Old Testament - Genesis (1 of 66)

Penelope · Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:42 pm


	Quote: DWill said: there is a process through which meaning can emerge, and it can allow everyone to learn to see things they hadn't before, and may--or may not--amount to a consensus of meaning.

All over the globe, people from all different musical backgrounds have agreed that Mozart was a genius. All agree that his music is beautiful and sublime.

What we need is a Mozart for the spirit. And ears to hear of course.

Chris OConnor · Sun Mar 14, 2010 9:26 pm

Happy Birthday, Stahrwe!

stahrwe · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:15 am

DWill wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: It is an interesting point, and one we don't discuss a lot. If you'll permit me for a moment, the latitude to consider the story of Adam and Eve as accurate, then whatever was going on there was not a religion, it was a relationship. We even have a picture of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, looking for Adam and Eve. This wasn't monotheism, it just was. Religion didn't rear its ugly head, until Adam and Eve attempted to become gods themselves. That was the temptation they were confronted with, not to eat some fruit but to become as wise as God and in the course of the incidents in Genesis 3, religion was born with all its baggage. The single God of Genesis 1 and 2 was now joined by two more gods namely Adam and Eve*, and it's been downhill ever since. Let's face it, the struggle that we have faced even for atheists, isn't whether there is a God or not, rather, It's whether we are the god we are going to worship. Polytheism, I think is the confusion that results from rejecting the one true God. At some level, we understand that the individual is not God, But if we reject the true God then the only thing that's left is for us to worship ourselves. Of course this leads to confusion as I know the same process which leads me to consider myself divine leads you to the same conclusion. The result is a mess where the truth is rejected in favor of constructed religions which are all equally true, because none of them are.

Not sure what you mean by supposing the A & E story to be "accurate." Do you mean by this to consider it as an actual event, or apart from that matter, as true in what it says? If the latter, there's a problem in what it says anyway. It doesn't say just one thing, but may say many things to different people. Before you say, "truth is not relative," this doesn't involve that. Interpretation is always relative. Why would we even have the word if this were not so? You're offering your interpretation; it's a good one (meaning a plausible use of the facts of the narrative). I respect it, but I can't respect a claim that a narrative has an exclusive 1:1 relationship with some other idea about it (i.e, an interpretation). Even in your own church, there must be a diversity of ideas about Bible narratives. It doesn't matter a bit in this regard whether we consider them as histories or stories.

I was attempting to emphasize that in Eden, there was no religion. According to the story there is only one rule which required no effort on the part of Adam and Eve.


	DWill wrote: This is where I think the Moyers approach that you shun is very valuable. That approach owes something to the Jewish practice of midrash; in fact Moyers came up with the idea because a rabbi in New York became well known for assembling groups of people to talk about the Bible. These were explorations, the value of which was not that they resulted in meaning cut-and-dried, but in the process of bringing people together to talk about the great ideas.

Are you referring to midrash aggada or halakha?

DWill wrote:

I might like to come back later to talk about your interpretation.

stahrwe wrote:


	DWill wrote: There was a TV show and book back in the late 90s called "Genesis: A Living Conversation." It was a roundtable discussion by many scholars, translators, and writers, moderated by Bill Moyers. I just checked the book out of the library. The participants weave a fascinating tapestry of meanings from this great book; it's a fine example of liberal education in action. Why is it that you want to preserve Genesis and all the Bible in formaldehyde?

The Bible should not be limited to a specimen examined out of mere curiosity, nor is it helpful to limit one’s examination to pieces from a few places. You need to examine the whole animal to know it. That being said, the Bible is a strict disciplinarian, it does not lend itself to the process of, “weaving a fascinating tapestry of meanings,” because, if the meanings are up to the individual, then there is no meaning and we are back in the Garden again with each of us being the author/god. The problem I have with Moyers and his ilk is that there is no standard. It would have been helpful if Moyers had included a Criswell, Fallwell, or Archer in the discussion.

