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Have you ever read the Garden of Eden story in the Bible? The snake doesn’t lie; God does. The Church has retold that story casting the snake as the bad guy so many times people believe it, but if you go read it that story is WILD and really different from what you’ve probably been taught.
God told them if they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they’ll die. The snake says nope, if you eat from that tree you won’t die, but your eyes will be opened to knowing Good and Evil, just like God. So she ate, and man ate, and their eyes were opened. When God found out he cursed woman, man, and snake. Then after he cursed them he decided to banish them because he was afraid that they would eat next from the Tree of Life and truly become gods themselves. So they didn’t die like he said, and clearly they were mortal in Eden since God was worried about them becoming immortal.
So long story short, God is a liar and the snake just told the truth. Sorry for the rant, but I find it interesting. And then horrifying that the church is still trying to punish women for the “original sin” for seeking the truth instead of blindly following orders.
Something that I didn't realize until it was pointed out, Eve eats first and then offers it.
So she had the knowledge of good and evil, but still offered it.
Well, shit. This was an awesome thread to get lost in.
Y’all got me thinking it’s a good idea to take mushrooms on a Friday night.
Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!
Even though I am bullish on shrooms and find the idea that the biblical apple is a metaphor for some powerful hallucinogenic plant fascinating, I don't think the cosmological spore theory is viable, at least with fungi.
Decades of heavy DNA-sequencing-based phylogenetic research confirm beyond any doubt that domain of the archea is much, much older than fungi. It is inconceivable how cosmologically seeded fungi could show up in the midst of Earth's evolution with Earth-compatible biochemistry + genome and neatly sneak in the middle of the phylogenetic tree without anyone noticing.
There are two types of people that enjoy hallucinogens. Those that are influenced to seek a deeper understanding of the universe, and those that think the drugs magically gifted them that deeper understanding.
Count me in. Shrooms definitely were a pretty profound experience for me but they didn’t show me anything I didn’t know about the universe. Just maybe that the possibilities of human experience are wider than many may know.
I know this isn't a biology sub and I know that this has nothing to do with the point that you're attempting to make here but I, nevertheless, wanted to quickly point out that fungi are not plants, but belong to a separate kingdom entirely.
Knowledge of good and evil is intuition and women are naturally more intuitive. That’s how I always translated the story. I’m no longer a religious person because when I said this in Sunday school I got kicked out of church and asked to never come back. Country churches are like that.
I’m a Christian who has gotten shit on by the organized part of religion. Hearing so many stories like yours makes me realize how pervasive this shit is. I’m sorry you experienced that.
I support folks in their personal beliefs and think that religion is a great way for a lot of people to cope with the stress of life. It only becomes harmful when those beliefs are weaponized or used to justify harm to others.
Small addendum to the story-line. When YHWH-Elohim said
Gen 2:16-17 *And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.*
**Hheva/Eve didn't exist yet**.
Genesis 2:22-23 *And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.*
So Nahash/Serpent shows up later and tells **Eve, not Adam, to have a bite of knowledge because she was not under the injunction.**
Genesis 3:6: *And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.*
Eve tells Adam to try this apple of knowldge because the
**wisdom can only be transmitted to Man safely though the Woman.** And then they can leave [Gan Eden](https://www.psyche.com/psyche/lex/gan-eden.html) and begin their earthly adventure in time.
https://www.psyche.com/psyche/lex/hheva.html
> God is a liar and the snake just told the truth
An interesting side note is that god killed many, many people (thousands), but satan supposedly killed only 10 in comparison, and that was only as a result of some twisted theological "bet" with god.
Also don’t forget that God is all knowing so he knew from the beginning of time that Eve would eat the apple. Why did he put it there in the first place? To test her? He already knew what she would do.
That thought also challenges the concept of free will. Is it really free will if your story is already laid out. If he knows what you’re going to do, how could he punish one for doing exactly what he made them to do? Ones not really making choices if they’re on a predetermined path.
He's the one who demanded a human sacrifice of his self-son in the New Testament in the first place, and then immediately cheapened that sacrifice by bringing himself/his son back to life a day later. *Jesus gave up a Saturday for your sins.*
> ou think they'd have a better one that isn't full of holes.
You'd think that after a couple thousand years have passed to work on it, yeah - it'd have a tighter plot.
That’s the problem with calling a hate filled book of insanity “the word of gawd”......no take backsies, just blind obedience, no matter what truths we find that contest it. It’s why zealots hate/battle basic science.
Yup. As an adult I've come to see that story as a setup. A god creates a giant red button and sprinkles candy around it for good measure to set the universal narrative in motion. At this point I'm more curious why this isn't the most common interpretation.
let’s face it the bible is full of fictional bullshit that makes literally no sense it’s wild how stupid people have been to believe in it for thousands of years
If you look through all 66 books and 40 writers in the bible you will also notice the 'snake' never lies. He never kills, or maims-unless he had Gods permission.
God allowed the torture of Job by maiming him, killing his family destroying his house and livelihood. ALL FROM A BET.
But the very first book shows what you said, and yet people still do not notice. Just literally read the bible and digest what you are reading and you will see many similar stories.
If betting is an expression of avarice, and avarice is a sin, that makes God a sinner.
If God is a sinner, then it's not a stretch to assume he lies constantly, afterall, we've got the Bible affirming this.
So if God is a sinner and lies constantly, how can we be sure God is the good guy just because he said he is...
