being a moral agent and having a relationship albeit distant with an Omnipotent being.
The philosophers then keep asking questions to reduce the opponents argument until they conclude with the following question: “What is?” then they leave as friends.
The way you are confident that you have covered all arguments is a little grating on me. From my understanding of philosophy and christianity, there is another option, but your extremely broad strokes in “option 2” i guess encapsulates it because it explains all actions and reasons for actions as “weird” and “important for some reason” when describing both the process and the destination.
Option 4:
Kicking the kids out after they should be legal adults
God had a ton of kids. He didn’t want them to have failure to launch, so he set up them to have “knowledge of good and evil” and imperfect parents then each of god’s kids (now with bodies as humans) have the choice to act as a moral agent. Moral agents can choose to be dicks or altruistic. The best humans get to be “joint heirs with Christ” and inherit all that Christ inherits. The rest… fail to launch and ultimately get a really nice bedroom and computer but that’s about it. The kicked-out kid’s perspective on their parent right after getting kicked out is extremely mixed.
So, why was The Christ necessary at all?
The straightforward answer is that Christ was the right tool for the job.
If Yahweh could shape reality just by saying things and they became real, couldn’t he just say “I forgive you” and “Original Sin” would be forgiven?
That is a thing Jesus repeated ad nauseam in his ministries. And since he’s an Avatar of God, this is exactly what happened.
So either Yahweh isn’t all powerful and there is some greater power to which he is subservient; or, Yahweh just wanted to dip his dick in an unwilling woman to create his son/self to torture to death.
This is an age-old paradox of language. “Can God create a bolder so heavy that he cannot lift it? Either way, he must not be All Powerful!”
But it limits the way we look at the world to an entirely and superficially magical one. The idea of God as a Wizard in a big crooked hat who says strange words and waves hands and makes a thing happen.
Consider… This paradox is solved without any magical powers. A man with a chisel and a large lump of stone can create a bolder too big for him to lift my main strength. But then that same man can build a lever/pull system to lift said bolder. He has done both! Therefore man is All-Powerful!
God’s favored discipline agreed to bare a child. And that child agreed to martyr himself in order to bring about a Christian faith. And that faith exists to bring light and hope and joy to the world. And its easy enough to find a Christian who can attest to that sense of hopefulness through their faithfulness. A seed planted 2000 years ago gives birth to a forest. Feels miraculous to me.
That gets to the problem with these logical angles of attack on a religious belief. They’ve all been done to death for a thousand years and more. And there are rhetorical rebuttals for any smug one-liner either side can bring to the table. But you can’t logic someone out of a view they didn’t logic themselves into. The idea of Jesus as a spiritual martyr who provides relief for your guilt and inner turmoil isn’t something you can refute casually. Its like arguing with a homopath over the effectiveness of microdosing or with a yogi over the spiritual benefits of meditation.
At the end of the day, all you’re saying is “This shouldn’t make you feel better!” And all they need to refute you is “Ah, but it does.”
Christ alive (hehe) you kinda missed the purpose of the New Testament didn’t you?
Jesus was the last child sacrifice.
That’s the story.
That’s the crucifixion in its entirety.
The rest is shoehorned in AND the best part of it none of it actually happened and there is no record of it except for second hand accounts generations later.
So one of the things Roman’s were really good at, records, didn’t record a Jesus being crucified.
It didn’t happen.
I mean you last line sums it up, If on your balance you can weight the sum total of human systematic logical effort against your anecdotal experience then what is the point of discussion at all?
And you want to know when that looks really ugly? When the faithful see things like “the light and hope brought by faith” and are blind to rivers of blood and human suffering that have not ceased to this day enabled and perpetuated by faith.
It doesn’t matter if there is a god, by the things done in God’s name the concept of faith must be reject for humanities sake.
If on your balance you can weight the sum total of human systematic logical effort
These are George Carlin quips, not exhaustive mathematical proofs.
When the faithful see things like “the light and hope brought by faith” and are blind to rivers of blood and human suffering that have not ceased to this day enabled and perpetuated by faith.
The blood and suffering flow as quickly from the machine logic of a Randroid Atheist as any Theocrat. Blaming a religious figment for natural disasters and manufactured cruelties is no more logical than attributing charity and compassion to the magic sky fairy.
the things done in God’s name the concept of faith must be reject for humanities sake.
That doesn’t logically follow.