Don't hold my flowery phrase against Moyers and crew. I disagree with you. Meanings aren't "up to " each individual just because each expresses ideas or interprets; there is a process through which meaning can emerge, and it can allow everyone to learn to see things they hadn't before, and may--or may not--amount to a consensus of meaning. Did your mother or father ever say to you, "That's it, and we won't discuss it?" This is in effect what Falwell did, and the others do, and what you also do. I say "in effect" because you all claim to want to discuss. But you can't discuss if you only want to say "This the way it is." 'Discuss' is a good word whose roots mean 'dashed to pieces,' 'investigated,' and 'shake.'

I challenge you to find an instance where Falwell responded that way in a debate setting. He never did and would not have. He has an unfortunate reputation, but he was an engaging speaker. Why not include some conservatives in the Moyers mix?

stahrwe wrote:


	Dwill wrote: Is it your contention that religion never evolves--no matter which religion we might be talking about--or just that the Christian religion didn't? Did the Muslims also not emerge from polytheism but have a completely independent creation?

I don't know what Abraham's background was. I presume he was a polytheist based on what we know about his relatives. Whatever he was, what distinguished him was that when God called him he followed.

Religions might, and probably do evolve, Judaism evolved in a sense into Christianity at which point it ceased to be a religion. True Christianity cannot evolve because there is nothing beyond it. That being said, there are still some events which have not taken place, but they don’t affect the outcome. Christianity is the end of the road and does not include Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or any other cult.

Can you explain the bolded section please? What else does Christianity supposedly not include? I think the Catholic Church could mount a good argument that your own Protestantism came past "the end of the road," so you aren't Christian, either.

Judaism had an established sense of rules and ritual including a priesthood to act as go between humans and God. Christianity has none of that. There is no ritual involved in our relationship with Jesus, and no priesthood. The believer is his own priest.

And BTW, Baptists are not protestants.

DWill · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:27 am

stahrwe wrote:
It is an interesting point, and one we don't discuss a lot. If you'll permit me for a moment, the latitude to consider the story of Adam and Eve as accurate, then whatever was going on there was not a religion, it was a relationship. We even have a picture of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, looking for Adam and Eve. This wasn't monotheism, it just was. Religion didn't rear its ugly head, until Adam and Eve attempted to become gods themselves. That was the temptation they were confronted with, not to eat some fruit but to become as wise as God and in the course of the incidents in Genesis 3, religion was born with all its baggage. The single God of Genesis 1 and 2 was now joined by two more gods namely Adam and Eve*, and it's been downhill ever since. Let's face it, the struggle that we have faced even for atheists, isn't whether there is a God or not, rather, It's whether we are the god we are going to worship. Polytheism, I think is the confusion that results from rejecting the one true God. At some level, we understand that the individual is not God, But if we reject the true God then the only thing that's left is for us to worship ourselves. Of course this leads to confusion as I know the same process which leads me to consider myself divine leads you to the same conclusion. The result is a mess where the truth is rejected in favor of constructed religions which are all equally true, because none of them are.

The first question that might be asked is why didn't God just make the humans without these limitations? Or why didn't he just change them into gods? I think you would respond that was not his will. I would say that this is a traditional element of narratives about humans and gods--that the gods always place some prohibition before the humans, which the humans of course break.

In any event, after eating the fruit Adam and Eve change, but surprisingly perhaps, they don't become godlike. It would be hard to tell, though, because we don't know what these godlike qualities would be. It is as though, instead, eating the fruit has brought with it the punishment even before God tells them all the ways their lives have changed for the worse.

But according to your formulation, since the original sin was to try to be gods, rather than having a god as they were commanded, or maintaining a right relationship as you put it, the sin that humans continue to be most subject to is trying to act like gods, that is (at least as in one way of putting it), that they think that they can self-sufficiently order their own lives and set the terms as they see fit. This leads to such problems because they have the pretension of being all-wise but not the endowment.

