It's crystal clear by the context of the story. In fact, if you demand that everything be spelled out in precise words in Bible then you may as toss the document in the trash can, because very little of the cannon (if any of it) is spelled out so precisely.



Your 1st flaw is in your inability to understand context. It's crystal clear from the story what's going on.



You're 2nd flaw is believing that someone told me that's what it meant. You may need people to tell you what things mean, but I'm quite capable of comprehending things myself. Thank you very much.



I never claimed that it was flawless. That's you're own delusion.

I simply offer it up as the obvious context of the story and await anyone else to offer an alternative view. Thus far I have not seen anyone offer an alternative view. Therefore I have no reason to even believe that an alternative view even exists.

It's crystal clear to me what the story is saying. I don't even think of it as a matter of 'interpretation'. I didn't feel that I needed to "interpret" the meaning of the story. I personally think it's straight-forward and crystal clear. No interpretation required.



I disagree. It's not encountered through interpretation it's encountered via the obvious context of the story. As far as I'm concerned that's not the same as "interpretation".

Before something would need to be "interpreted" it would need to be unclear. There would need to be more than one possible meaning that can be taken from the text. Only then would you need to considering having to "interpret" what might actually be meant.

In the case of this particular story I don't feel that it's the slightest bit vague. I also don't see where there are any alternative "interpretations" that are even possible.

Like I say, you'd have to offer a possible alternative interpretation. Otherwise, I see no reason to even believe that such a thing exists.



As far as I'm aware you don't even have one to offer. So it's no loss to me.

LOL!

I personally can't imagine why a supposedly benevolent God would suddenly turn to Eve and curse her with greatly multiplied sorrow in conception and childbirth out of the blue for no apparent reason and with no explanation. Therefore I have no choice but to conclude that the explanation is in the context of the overall story. God was delving out punishments because Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he also punished the serpent who instigated their behavior.

As far as I'm concerned of all the stories in the Biblical cannon this one is pretty straight-forward.

Even so, I still feel that this solution to God's problem here is cruel and unusual punishment. I personally would not have handled the situation by inflicting Eve with greatly multiplied sorrow in conception and childbirth. After all, if I'm the creator of life why would I want to contaminate my main purpose (i.e. creating life) with great sorrow? That doesn't make any sense to me personally.

Moreover, what good would it do?

Clearly as the history of mankind continues to unfold in these stories it's crystal clear that this curse on Eve did not solve anything. So this God would have failed in his purpose to have taught anyone a 'lesson'.

I personally don't believe that causing people pain and anguish is a wise method of teaching anyone anything. It never words, and history shows that it clearly didn't work for the fictitious God in these fables.

In fact, this is one reason why we can know that these stories are indeed false. None of this God's solutions to any of his problems ever works.

He tried punishing Adam and Eve for having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That didn't work.

Later he tried drowning out all the sinners. That didn't work.

Later he supposedly had his only begotten son nailed to a pole. Apparently that didn't work either.

Mankind is supposedly still sinning today just as much, or even worse than Adam and Eve had supposedly done in the Garden of Eden.

In short, this entire cannon of stories is nothing more than a story of a God whose solutions to problems NEVER WORK.

So it's hard to imagine that this God is infinitely wise.

For me personally, it's far easier to simply accept they are Zeus-like myths and move forward to greener pastures to consider other possible spiritual ideas, or possible even face a potential reality of an atheistic world.

I mean, clearly these stories can't be true. The God in these fables fails at everything he does. He couldn't even keep his angels under control. Yet he's supposed to be all-perfect, all-powerful, omniscient, and all-wise?

His behavior simply doesn't match up with the character traits that he's supposed to have. So rather than bending over backwards trying to make these stories make sense, it makes far more sense to me to simply recognize that they are fables and move on.

No one has ever been able to make any sense of these stories no matter how hard they try.

And people who THINK they have made some kind of sense of them have only done so because they REDUCE this God to the position of a mortal parent, or mortal solider, or whatever.

They think, "Oh well it makes sense for a parent to punish their child as a means of teaching them a lesson. Humans have been doing this for eons".

Yes, true. However, humans are not all-wise. Nor has their method of punishing their children to teach them lessons been very productive. So assuming that because humans behave like this that it should make sense for an all-wise supreme to behave similarly is their FLAW.

That's where they have made their error. They start to view God as having the same failings as they have and that's their "justification" for why it makes sense that God should be like that.

They have to strip God of omniscience, infinite wisdom, infinite power, etc., in order to justify these stories.

But what sense does that make?

Seriously?

Doesn't it make far more sense to just realize that these stories are superstitious rumors? Then there's no longer any need to keep degrading God to being as helplessness and ignorant as mere mortal men.

