[Vision2020] Say What?

[Paul Rumelhart]

I'm taking it too literally, then?  That still leaves the problem of why 
we should be punished for our need to overreach, when we were presumably 
made that way by the being that is taking us to task for it.  In the 
analogy of Adam and Eve, we couldn't be any more naive than we were when 
we chose that path.

I can also understand it if it was a basic answer to the question of why 
bad things happen to good people.  It's in our nature to stand upright 
and seek out answers in the world (in direct opposition to the rest of 
the animal kingdom), which brings us into an awareness of evil and 
horror and death and pain and despite.  This may not be intended as a 
rebuke for our ambitions, but as a kind of "when you play the big kids, 
you're going to get hurt" type of response.

I, for one, would rather be aware of the failings of mankind and the 
hopelessness of life than be blissfully unaware of it all.  Your mileage 
may vary.

I do appreciate your responses as well.  You always give us much food 
for thought.

Paul

keely emerinemix wrote:
> 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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