Although I see this as a reasonable statement of the dilemma, and I commend you for it, the solution is not as clear to me as it is to you. You acknowledge, I think, that religion is not in itself the answer ("religion...rear[s] its ugly head"). The reason for this in my opinion is that humans thinking they have a lock on what God is and what God wants, leads often to disaster and paradoxically is not different from humans making gods of themeslves. If I think I'm the true right hand of God, I'm definitely close to thinking I am God, as much as I might deny it. Atheists will not make this mistake, though they can make others.

The solution you come up with is that there is one true religion that avoids the mistakes of all the others. By now you may know that I have absolute conviction that this can't be true. I can't offer that conviction as any kind of proof; call it a kind of faith if you will. God is a way that people have used to navigate around the dilemma posed, that is, that our certainty of individual self-sufficiency is bad. But then this worthwhile cure becomes as bad as the disease when it turns into certainty of only one right way.

stahrwe · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:43 am

bleachededen wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: If you are not a spiritual person, i.e. you don't worship God in some form they you are carnal by definition and focus on the flesh because you have no spiritual aspect.

So, according to our Young Earth Creationist expert here, you can only be spiritual by worshipping the "God" of the Christian Bible. Amazing.

I specifically used the terms 'spiritual' and God without additional identification to avoid being misinterpreted as requiring you to be a Christian or Jew. Did you miss, "God in some form" or did you choose to ignore it? I capitalized God out of respect for other belief systems though I would not capitalize gods. Don't ascribe to me ideas based on your intepretation of what I mean. By definition, if you are not a spiritual person, you are a carnal person, those are the two options, there is not a third that I am aware of.[/quote]

"Spiritual" does not equal belief in a monotheistic God. And by not being spiritual, one is not then only carnal, they are still intelligent human beings who don't worship themselves simply because they don't worship the Judeo-Christian idea of God. That is narrow-minded at best.[/quote]

you are correct that spiritual is not necessarily a belief in God. I did not say that it was. Additionally, the definition of carnal is as follows: "The word “carnal” is translated from the Greek word sarkikos, which literally means “fleshly," and is a root of such words as sarcophagus. In the context I was using it it does not mean immoral. For this discussion, if you are not spiritual, you are carnal, i.e. the flesh is all there is.


	bleachededen wrote: And you still didn't answer my question.

I am not sure why everyone is afraid I am insulting them. I believe the phrase, "keep trying," is one of encouragement. It is certainly not the same as saying, "that's the trouble when you argue with an idiot." But suppose, for a moment, that it was an insult, so what? Evidently, if it was, it was so awkwardly contrived as to render you unsure. But let me assure you that it is intended as encouragement.

DWill · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:46 am

stahrwe wrote:


	DWill wrote: This is where I think the Moyers approach that you shun is very valuable. That approach owes something to the Jewish practice of midrash; in fact Moyers came up with the idea because a rabbi in New York became well known for assembling groups of people to talk about the Bible. These were explorations, the value of which was not that they resulted in meaning cut-and-dried, but in the process of bringing people together to talk about the great ideas.

Are you referring to midrash aggada or halakha?

And you consider that response to be on point? How?

stahrwe wrote:


	DWill wrote: Don't hold my flowery phrase against Moyers and crew. I disagree with you. Meanings aren't "up to " each individual just because each expresses ideas or interprets; there is a process through which meaning can emerge, and it can allow everyone to learn to see things they hadn't before, and may--or may not--amount to a consensus of meaning. Did your mother or father ever say to you, "That's it, and we won't discuss it?" This is in effect what Falwell did, and the others do, and what you also do. I say "in effect" because you all claim to want to discuss. But you can't discuss if you only want to say "This the way it is." 'Discuss' is a good word whose roots mean 'dashed to pieces,' 'investigated,' and 'shake.'