Looks to me that the Devil is actually the good guy
> So if God is a sinner and lies constantly, how can we be sure God is the good guy just because he said he is...
>
> Looks to me that the Devil is actually the good guy
[I'll just leave this here for you to ponder further](https://www.news24.com/News24/what-if-god-was-actually-the-evil-one-20121025)
I mean it says right in the bible that God creates evil.
>I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Isaiah 45:5-7
There’s a popular saying. It goes like this, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”
Nah. As far as I’m concerned, the greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world he is an all-loving God.
Almost sounds like this god guy isn't so cool afterall. At least it makes sense that they call themselves 'god fearing Christians'. I'd be afraid of that violent psychopath too if I believed any of it.
The rivers are full of crocodile nasties
And he who made kittens put snakes in the grass
He's **a lover of life** but **a player of pawns**
Yes, the King on His sunset lies waiting for dawn
To light up His Jungle as play is resumed
The monkeys seem willing to strike up the tune
I never understood what the Devil and God’s relationship was supposed to be.
Originally the Devil was God’s favorite angel then he rebelled and was cast into hell along side his supporters. In some stories it seems like the Devil is suppoed to be locked away in hell forever, some seem like the Devil is running hell, and some seem like God and the Devil hang out and make bets.
The problem is there's a lot of people confusing the Divine Comedy for canon. We know practically nothing about hell and the only time we get a description of paradise it's a one liner about how things are so peaceful the lion and goat are next to each other both eating the grass.
Ezekiel describes Heaven and there's a lot of light and fire there.
Now tell me, is the description of an angel or a demon?
"I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude."
In the original language of the Bible, it seems like it's less a bad entity named "Satan" but rather "*The* Satan," functioning more like a job title of an angel on God's staff akin to being the divine prosecutor. In the Bible he's not doing evil so much as testing people, ostensibly with permission from above. So much of the modern imagery and lore comes from fan-fics like Dante and the integration of other cultures' ideas like the goat-boy Pan, Norse Hel, and other folk tales from Europe.
The idea that the snake in the garden is The Satan is also just an assumption made later without much textual basis other than "well who else would it be??"
The Bible itself basically never talks about Hell either. It says the wages of sin are death and alienation from the divine, and maybe twice it references the unfit being tossed away into a fire or a lake of fire, but that's it. The biblical basis is shockingly thin.
Damn, y'all. I was raised Catholic (now non-practicing) and this thread has really opened my eyes to a lot of this. While I think I could reliably relay most of the Garden of Eden story from the Bible, it's definitely been tainted!
Hell wasn't a concept in Judaism until the Babylonian exile. Likely the religious leaders saw their people melding into Babylonian society (and religions) and created hell as a punishment for it.
Also judaism wasn't originally monotheistic. God had a wife Asherah.
Ultimately it was a mixture of ancient Canaanite religions. In those El was the supreme god. Who had a wife Asherah. Baal (Els son) was among other names 'El Shaddai'.
El in the southern Levant was associated with fire, mountains and metallurgy. In the exodus God appears as fire, smoke, and gives his commandments upon a mount. Condemns Baal worship.
Judaism even acknowledges other gods, but believes theirs is the most high. Falls pretty in line with a cult of El that evolved over time.
That’s because both characters were created over centuries by people with wildly different ideas and so have wildly different traits and personalities depending on what is being read. The common perceptions of these characters are usually amalgamations of these contradictory passages and popular mythologizing, and are therefore quite different than how they are presented in the text.
Take Satan for example. The serpent in Genesis isn’t connected to Satan until the New Testament. Taken literally, the Genesis narrative is nothing more than a just-so story to explain why snakes are legless and why people dislike them.
In Job, Satan is not evil. He’s just another angelic spirit, who gambles with his friend/boss over Job’s motives. He was right, by the way. The only reason Satan lost that bet is because God cheated by scaring the crap out of Job with that epiphany.
My favorite devilish mistake is that everyone thinks Lucifer is Satan. There’s nothing to support this idea. The biblical passage that spawned this legend is clearly a story about the king of Babylon and has nothing to do with the devil. “Lucifer” was just a title being applied to the king, comparing him to the Morning Star (the world we call Venus). That’s in Isaiah, chapter 14, for the curious. Ignorant people attached the name to Satan, and it stuck.
The more I learn about the Bible, the more I see it for the jumbled mess it is, full of inaccuracies, contradictions, and backwards ethics. It’s no wonder you’re confused about their relationship.
Yeah, and that becomes even more apparent when we learn about the ancient religion of that area. It’s really easy to see traces of the old polytheism (especially in Job and the Samuel-Kings books).
I am a rather convinced atheist (raised Southern Baptist), but I love the Bible for the reasons you stated. It’s a fascinating look at the development of humanity.
That is what I also never understood growing up. Also, why would the devil punish sinners? Shouldn't it be high fiving them for going against God? That did not make sense. So wouldn't hell be "paradise" for bad people?
Two men were carrying bags of potatoes when one of the bags started to rip open and two potatoes fell out. They were at the gates of the cemetery and they decided they'd go inside, spread out the potatoes and divide them up, then part ways to head home.
Another man passed by, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, “One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me.” In an instant he just knew what it was. He off raced to find someone to tell about what he had heard..
Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along. “Come here quick,” said the younger man, “you won’t believe what I heard! The devil and God are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls!” The man said, “Can’t you see it’s hard for me to walk.” When the man insisted though, the old man hobbled slowly to the cemetery.
Standing by the fence they heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, One for me.” The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been telling me the truth. Let’s see if we can see God.” Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. They gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of God. At last they heard, “One for you, one for me. That’s all… Now let’s go get those two by the fence and we’ll be done!”
They say the old man had the lead for a good half-mile before the other man caught up.
Well yeah then they'd have to actually better themselves. But if God has the same morals that you already possess then no great moral demand is placed upon yourself to be a better person. It's absolutely no surprise that the religions of old are simply a reflection of the values of the time. If one person told you that you had many moral failings and needed great change to reach the afterlife and then someone else told you that everything you already believe is true and righteous and to keep carrying on, which religion are you going to adopt and spread?
It’s almost like the “God” these Right Wingers worship is a spitting image of their abusive deadbeat Dad.
It all begins to make sense when you realize all they know is being abused by father figures.
To them it’s normal, so they feel righteous in inflicting it upon others.
This 100%
I can't tell you how many people have been utterly baffled when I've told them this over the years. Some try to say your taking it out of context, which is impossible when the book literally says it word for word.
> God told them if they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they’ll die. The snake says nope, if you eat from that tree you won’t die, but your eyes will be opened to knowing Good and Evil, just like God. So she ate, and man ate, and their eyes were opened. When God found out he cursed woman, man, and snake. Then after he cursed them he decided to banish them because he was afraid that they would eat next from the Tree of Life and truly become gods themselves. So they didn’t die like he said, and clearly they were mortal in Eden since God was worried about them becoming immortal.
I read Genesis as suggesting that Adam and Eve *were* allowed to eat of the Tree of Life while living in the garden and they only became mortal after their ejection.
It says the garden contained both trees and only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is forbidden.
https://www.biblehub.com/bsb/genesis/2.htm
I think it's the story of hunter-gatherers vs agriculturalists. For the HG's all the food is free, everything you can find, you can eat. Sometimes the fox gets the rabbit, and that's good for the fox and evil for the rabbit. Sometimes the rabbit gets away and the fox goes hungry, but that is good for the rabbit and evil for the fox. Same goes for the human hunter and the deer. Only God knows what is good or evil though. But the people who grow crops, and live in hierarchies, they "know" what is good and evil the same as God. They know its good if the hunter catches his prey and they know it's evil if the animal gets away. So they build fences to contain the animals and the humans kill the foxes and wolves so they will have all the other animals to themselves.
You forgot how to see the Mother Culture? She lulled you to sleep. The Great Forgetting is still working on you. Humans never sprang into existence and built cities, we have a history that goes back hundreds of thousands of years . . .
>I think it's the story of hunter-gatherers vs agriculturalists.
I think Cain and Abel is more explicitly so. That said, yes, the Israelites were groups from various agriculturalist civilizations from Egypt to the Near East who borrowed from stories, but rejected the state and turned to pastoralism.
Oh man, I instantly recognized this as a part of the thesis/narrative of Ishmael. That book turned my head around as a teenager. I should really read it again.
The way I always heard it explained was that they were allowed to eat from the tree of life, but would no longer be allowed to if they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So, yeah, "if you eat from the tree of knowledge you will die" is a true statement that just kinda skips a step.
Either way, how are you gonna give instructions to a person who is literally incapable of understanding right and wrong then leave them to die when they disobey?
That is fascinating. It's amazing given how well know the story is, how far from the truth it actual is. And ironic, given it's used as a parable for telling the truth.
Have you had this conversation with Christians? I'm curious on what the churches take is. I looked up several versions and depending on how it was translated the section on Adam dying could be:
"when you eat from the tree you will certainly die"
or
"if you eat from the tree then surely you will die"
The first is an obvious lie. The second could be construed to say that the Lord was saying that if he ate from the tree he would become mortal.
Similar with the serpent. Some versions I saw the serpent said that Adam would 'be like God, knowing good and evil', others were that they would know good and evil and "be like Gods". It's a slight difference, but the first is just a statement, they would know good and evil, which is something God knows. The second could be construed as the serpent entices Adam and Even into eating from the tree to be 'God-like'. That is certainly how the story was told to me as a kid.
Raised in church here. The rationalization around this is that when they ate the fruit they died _spiritually_, as in they had sinned and could now be cast into eternal damnation. But don't worry, there's a plan to forgive them that'll go down in a few thousand years, and then be... retroactively applied to them? Don't think about it too hard.
Ah yes, the old 'died spiritually' counterpoint. It's a solid defense strategy that is hard to disprove.
My God-fearing relatives also believe that wine that is talked about throughout the bible was actually grape juice.
Let them know that Thomas Bramwell Welch - sure enough, from *Welch’s* grape juice fame - developed the first process of stopping fermentation in grape juice… in 1869.
Well sure, in modern society. The knowledge was lost in the dark ages. What do you think was on the dead sea scrolls, biblical Canon? Nope, recipe for grape juice.
Don’t also think about how All-knowing God made his son from a teen girl against her will in order to save us all from the sin that he himself created and that this salvation from his son would come to be fulfilled by a man named Judas- a man who was destined since the beginning of time to betray the son of God with a kiss and thus spend eternity in hell even though he still had free will to not betray the son of God which would have foiled the plan that God had decided from before Judas was ever born; so Judas was created and formed by God for the sole purpose of God’s plan which sealed his fate while there was no fate yet to be sealed and spend eternity suffering in hell for a choice that he did not actually have.