Just my thoughts for whatever they're worth.

That's a very spiritually romantic thought MorningSong.

Truly it is.

Just the same, doesn't that very notion beg the question of why God didn't just make things clear in the first place?

I mean seriously?

With all the diverse fragmented forms of the Abrahamic religions it's pretty obviously that things were not made clear in the beginning.

I don't question your interpretation. I have no clue what it might even be. I haven't heard it yet.

I can't very well admit that my interpretations is flawed. As far as I can see it's not. Neither can I even imagine an alternative explanation to replace it with.

This is why I would be interested to here your alternative interpretation.

Evidently Cowboy has the same interpretation as I do. So I haven't yet seen an alternative interpretation to even consider.

Why should I admit that my interpretation is flawed when I can't even imagine an alternative?

You'll have to offer me an alternative interpretation before I can have an alternative interpretation to consider.

As far as I'm concerned there isn't much to interpret. It seems pretty straight-forward and clear to me. God was delving out punishments. Period.

Like I say, if you have an alternative explanation for why this God would be so mean to Eve why not share it?

Well there you go Peter. Even Cowboy is convinced that Eve was being punished for disobedience.

I would be interested to hear your interpretations.

If this isn't why God greatly multiplied her sorrow in conception and childbirth, then why do you think God did such a mean thing?

Surely you must have an alternative explanation?

The only way that Cowboy will ever quite preaching is when the entire world had converted to Christianity. Anything short of that is simply unacceptable to him.

He's even trying to silence non-believers by proclaiming that they have no right to rebuttal.

Convert or shut the hell up!



I mean, truly.

Will there ever be an end this kind of relentless proselyting?

I don't believe so.

And to make matters even worse, Cowboy refuses to even confess that this is what he does.

Just how underhanded can proselytizing become?

Preaches can't even be honest about their evangelism anymore.



That's pretty bad.

I've already explained this to you many times over. You don't listen.

Christianity is a religion that proclaims that all men have turned against God and are "sinners" in dire need of repentance which can only be obtained by confessing that Jesus is "The Christ", the sacrificial lamb of God, and in doing that support the entire Christian religion and its entire biblical cannon.

This religion makes these actually toward everyone (including non-believers of the religion)

Therefore non-believers have every right to point out why they believe this claims to be utter nonsense.

You can't go around proclaiming that "All men are sinners and in need of repentance" and then chastise those who question the source of your accusations by proclaiming that they have no right to rebuttal.

It is my firm conviction that the doctrine you preach from (and you do preach it dispute your denials), is simply false rumors that have absolutely no credibility.

What you would like to do is basically shut people up who object to these accusations.

That would make your proselytizing of the religion a breeze. No one could object to your religious claims because they would simply be chastised as a 'non-believer' and told to shut up or get lost.

Then the flaws, contradictions, and outright lies in those doctrines would not be exposed.

People who disbelieve in the Christian accusations have a right to voice why they feel those doctrines are completely devoid of any merit.

After all, you keep making those accusations toward EVERYONE.

You keep claiming that "All are sinners and must accept Jesus as sacrificial lamb of a jealous judgmental godhead who will condemn people to spiritual death if they fail to be assimilated by your religion"

So as long as you make those kinds of accusations toward EVERYONE, then EVERYONE has a right to point out why they feel the doctrine you preach from is false and has no merit.

You are preaching a very hateful religion that has a hateful God condemning decent innocent people to spiritual death for extremely trivial reasons like simply not believing in outrageous ancient rumors.

Sorry, but as long as you continue to preach such a hateful picture of God people are going to continue to object to the doctrines from which you preach.

It's only natural.

Quit preaching to people that God will condemn them to spiritual death, and people will quit pointing out to you that the doctrine from whence you got those ideas contains utter absurdities, contradictions, and outright lies.

Peter Pan says no.

Peter Pan says that I'm wrong to conclude that God was punishing Eve for disobedience.

Well, I'm certainly open to hearing why you think God turned to Eve and said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children"

If this wasn't some form of punishment then what else could have it been?

Idle chatter? God just felt like being mean to Eve for no apparent reason?

Do you have an alternative explanation for why this God would greatly multiple Eve's sorry in conception and in childbirth?

Also, why it would be written into this story in the context it was written if it had nothing to do with Eve's failure to refrain from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? God had just finished cursing the serpent for his part in this. Clearly that was punishment. Why should I think that when God then turned to Even and cursed her with sorrowful conception and childbirth he wasn't just continuing to delve out punishments for this?

I'm more than prepared to hear your views and alternative explanations for this.

Otherwise, I see no reason not to conclude that you are simply in denial of what these stories are actually saying.