I challenge you to find an instance where Falwell responded that way in a debate setting. He never did and would not have. He has an unfortunate reputation, but he was an engaging speaker. Why not include some conservatives in the Moyers mix?

Let's determine first that all of the several dozen Moyers included were liberals. I haven't read much of the book. I apologize if I've mischaracterized Rev. Falwell et all.

stahrwe wrote:


	Dwill wrote: Religions might, and probably do evolve, Judaism evolved in a sense into Christianity at which point it ceased to be a religion. True Christianity cannot evolve because there is nothing beyond it. That being said, there are still some events which have not taken place, but they don’t affect the outcome. Christianity is the end of the road and does not include Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or any other cult. Can you explain the bolded section please? What else does Christianity supposedly not include? I think the Catholic Church could mount a good argument that your own Protestantism came past "the end of the road," so you aren't Christian, either.

Judaism had an established sense of rules and ritual including a priesthood to act as go between humans and God. Christianity has none of that. There is no ritual involved in our relationship with Jesus, and no priesthood. The believer is his own priest.

And BTW, Baptists are not protestants.

Then Roman Catholics are not Christians. That is a remarkable statement you appear to be making. Do you say it because only those believers who conform to an arbitrary definition of 'relationship' can be true Christians?

stahrwe · Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:10 pm


	DWill wrote: This is where I think the Moyers approach that you shun is very valuable. That approach owes something to the Jewish practice of midrash; in fact Moyers came up with the idea because a rabbi in New York became well known for assembling groups of people to talk about the Bible. These were explorations, the value of which was not that they resulted in meaning cut-and-dried, but in the process of bringing people together to talk about the great ideas.

stahrwe wrote:

Are you referring to midrash aggada or halakha?


	DWill wrote: And you consider that response to be on point? How?

You introduced the idea of the midrash. There were two distinctly different approaches. Aggada was more of a sitting around, talking about the foklore of the Torah. Delving into the meaning or meanings of the stories, etc.

Halakka was a more empirical approach. It took the Torah at its word and worked out the laws in detail.

Both of the above are overly simplified explanations, but you get the idea. The Moyers project was, if anything, Midrash Aggada with a collection of all liberal and in a number of cases obscure participants, some so obscure I could not find any books written by them.


	DWill wrote: Don't hold my flowery phrase against Moyers and crew. I disagree with you. Meanings aren't "up to " each individual just because each expresses ideas or interprets; there is a process through which meaning can emerge, and it can allow everyone to learn to see things they hadn't before, and may--or may not--amount to a consensus of meaning. Did your mother or father ever say to you, "That's it, and we won't discuss it?" This is in effect what Falwell did, and the others do, and what you also do. I say "in effect" because you all claim to want to discuss. But you can't discuss if you only want to say "This the way it is." 'Discuss' is a good word whose roots mean 'dashed to pieces,' 'investigated,' and 'shake.'

I challenge you to find an instance where Falwell responded that way in a debate setting. He never did and would not have. He has an unfortunate reputation, but he was an engaging speaker. Why not include some conservatives in the Moyers mix?


	DWill wrote: Let's determine first that all of the several dozen Moyers included were liberals. I haven't read much of the book. I apologize if I've mischaracterized Rev. Falwell et all.

Walter Brueggeman
Roberta Hestenes
Burton Bisotzky
Renita Weems
John Kselman
Hugh O'Donnell
Avivah Zornberg

just google them and look at what is available on each. I won't publish it here so as not to be accused of cherry picking, but I assure you they are all not only liberal but extreme.


	Dwill wrote: Religions might, and probably do evolve, Judaism evolved in a sense into Christianity at which point it ceased to be a religion. True Christianity cannot evolve because there is nothing beyond it. That being said, there are still some events which have not taken place, but they don’t affect the outcome. Christianity is the end of the road and does not include Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or any other cult. Can you explain the bolded section please? What else does Christianity supposedly not include? I think the Catholic Church could mount a good argument that your own Protestantism came past "the end of the road," so you aren't Christian, either.