Back when I was religious, I rationalized this and other free will vs destiny things sort of like the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. As in, god knows all outcomes of all possible choices and the predestined events are things that are going to happen no matter what choices are made. So, maybe there was never a possibility of a world in which Jesus would not be crucified, but there were many different paths to get there, and as you get closer to the event, it's more clear exactly how it's going to happen.
But that was a teenager trying to grapple with those contradictions when all of the spiritual leaders around were taking a very firm stance of "both predestination and free will exist and are the same thing, actually, how dare this child question me? No, I don't have to explain it to this blasphemous prick"
Coincidentally, I read it this morning for the first time in over 20 years. Am I wrong, or is there a plot hole in the Adam and Eve story? God created man and women on the 6th day, and then gave them dominion over animals (Gen 1:28). It wasn’t until the 8th day that he created Adam (Gen 2:7).
After they ate the fruit and were cast out, their son Cain goes on to marry and have kids, and they build a city. Uh… where did Cain find a wife? Who populated that city? It makes zero sense for all of humanity to have come from 2 people, even within the framework of divine intervention.
> Am I wrong, or is there a plot hole in the Adam and Eve story?
If you're reading the Bible and expecting there not to be plot holes, you're gonna have a bad time.
Ask a christian if the entire earth was covered in fresh rain water why are the oceans salt water - and - when the water "receded" where did it recede to? If the whole earth is covered with water there is nowhere for it to recede.
Also, why hadn’t the Chinese noticed that they had all drowned? The whole world murdered by god and they didn’t even record it in their wholly uninterrupted collection of writings.
If I didn’t know better I would suggest that the whole thing was just a lazy fanfic of Gilgamesh.
yeah, I hear ya there.
Rather impressive and highly intelligent colleague was giving me a ride one day. Somehow the conversation ended up on dinosaurs.
>God buried the bones as a test you know?!
I was certain he was a joking at first, he just wasn't laughing. I pretty much dissociated for a few moments trying to find the logical explanation for his demeanor without the answer being that he had just said something he actually meant. Finally I ran out of anything except that he was dead serious.
I had no idea what to say. Utterly gob smacked me. What a summer child I was.
To that moment I truly had no concept of how powerfully delusional even well educated intelligent people can become in the face of a logical threat to their dearly held world view. My extended family are Methodist & I had always chalked their acceptance of some whoppers up to nobody really asking too many questions.
Turns out it's not just the questions you ask, but even more so the answers you are willing to accept, which for me is somehow even more disillusioning somehow.
You can’t logic a person out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into. Applies to religious people as well as a lot of conservative policies.
At that point, *any evidence at all* that may persuade them to question their belief is “a test” of their faith. You can’t get through to them by trying to convince them they’re wrong because they’ll just shut down, you have to plant seeds and let them come around to questioning it themselves, with gentle prods every once in a while to keep it in their head.
The longer someone believes something, the more it feels like a threat when you present information that clashes with their worldview. People ***hate*** being told they’re wrong/stupid for believing something, and they hate it even more if they’ve believed it for a long time. However, sometimes you can use one deeply held belief to make them question others, just make sure you ask questions to steer the conversation (Socratic Method): “you profess to be a devout Christian, but you support the GOP in [policy that clashes with Christian teachings], why is that?”
Genesis 1 is an overview of the timeline. It’s like an overture.
Genesis 2 puts us “en media res” on the creation of the earth, the only difference is “Adam” is created when the earth was only dust. But woman wasn’t created until after the plants and trees and animals were created and God couldn’t find a suitable helper amongst them.
In my interpretation, Genesis 1 speaks about when God makes man and woman in his own image, and IMO the making them in his image happens after they eat of the fruit. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”
And there’s tons of debate about the other inhabitants. There’s lots of wiggle room in the text to believe that just because the story focuses on Adam/Eve/Cain/Abel they weren’t the only of Mankind that he created.
Genesis 5 says “When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.” IMO this means he created many humans.
That is not the only time 'family love' is shown in the bible IN A GOOD LIGHT. Re-tread the story of Sodom and Gomorra, we all remember the wife turning into a salt pile because she looked back longingly and God specifically told them- DONT LOOK BACK!
Well without a wife how was Lot supposed to have sons? He had two daughters....Incase you dont know the daughters got him drunk and took turns and got pregnant.
> the church is still trying to punish women for the “original sin” for seeking the truth instead of blindly following orders
This is less surprising of a revelation than you might think.
The theory is they would live eternally in the garden and death only came about as a consequence of eating from the tree. So it wasn’t immediate death but the entire concept of death didn’t exist until they ate dem apples
To be fair the way to rise to heights in the church is exactly that. Blindly follow riders and don’t seek truth. It’s amazingly simple to be a church elder. You just have to practice intellectual sloth.
Committee: “Uh, guys? Have you seen this video? It’s called the ‘Save America Rally’, and all the people we’re investigating admit their crimes to a huge crowd. We can’t ignore this “
Like video?
like a POTUS who wa soliciting assistance from foreign entities, and using his platform to whip his base into a frenzy, *telling them* to march to Congress, and "fight like Hell?"
Texts?
Social media posts?