Cowboy,

I'm curious.

Why do you feel that it's a 'hateful thing' for people to suggest that you are preaching the Gospel of Christianity?

Do you feel that this is a terrible thing to be accused of?

I personally feel that there are beautiful ways to preach the gospels of Christianity. If I personally believed in those gospels I could preach them in a very beautiful way that would not create animosity toward non-believers.

Of course, I can't do that because I simply don't believe that the gospels are true. It wouldn't make any sense for me to preach something I honestly don't believe myself.

But if I were inclined to believe them I could sure do a far better job of preaching them than you are doing. I can assure you of that.

I also wouldn't be ashamed of myself for preaching the gospels. Nor would I try to pretend that I wasn't preaching them.

What would be the point to that?

That's what I don't understand. Why consider it to be a 'hateful thing' that people suggest you are preaching the Christian Gospels, when all you ever do is quote verses from those gospels and continually support your interpretations of those gospels.

How many times have you proclaimed that Jesus died for the sins of humanity and he is LORD who must be obeyed lest people will face spiritual death?

I mean, gee whiz. If that's not preaching from the gospels, what is?

Ok, since that's your claim, when I quote your posts I will add "I believe" before all of your words since you have the nasty habit of always leaving that out.

I believe that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.

You believe that he was a demigod.

So both of our beliefs are equally opinions.



Oh really?



If you truly don't care whether other people believe like you do, then why do you feel that it's necessary to always repeat your views so that other people are not left with the views of someone else?

Your actions don't match up with your claims.

The cookie jar tells no lies.

This simply isn't true Cowboy. You most certainly do preach.

You don't state things as a personal view.

You don't say, "I believe that Jesus died to pay for the sins of humanity"

You preach that he did, and you preach that anyone who refuses to accept this is DEAD WRONG.

In fact, you even demand that failure to believe the claims you make will indeed result in the spiritual demise of the non-believer.

That's PREACHING.

If you want to simply discuss these things, you would simply state what YOU believe for yourself. And LISTEN to what other people believe for themselves.

It's CLEAR AS DAY that you are PREACHING to the FORUM in the hopes of convincing people that what you speak is the TRUTH of GOD.

You even suggest that you have no interest in conversations with individuals. You have no interested in their personal views.

They are in merely in your WAY.

You need to get in the last word to be sure that their views don't TRUMP your belief that the Bible is the word of God.

That's what you have confessed to right here:



Clearly you are out to CONVINCE people that your views are correct and that everyone else's view should not be given any consideration at all.

You can't even allow the views of others to have been stated last on the forums.



Is that a "Sharing" of views?

Or is that at attempt to proselytize your views as the FINAL WORD.

You PREACH your personal views and interpretations of the Bible acting as if they represent the absolute Word of God.

In your quote above you are suggesting that you made ONE mistake.

So do you think you are perfectly correct about everything else then?

You do not speak for God. Neither do you speak for Christianity.

You're not the Pope, and you certainly don't speak for Jesus.

You're just a person who has personal opinions and views like the rest of us.

So in other words, you are confessing that you are just PREACHING to the FORUM and treating the forum as a pulpit to preach your specific religion.

Jeanniebean recognized that years ago.

Yet you become extremely offended when someone points out the fact that you are using these forums to preach your religion to the masses.

You don't appreciate it when an individual on the forum attempts to actually DISCUSS things.

You just push them aside proclaiming that this is not a discussion FOR THEM, but rather you are just preaching to the FORUM and they are in your WAY.

I think it's perfectly fine that Cowboy has his own "version" of Christianity. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm all for true protestantism. I support it fully.

The problem with Cowboy is that he preaches his version of his religion as though he is the ultimately God-appointed Pope.

He's right. Everyone else is wrong.

Period amen.

No other possibility exists.

It's just faith gone wild.

Not so much faith in God, but simply a faith that his view of God can't be wrong. Why? Because he equates "faith" with what he believes. Therefore if what he believes is wrong, then his faith is also 'wrong', and we can't have that.

This is a common psychological trap that a lot of religious zealots fall into. They simply can't be wrong, because that would imply that their 'faith' is wrong, and that's simply unacceptable.

So they end up convincing themselves that their "faith" basically equates to "truth". Otherwise, their faith would be "false" and like I say, we can't have that.

It's a closed-loop feedback system. It has nowhere to go. It can only be self-supporting. Anything less than this would imply a false or incorrect 'faith'. And that's simply unacceptable.

So Cowboy can't be wrong. To be wrong would mean that he has misplaced his faith in to false things. And that's simply not acceptable.

It also shows that nothing is being learned.