Judaism had an established sense of rules and ritual including a priesthood to act as go between humans and God. Christianity has none of that. There is no ritual involved in our relationship with Jesus, and no priesthood. The believer is his own priest.

And BTW, Baptists are not protestants.


	DWill wrote: Then Roman Catholics are not Christians. That is a remarkable statement you appear to be making. Do you say it because only those believers who conform to an arbitrary definition of 'relationship' can be true Christians?

I did not say that Catholics are not Christians. The fact that Jesus does not require me to wear a tall white hat on my head to whorship does not mean that if I do that I am not a Christian. Those discussions are side issues to the discussion of the actual books. I will point out though that adding to what God says is as much of an issue as leaving things out.

bleachededen · Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:18 pm

stahrwe wrote:

bleachededen wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: If you are not a spiritual person, i.e. you don't worship God in some form they you are carnal by definition and focus on the flesh because you have no spiritual aspect.

So, according to our Young Earth Creationist expert here, you can only be spiritual by worshipping the "God" of the Christian Bible. Amazing.

I specifically used the terms 'spiritual' and God without additional identification to avoid being misinterpreted as requiring you to be a Christian or Jew. Did you miss, "God in some form" or did you choose to ignore it? I capitalized God out of respect for other belief systems though I would not capitalize gods. Don't ascribe to me ideas based on your intepretation of what I mean. By definition, if you are not a spiritual person, you are a carnal person, those are the two options, there is not a third that I am aware of.


	bleachededen wrote: "Spiritual" does not equal belief in a monotheistic God. And by not being spiritual, one is not then only carnal, they are still intelligent human beings who don't worship themselves simply because they don't worship the Judeo-Christian idea of God. That is narrow-minded at best.


	starhwe wrote: you are correct that spiritual is not necessarily a belief in God. I did not say that it was. Additionally, the definition of carnal is as follows: "The word “carnal” is translated from the Greek word sarkikos, which literally means “fleshly," and is a root of such words as sarcophagus. In the context I was using it it does not mean immoral. For this discussion, if you are not spiritual, you are carnal, i.e. the flesh is all there is.


	bleachededen wrote: And you still didn't answer my question.


	starhwe wrote: I am not sure why everyone is afraid I am insulting them. I believe the phrase, "keep trying," is one of encouragement. It is certainly not the same as saying, "that's the trouble when you argue with an idiot." But suppose, for a moment, that it was an insult, so what? Evidently, if it was, it was so awkwardly contrived as to render you unsure. But let me assure you that it is intended as encouragement.

First of all, I think that in your rush to defend yourself, you aren't paying attention to the layout of your posts -- your quotes are getting messed up and it is very hard to tell what you are responding to.

And this:


	Quote: you are correct that spiritual is not necessarily a belief in God. I did not say that it was

Yes you did. You said it here:


	starhwe wrote: If you are not a spiritual person, i.e. you don't worship God in some form they you are carnal by definition and focus on the flesh because you have no spiritual aspect.

Did you forget you said this, or are you recanting your original statment?

And I still don't know what you mean by "keep trying." I didn't know if it was an insult, which was why I asked. Even if it is "encouragment," as you say, encouragement to do what? Are you suggesting I should "keep trying" to win an argument with you, or that I should "keep trying" to finally see your point as the only right one? Your attempt at an answer has still left me as confused as before, if not more so.

DWill · Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:54 pm


	stahrwe wrote: Both of the above are overly simplified explanations, but you get the idea. The Moyers project was, if anything, Midrash Aggada with a collection of all liberal and in a number of cases obscure participants, some so obscure I could not find any books written by them.