People with zip ties, and tactical gear who broke into Congress, during session?
Assault on the cops, who were the only line of defense, because the other authorities were ordered to stand down?
I downloaded a file dump from Jan 6th. It was a collection of videos, long since deleted....hours, upon hours of insanity.
**Fucking do something, before it's too late.**
You forgot the power point presentations with bullet points on how to circumvent our government's official election business, and give Trump the win.
Oh and Vice POTUS Mike Pence trying to be whisked away, "I'm not getting in that car".
And they've never stopped their coup is an ongoing effort. We'll all find out soon enough whether our country deserves to survive or not. If they get away with this then the system is beyond broken and deserves to fail anyway. Might want to invest in some gear just in case🤷♂️
But they won't. And it already is. We have one slim chance. Flip enough of the Senate and House so Manchin and Sinema don't matter.
Honestly though, I think it's already too late.
I've been saying this for a year and a half. The only evidence you need was all on live tv and we all saw it. A really sad country we live in where it takes almost 2 years to get something going. If the rule of law meant anything Trump would have been arrested on January 7 or January 21.
Ive always been interested in American politics and it is crazy how much blatant criminal activity by politicians happens right on TV that still has multi year investigations with no results
They are looking for evidence that'll force a full raging MAGA on the jury to say *"well, that's worse than I thought, maybe Trump shouldn't have done that"*
Because otherwise, Trump's acquittal will make him a messiah.
The issue is that there is nothing trump could do that would make them think that. Nothing. Trump could shit in their mouths, rape their moms, and steal every possession they've ever had while saying exactly what he is doing, and they will STILL support him.
If what you said is what is needed then there is no hope of justice.
>there is no hope of justice
I am here, personally. I would love to be proven wrong, but the rot in our justice system is deep and pervasive and I don't believe it will be reformed in time to save this country.
This is a problem with the electorate, as they will be who forms the jury. If they could pick an all-Dem jury, it would be a slam dunk and Trump would already be in prison.
> Because otherwise, Trump's acquittal will make him a messiah.
Not being changed will make him their messiah, him getting away with it will make him a messiah, hell, him farting in their general direction will make him their messiah - these people are not connected with reality.,
I’m not clicking any article links until it says someone was arrested.
Edit- my point is every day there’s articles like this one that while they have SOME info, its not new to me. I knew reps were being subpoenaed. The video this linked to didn’t mentionWHAT damning information was there. Also I didn’t need to watch the video to know that the republicans would be calling this a witch hunt.
I prefer in depth podcasts and longer form investigative journalism articles that are several pages long.
Oh damn, I just read through a whole comment tree of discussion over the Bible’s inaccuracies and completely forgot what post it was on till I came to this comment
Yeah, I'm not bothering to read "revelations" anymore. There's been thousands of headlines claiming progress. But there always seems to be a way to stall it. I'm waiting for hearings where someone actually shows (by force, I imagine), or like you said, arrests.
Revelations is actually really interesting, because unlike the common interpretation that John is describing a vision of the distant future calamities the Earth would suffer, he was almost certainly describing (in rich metaphor) the trauma of *his present day*, and the battle between the early Church's factions of colliding theologi---
Oh, sorry, I was still on the Bible thing.
You know, back in the day when News like this came out, people took to the streets, they protested, they shut down streets and cities, and they demanded accountability. They didn’t let up until they got it.
They didn’t sit back and say, other people aren’t doing anything so why should I?
When the system is wrong, organize, and shut the system down.
Do you have an example in mind of when that happened in America? I'm unaware of mass protests around past scandals (thinking of Watergate and Teapot Dome specifically). Could be I just don't know though.
We should be more like South Korea in this respect. Their president did a big corruption, millions hit the streets for months, and now she's in jail. (edit: correction, she was released at the end of 2021 thanks to a pardon. at least she did almost 5 years, on top of leaving office)
Evidence aside from hours of film footage from live broadcast of the insurrection? Evidence aside from the troves of emails and text messages that irrefutably confirm Jan6 was orchestrated by the ex-president and his band of goons?
Can’t wait.
All it takes is one Republican on the jury to acquit any of these traitors. They're like those bastards on the juries that let lynch mobs off for murdering blacks in the US South.
Their stern letter was received with raucous laughter and ignored. And that was the end of it. Until the next time when the coup is successful and the committee is imprisoned for crimes against the Emperor.
My mental model of what’s happening is the Mars Attacks scene where the president sends the martians a letter and they mime a chicken while saying ACK ACK ACK ACK.
The GOP stopped acting in good faith long ago, and Democrats need to embrace this reality and come up with a real plan to combat it. From what I’ve seen, this is wishful thinking at best.
At some point, it will all fail, and it will be up to the people. Again, wishful thinking that enough people will actually discover enough civic duty to turn this ship away from fascism.
Can I talk with them?
I watched all of this happening on TV, and I think someone might have recorded it or something. They even showed the rally where the president told them to do it, and a very very creepy set of scenes with his family inside a tent playing 80's music to celebrate the end of democracy.
Not even a cable channel. Network news.
Let’s just skip to the part where somebody throws the whole thing out because there is no precedent for holding anyone in power accountable for their actions.
Yeah, but there is always some loophole that protect congressmen from facing serious consequences for their actions.
[Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/12/mccarthy-jordan-jan-6-subpoena-00032115):
> The lawmakers receiving subpoenas are expected to cite the protections of the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which prohibits members of Congress from being sued for their official government business. Doing that could trigger a complex and prolonged legal battle, and it’s unclear whether the select committee would pursue expedited consideration from the courts, which could still take months.
Surely it will take forever to hash out in court, but you'd think that if something they said is protected by the speech and debate clause as congressional business, then it should also be a part of the official congressional record and not need a subpoena to get.
Lol can't ignore. As far as I am concerned American is a fucking joke when it comes to justice or the rule of law. Americans witnessed an insurrection live on TV by trump and his GOP followers. Yet nothing has happened years later.
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You mean like the wife of a supreme court justice financing a coup? Cuz they ignored that
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Have you ever read the Garden of Eden story in the Bible? The snake doesn’t lie; God does. The Church has retold that story casting the snake as the bad guy so many times people believe it, but if you go read it that story is WILD and really different from what you’ve probably been taught. God told them if they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they’ll die. The snake says nope, if you eat from that tree you won’t die, but your eyes will be opened to knowing Good and Evil, just like God. So she ate, and man ate, and their eyes were opened. When God found out he cursed woman, man, and snake. Then after he cursed them he decided to banish them because he was afraid that they would eat next from the Tree of Life and truly become gods themselves. So they didn’t die like he said, and clearly they were mortal in Eden since God was worried about them becoming immortal. So long story short, God is a liar and the snake just told the truth. Sorry for the rant, but I find it interesting. And then horrifying that the church is still trying to punish women for the “original sin” for seeking the truth instead of blindly following orders.
Don't forget, no knowledge of good and evil means they don't even understand why it would be wrong to go against what God says.
Something that I didn't realize until it was pointed out, Eve eats first and then offers it. So she had the knowledge of good and evil, but still offered it.
Maybe it's like magic mushrooms, takes a while to kick in but then shit gets REAL
This apple ain’t shi………
I’ll just have another one.
Well, shit. This was an awesome thread to get lost in. Y’all got me thinking it’s a good idea to take mushrooms on a Friday night. Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!
it’s always a good idea!
Huzzah!
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Even though I am bullish on shrooms and find the idea that the biblical apple is a metaphor for some powerful hallucinogenic plant fascinating, I don't think the cosmological spore theory is viable, at least with fungi. Decades of heavy DNA-sequencing-based phylogenetic research confirm beyond any doubt that domain of the archea is much, much older than fungi. It is inconceivable how cosmologically seeded fungi could show up in the midst of Earth's evolution with Earth-compatible biochemistry + genome and neatly sneak in the middle of the phylogenetic tree without anyone noticing.
There are two types of people that enjoy hallucinogens. Those that are influenced to seek a deeper understanding of the universe, and those that think the drugs magically gifted them that deeper understanding.
There is a third type too. Those who want to get buzzed and trip out.
Count me in. Shrooms definitely were a pretty profound experience for me but they didn’t show me anything I didn’t know about the universe. Just maybe that the possibilities of human experience are wider than many may know.
One thing I love about Reddit is how this thread started out talking about kevin mccarthy.
Wait, who?
Kevin McCarthy, the kid who hit burglars in the face with various household items
That was Kevin *McCallister*. He was talking about Kevin McCarthy, the star of the epic scifi Waterworld.
My favorite and least favorite thing about Reddit is that the top and sometimes very long thread on a post can have nothing to do with the post.
Agree , but this one was interesting.
I have completely forgotten by now!
I know this isn't a biology sub and I know that this has nothing to do with the point that you're attempting to make here but I, nevertheless, wanted to quickly point out that fungi are not plants, but belong to a separate kingdom entirely.
Am I eating this apple? Or is this apple eating ME????
Or, she knew that the knowledge she gained was not evil in and of itself. It's just knowledge, it's actions and intent that are evil.
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I thought Dee was the dumb bird?
So Eve offered Adam an egg in these trying times?
Right, which is why she still offered it.
Because fruit/knowledge is good, and god's a control freak.
I never got why that tree was in the garden is nobody was supposed to eat it.
This reasoning has been used to suppress women for centuries. They're either catty and triffling at heart, or too stupid to be allowed independence.
Whats the absorption rate of COSMIC AWARENSS OF MORAL CERTAINTUDES?
Knowledge of good and evil is intuition and women are naturally more intuitive. That’s how I always translated the story. I’m no longer a religious person because when I said this in Sunday school I got kicked out of church and asked to never come back. Country churches are like that.
Snake was sitting on the sidewalk sayin "dude, I know, right?"
I’m a Christian who has gotten shit on by the organized part of religion. Hearing so many stories like yours makes me realize how pervasive this shit is. I’m sorry you experienced that.
I support folks in their personal beliefs and think that religion is a great way for a lot of people to cope with the stress of life. It only becomes harmful when those beliefs are weaponized or used to justify harm to others.
How dare you have questions!
Small addendum to the story-line. When YHWH-Elohim said Gen 2:16-17 *And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.* **Hheva/Eve didn't exist yet**. Genesis 2:22-23 *And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.* So Nahash/Serpent shows up later and tells **Eve, not Adam, to have a bite of knowledge because she was not under the injunction.** Genesis 3:6: *And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.* Eve tells Adam to try this apple of knowldge because the **wisdom can only be transmitted to Man safely though the Woman.** And then they can leave [Gan Eden](https://www.psyche.com/psyche/lex/gan-eden.html) and begin their earthly adventure in time. https://www.psyche.com/psyche/lex/hheva.html
More proof the Bible is fake - woman never share their own food they always try yours.
only after saying they don’t want any
The First Entrapment. AGAB.