You can't add anything new to a 2000 year old story. So you really have no choice but to keep repeating the same things over and over again no matter how boringly nonsensical it gets.

I've already heard all of these apologetic arguments. I haven't heard anything new concerning the Bible in years. It's the same old nonsensical arguments just repeated over and over again.

They are just as devoid of meaningful explanation as they were the first time I heard them.

Once someone explains to you why they don't accept those old apologetic arguments, you shouldn't bother repeating them.

After all, why bother to constantly repeat then when the other people have already explained why they don't buy into them?

This is what is so typical about religious proselytizers. They can't seem to comprehend why other people don't buy into these apologetic arguments.

If Jesus died, and then defeated death after he had died. Clearly he would have had to have been "alive" in some form to have defeated his own death.

So the whole thing is an oxymoron to being with.

Besides, as I have proven beyond refutation, if the wages of sin is 'spiritual death' and not merely bodily death. Then clearly Jesus could not have "died spiritually" to pay for anyone's sin.

Dying in body alone would not suffice.

If when our bodies die, we then resurrect and ascend to heaven, we would clearly not be paying the "wages of sin" which is supposed to be spiritual death.

So if it wouldn't be true for us to have paid the ultimate price of spiritual death if we resurrect and ascend to heaven, then clearly it could not be true for Jesus either.

So the whole fairly tale is an oxymoron.

It's clearly just a superstitious myth that can have no basis in anything real.

Sure, there may have been a man who renounced the immoral teachings of the Torah, and called the Pharisees hypocrites, and was ultimately crucified for his views. That may actually be a historical truth.

But that in no way supports the outrageous and oxymoronic claims made by the authors of the New Testament.

We can clearly see the blatant contradictions in their superstitious fables.

If Jesus "defeated death" as you claim, then he would have also defeated the "Wages of Sin".

In other words, it most certainly wouldn't make any sense to say that Jesus 'paid' those wages for anyone else. At best all that can be said is that he defied them.

All you are basically saying Cowboy, is that the Father had originally created a system where the wages of sin is spiritual death. But Jesus came along and spat in the face of the Father by defying his system and defeating the "Wages of Sin".

Moreover, if you're going to claim that Jesus was God. That only makes matters worse, because then you'd have a God defeating his own plan.

What sense does it even make to have a God defeating his own designed system of dealing with sin?

It makes no sense at all.

No, Matthew and supposedly Jesus don't agree with you at all Cowboy.

It clearly says, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"

That is the everlasting punishment that is being referred to here.

It's clearly a reference to being cast into the hell that had originally been prepared for the devil and his angels.

You keep claiming that humans will not be cast into that hell, but here Matthew has Jesus disagreeing with you.

So it's Jesus who doesn't agree with you Cowboy.

Not me.

I personally don't care one way or the other because I realize that these ancient rumors are just superstitions. It makes no sense for a supposedly all-benevolent God to speak about such horror.

Therefore, I can see why these fables are false.

So it doesn't matter to me whether they are claiming to cast people into an eternal hell fire or not. Anymore than it matters to me what Zeus has to say about anything.

Unfortunately it does say that according to Matthew. They will be cast into the everlasting fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels.

So, the religion doesn't say what you thought it said.

No problem. Just drop it and pick up a new religion.

Jesus wasn't as nice of a guy as you had originally thought, according to the New Testament rumors.

Accept Jesus as a Mahayana Buddhist and you'll find a friend in a Jesus who's a really nice guy.

Here it is in Jesus' own words (if you believe that Matthew speaks on behalf of Jesus)

Matthew 25:
[40] And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
[41] Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
[42] For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
[43] I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
[44] Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
[45] Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
[46] And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

So anyone who doesn't believe in hell for humans either doesn't believe that Matthew speaks for Jesus, or they don't care what Jesus had to say.

The Catholics are quite passionate about this. And they point out verses like the above specifically. These are words that the Bible attributes to Jesus himself through the writings of Matthew.

Personally I don't believe these writings can be trusted to speak for Jesus at all.

I believe that Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva, and the Jesus I know is actually a nice person.

The Jesus created by the New Testament rumors is a monster, IMHO.

If you honestly believe this then it's truly no wonder you push this religion so hard.

You've obviously been convinced that failure to support this religion will result in your spiritual demise.

You have an extremely powerful fear-factor to support this religion. Failure to do so will result in your spiritual death.

You've accepted the fear-factor.

We're trying to help you move beyond that and realize that it's not necessary to support all these terrible things just to avoid spiritual death.

That's the brainwashing scheme behind this religion. It's a fear-based religion. Either believe it or you will face spiritual execution.

That's the fear tactic.

Don't fall for it.

There are far healthier and more positive pictures of spirituality to be had.