Let's say that for now, neither of us knows enough about the views expressed in this book to make confident judgments. I googled a few of the participants, too. Nothing jumped out at me that screamed, "Liberal!" I'm not surprised that you couldn't find books written by some. The purpose was not to convene a group of scholars, though many were included, but to find people who might have something to say. There were creative writers included, for example. I can certainly understand, though, how some self-selection might occur if conservatives/literalists had been asked to participate. They'd have to have more to say than, "That's what the Book says, period, " and if they knew they didn't, they might decline. Is there a subtext in play here, an understanding that God didn't write this book? That is quite possible, I'll have to see. I also don't see anything wrong with that. Would there really be a purpose to having literalists present just to object at every single point, monotonously?


	stahrwe wrote: Judaism had an established sense of rules and ritual including a priesthood to act as go between humans and God. Christianity has none of that. There is no ritual involved in our relationship with Jesus, and no priesthood. The believer is his own priest. I did not say that Catholics are not Christians. The fact that Jesus does not require me to wear a tall white hat on my head to whorship does not mean that if I do that I am not a Christian. Those discussions are side issues to the discussion of the actual books. I will point out though that adding to what God says is as much of an issue as leaving things out.

There is no contradiction between these paragraphs? If Jews do not have a religion because of having a priesthood, and Christianity is a religion because of lacking it, then Catholicism is not a religion, not Christian, or both. Don't you mean something like "Conservative Baptist religion has none of that"?

bleachededen · Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:46 pm

I have a question for you, Starhwe, and it may seem simple and naive of me, but it is an honest one.

Whenever you refer to Judaism and its rules and followers, you refer to them in the past tense. Do you not consider Judaism to be a valid religion anymore because you see Christianity as its evolved form and therefore the two cannot coexist? Because I know thousands of Jews who would beg to argue that Judaism is still a very active religion with many living followers, and I would have to agree with them.

stahrwe · Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:54 pm


	bleachededen wrote: I have a question for you, Starhwe, and it may seem simple and naive of me, but it is an honest one. Whenever you refer to Judaism and its rules and followers, you refer to them in the past tense. Do you not consider Judaism to be a valid religion anymore because you see Christianity as its evolved form and therefore the two cannot coexist? Because I know thousands of Jews who would beg to argue that Judaism is still a very active religion with many living followers, and I would have to agree with them.

I was not aware of doing that. I will try to pay attenton to the context in the future and use the proper tense. Of all the religions I consider Judaism to be the most valid.

bleachededen · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:09 pm

stahrwe wrote:


	bleachededen wrote: I have a question for you, Starhwe, and it may seem simple and naive of me, but it is an honest one. Whenever you refer to Judaism and its rules and followers, you refer to them in the past tense. Do you not consider Judaism to be a valid religion anymore because you see Christianity as its evolved form and therefore the two cannot coexist? Because I know thousands of Jews who would beg to argue that Judaism is still a very active religion with many living followers, and I would have to agree with them.

I was not aware of doing that. I will try to pay attenton to the context in the future and use the proper tense. Of all the religions I consider Judaism to be the most valid.

Thank you. Apparently I was reading way too much into that. Glad I asked! :-P

stahrwe · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:25 pm

bleachededen wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: If you are not a spiritual person, i.e. you don't worship God in some form they you are carnal by definition and focus on the flesh because you have no spiritual aspect.

So, according to our Young Earth Creationist expert here, you can only be spiritual by worshipping the "God" of the Christian Bible. Amazing.

I specifically used the terms 'spiritual' and God without additional identification to avoid being misinterpreted as requiring you to be a Christian or Jew. Did you miss, "God in some form" or did you choose to ignore it? I capitalized God out of respect for other belief systems though I would not capitalize gods. Don't ascribe to me ideas based on your intepretation of what I mean. By definition, if you are not a spiritual person, you are a carnal person, those are the two options, there is not a third that I am aware of.[/quote]


	bleachededen wrote: "Spiritual" does not equal belief in a monotheistic God. And by not being spiritual, one is not then only carnal, they are still intelligent human beings who don't worship themselves simply because they don't worship the Judeo-Christian idea of God. That is narrow-minded at best.