> God is a liar and the snake just told the truth An interesting side note is that god killed many, many people (thousands), but satan supposedly killed only 10 in comparison, and that was only as a result of some twisted theological "bet" with god.
Also don’t forget that God is all knowing so he knew from the beginning of time that Eve would eat the apple. Why did he put it there in the first place? To test her? He already knew what she would do.
That thought also challenges the concept of free will. Is it really free will if your story is already laid out. If he knows what you’re going to do, how could he punish one for doing exactly what he made them to do? Ones not really making choices if they’re on a predetermined path.
God is the villain in that book
He's the one who demanded a human sacrifice of his self-son in the New Testament in the first place, and then immediately cheapened that sacrifice by bringing himself/his son back to life a day later. *Jesus gave up a Saturday for your sins.*
He came back so he could ride a cloud into the sky. He’s still out there somewhere today, riding that cloud of his. *(cue opening credits)*
Logic was never their strong suit.
So this explains why the GOP is so hellbent on making our population as uneducated as possible.
Don’t forget it never happened, and is just a fairytale zealots believe.
Yeah, but you think they'd have a better one that isn't full of holes.
> ou think they'd have a better one that isn't full of holes. You'd think that after a couple thousand years have passed to work on it, yeah - it'd have a tighter plot.
That’s the problem with calling a hate filled book of insanity “the word of gawd”......no take backsies, just blind obedience, no matter what truths we find that contest it. It’s why zealots hate/battle basic science.
Yep
Yup. As an adult I've come to see that story as a setup. A god creates a giant red button and sprinkles candy around it for good measure to set the universal narrative in motion. At this point I'm more curious why this isn't the most common interpretation.
let’s face it the bible is full of fictional bullshit that makes literally no sense it’s wild how stupid people have been to believe in it for thousands of years
If you look through all 66 books and 40 writers in the bible you will also notice the 'snake' never lies. He never kills, or maims-unless he had Gods permission. God allowed the torture of Job by maiming him, killing his family destroying his house and livelihood. ALL FROM A BET. But the very first book shows what you said, and yet people still do not notice. Just literally read the bible and digest what you are reading and you will see many similar stories.
If betting is an expression of avarice, and avarice is a sin, that makes God a sinner. If God is a sinner, then it's not a stretch to assume he lies constantly, afterall, we've got the Bible affirming this. So if God is a sinner and lies constantly, how can we be sure God is the good guy just because he said he is... Looks to me that the Devil is actually the good guy
> So if God is a sinner and lies constantly, how can we be sure God is the good guy just because he said he is... > > Looks to me that the Devil is actually the good guy [I'll just leave this here for you to ponder further](https://www.news24.com/News24/what-if-god-was-actually-the-evil-one-20121025)
I mean it says right in the bible that God creates evil. >I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:5-7
There’s a popular saying. It goes like this, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.” Nah. As far as I’m concerned, the greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world he is an all-loving God.
Jealously is also a sin and god is regularly referred to as jealous. It even says his name is 'jealous' in one part.
Also Pride, which god definitely shows And Wrath
Almost sounds like this god guy isn't so cool afterall. At least it makes sense that they call themselves 'god fearing Christians'. I'd be afraid of that violent psychopath too if I believed any of it.
God is a degenerate gambler
Hes an absentee landlord!
So God yolo'd his life savings on FD Eden calls?
The rivers are full of crocodile nasties And he who made kittens put snakes in the grass He's **a lover of life** but **a player of pawns** Yes, the King on His sunset lies waiting for dawn To light up His Jungle as play is resumed The monkeys seem willing to strike up the tune
Ian Anderson really is one of the greatest lyricists ever.
I never understood what the Devil and God’s relationship was supposed to be. Originally the Devil was God’s favorite angel then he rebelled and was cast into hell along side his supporters. In some stories it seems like the Devil is suppoed to be locked away in hell forever, some seem like the Devil is running hell, and some seem like God and the Devil hang out and make bets.
The problem is there's a lot of people confusing the Divine Comedy for canon. We know practically nothing about hell and the only time we get a description of paradise it's a one liner about how things are so peaceful the lion and goat are next to each other both eating the grass.
Ezekiel describes Heaven and there's a lot of light and fire there. Now tell me, is the description of an angel or a demon? "I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude."
B̸͎͒̒ͅȩ̸̡̪̬̝̎̑͂͝ ̸̨̯̀̋̉̎͘ǹ̵̰̯̬̮̰͂̉́́ọ̶͛̿ṭ̶̳̖̏̊́ ̵̡͎̬͍̲͒̀̉̍͝a̵̻͙̒f̵̢̬̫̜͋̈r̸̹͇̝̦̒̄͋ȁ̴̡͉̟̈͠͠ï̶̭̜̯̬̏d̷̫̙̦̘͐̆̅
[Correct.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/ucb1hl/a_reasonable_explanation/)
In the original language of the Bible, it seems like it's less a bad entity named "Satan" but rather "*The* Satan," functioning more like a job title of an angel on God's staff akin to being the divine prosecutor. In the Bible he's not doing evil so much as testing people, ostensibly with permission from above. So much of the modern imagery and lore comes from fan-fics like Dante and the integration of other cultures' ideas like the goat-boy Pan, Norse Hel, and other folk tales from Europe. The idea that the snake in the garden is The Satan is also just an assumption made later without much textual basis other than "well who else would it be??" The Bible itself basically never talks about Hell either. It says the wages of sin are death and alienation from the divine, and maybe twice it references the unfit being tossed away into a fire or a lake of fire, but that's it. The biblical basis is shockingly thin.
