[Vision2020] Say What?

[keely emerinemix]

Paul,I'm not a Bible scholar, Old Testament or otherwise, but the imperative to not eat of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is thought by some to be not a literal "bite here and suddenly you'll see it all"-type of thing, but rather a tangible, historical action of volitional will that violated God's command and that in some way would have given Adam and Eve exposure to evil -- sin, violence, oppression, death, sickness, horrors of all kind -- that only an omniscient being should have.  The root of the  defiance was  humankind's desire to appropriate that which is only God's.  What, exactly, that is is not clear; what is clear is that it is symbolized by the omniscience illustrated by the words "knowledge of good and evil."  Hope that helps.  I know we disagree on a lot of things, but I always have appreciated the irenic tone of your questions and statements, and I hope you feel the same.keely"Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me.  For of all slaveholders whom whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders re the worst.  I have ever found the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.  It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists."  Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, feminist, and former slave> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:23:00 -0700> From: godshatter at yahoo.com> To: heirdoug at netscape.net> CC: kjajmix1 at msn.com; thansen at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com; vpschwaller at gmail.com; joekc at adelphia.net; idahotom at hotmail.com; tomh at uidaho.edu> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Say What?> > heirdoug at netscape.net wrote:> > Let me first address your "imperative of blessing".> >> > Keely, When God told Adam and Eve to eat of every tree in the garden > > but not to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was this an > > imperative of blessing or a command to follow?> >   > > I know I'm stepping on your conversation, but this reminded me of > something. > > When a powerful entity demands that you should, in essence, avoid > learning how to distinguish evil from good shouldn't you be frightened > and run away screaming?  What possible motive could this being have for > not wanting you to know evil from good?  How could you possibly live a > life of good if you never learned the difference?  It would be like > living a life avoiding the color yellow when you could only distinguish > shades of gray.  How could you even know that disobeying a command from > this being fell into the "evil" category?  From the perspective of a few > thousand years later I'm still not convinced of that.  You could only > pull this one over on a couple of people that didn't know the difference.> > It all sounds horribly suspicious to me.  I understand that the gnostics > believed that the god of the Old Testament was evil.  I'm beginning to > wonder if they were right.> > Paul
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