	starhwe wrote: you are correct that spiritual is not necessarily a belief in God. I did not say that it was. Additionally, the definition of carnal is as follows: "The word “carnal” is translated from the Greek word sarkikos, which literally means “fleshly," and is a root of such words as sarcophagus. In the context I was using it it does not mean immoral. For this discussion, if you are not spiritual, you are carnal, i.e. the flesh is all there is.


	bleachededen wrote: And you still didn't answer my question.


	starhwe wrote: I am not sure why everyone is afraid I am insulting them. I believe the phrase, "keep trying," is one of encouragement. It is certainly not the same as saying, "that's the trouble when you argue with an idiot." But suppose, for a moment, that it was an insult, so what? Evidently, if it was, it was so awkwardly contrived as to render you unsure. But let me assure you that it is intended as encouragement.

First of all, I think that in your rush to defend yourself, you aren't paying attention to the layout of your posts -- your quotes are getting messed up and it is very hard to tell what you are responding to.

And this:


	Quote: you are correct that spiritual is not necessarily a belief in God. I did not say that it was

Yes you did. You said it here:


	starhwe wrote: If you are not a spiritual person, i.e. you don't worship God in some form they you are carnal by definition and focus on the flesh because you have no spiritual aspect.

Did you forget you said this, or are you recanting your original statment?

And I still don't know what you mean by "keep trying." I didn't know if it was an insult, which was why I asked. Even if it is "encouragment," as you say, encouragement to do what? Are you suggesting I should "keep trying" to win an argument with you, or that I should "keep trying" to finally see your point as the only right one? Your attempt at an answer has still left me as confused as before, if not more so.[/quote]

Stahrwe's reply
I got that error message again. It looked like there were duplicates of your start quotes at the beginning of the post. I had to delete one set to get it to take.

Since you complained about the format of some of my answers, I will respond to this post in a batch mode at the end.

You are right about the what but not the why of the format issue. Sometimes, when I reply with the quote button, I get all through and can't submit because I have exceeded the number of quotes in a quote, or something to that effect and in trying to figure out which commands to delete things can get a bit mixed. I generally try to make sure one can tell who is talking at any given point but it can be confusing.

Regarding the god/spiritual issue and the carnal mind, I was trying to walk a line between saying that to be spiritual one has to believe in something beyond oneself without limiting it to the God of the Bible, and I did not want to imply that also extended to nature worship. I realize that some would include that in spirituality but for me it is not a good fit. If you go back and read the initial reaction to my comment, it was immediately assumed that by spirituality I meant the God of the Bible despite my attempt to avoid that. If you feel I exprssed it poorly in my correction, I can see that.

Keep trying to see through the dark glass.

Interbane · Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:59 pm

Stahrwe:


	Quote: By definition, if you are not a spiritual person, you are a carnal person, those are the two options, there is not a third that I am aware of.

Does being spiritual necessarily mean believing in spirits? Though spiritualism doesn't accurately embody what it means to be pantheistic, the similarities are close.

A mechanist, in believing in a purely naturalistic universe, doesn't necessarily think of a person as only flesh. There is emergent complexity from the human mind which is more than simply flesh.

Penelope · Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:47 am

To be truely 'spiritual' a person must understand that it is imperative to be absolutely honest with oneself, even more than to other people.

Now, I don't believe that a serpent spoke to a woman in the Garden of Eden, I don't however think that the story was just written for entertainment purposes, therefore I believe it to be an allegory.

I also don't believe that Ballam's Ass spoke to him, that would be a preposterous thing to 'have' to believe and 'God' just wouldn't demand that we lied to ourselves and said that we did believe it.

So not only do I not believe the story is fact, I don't believe the people who say they believe it. So I guess there is no hope for me.

Forum rules

Old Testament - Genesis (1 of 66) Tweet This Topic

Who is online

Chat Room Always Open!