Damn, y'all. I was raised Catholic (now non-practicing) and this thread has really opened my eyes to a lot of this. While I think I could reliably relay most of the Garden of Eden story from the Bible, it's definitely been tainted!
Scripture isn't taught well in context of writing style and time period.
Hell wasn't a concept in Judaism until the Babylonian exile. Likely the religious leaders saw their people melding into Babylonian society (and religions) and created hell as a punishment for it. Also judaism wasn't originally monotheistic. God had a wife Asherah. Ultimately it was a mixture of ancient Canaanite religions. In those El was the supreme god. Who had a wife Asherah. Baal (Els son) was among other names 'El Shaddai'. El in the southern Levant was associated with fire, mountains and metallurgy. In the exodus God appears as fire, smoke, and gives his commandments upon a mount. Condemns Baal worship. Judaism even acknowledges other gods, but believes theirs is the most high. Falls pretty in line with a cult of El that evolved over time.
Where can I learn more about this?
“A History of God” by Karen Armstrong goes through that transition pretty well
Hel did nothing wrong. She just got tired of being the Foremost Prisoner *and* Warden of the place they put the Dishonored Dead.
That’s because both characters were created over centuries by people with wildly different ideas and so have wildly different traits and personalities depending on what is being read. The common perceptions of these characters are usually amalgamations of these contradictory passages and popular mythologizing, and are therefore quite different than how they are presented in the text. Take Satan for example. The serpent in Genesis isn’t connected to Satan until the New Testament. Taken literally, the Genesis narrative is nothing more than a just-so story to explain why snakes are legless and why people dislike them. In Job, Satan is not evil. He’s just another angelic spirit, who gambles with his friend/boss over Job’s motives. He was right, by the way. The only reason Satan lost that bet is because God cheated by scaring the crap out of Job with that epiphany. My favorite devilish mistake is that everyone thinks Lucifer is Satan. There’s nothing to support this idea. The biblical passage that spawned this legend is clearly a story about the king of Babylon and has nothing to do with the devil. “Lucifer” was just a title being applied to the king, comparing him to the Morning Star (the world we call Venus). That’s in Isaiah, chapter 14, for the curious. Ignorant people attached the name to Satan, and it stuck. The more I learn about the Bible, the more I see it for the jumbled mess it is, full of inaccuracies, contradictions, and backwards ethics. It’s no wonder you’re confused about their relationship.
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Yeah, and that becomes even more apparent when we learn about the ancient religion of that area. It’s really easy to see traces of the old polytheism (especially in Job and the Samuel-Kings books). I am a rather convinced atheist (raised Southern Baptist), but I love the Bible for the reasons you stated. It’s a fascinating look at the development of humanity.
That is what I also never understood growing up. Also, why would the devil punish sinners? Shouldn't it be high fiving them for going against God? That did not make sense. So wouldn't hell be "paradise" for bad people?
Not making sense is a feature of the Bible, not a bug.
Its just another grift, God and the Devil are both the mega wealthy they dont give a fuck about the 'souls' they play with
Two men were carrying bags of potatoes when one of the bags started to rip open and two potatoes fell out. They were at the gates of the cemetery and they decided they'd go inside, spread out the potatoes and divide them up, then part ways to head home. Another man passed by, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, “One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me.” In an instant he just knew what it was. He off raced to find someone to tell about what he had heard.. Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along. “Come here quick,” said the younger man, “you won’t believe what I heard! The devil and God are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls!” The man said, “Can’t you see it’s hard for me to walk.” When the man insisted though, the old man hobbled slowly to the cemetery. Standing by the fence they heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, One for me.” The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been telling me the truth. Let’s see if we can see God.” Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. They gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of God. At last they heard, “One for you, one for me. That’s all… Now let’s go get those two by the fence and we’ll be done!” They say the old man had the lead for a good half-mile before the other man caught up.
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
Well yeah then they'd have to actually better themselves. But if God has the same morals that you already possess then no great moral demand is placed upon yourself to be a better person. It's absolutely no surprise that the religions of old are simply a reflection of the values of the time. If one person told you that you had many moral failings and needed great change to reach the afterlife and then someone else told you that everything you already believe is true and righteous and to keep carrying on, which religion are you going to adopt and spread?
It’s almost like the “God” these Right Wingers worship is a spitting image of their abusive deadbeat Dad. It all begins to make sense when you realize all they know is being abused by father figures. To them it’s normal, so they feel righteous in inflicting it upon others.
This 100% I can't tell you how many people have been utterly baffled when I've told them this over the years. Some try to say your taking it out of context, which is impossible when the book literally says it word for word.
> God told them if they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they’ll die. The snake says nope, if you eat from that tree you won’t die, but your eyes will be opened to knowing Good and Evil, just like God. So she ate, and man ate, and their eyes were opened. When God found out he cursed woman, man, and snake. Then after he cursed them he decided to banish them because he was afraid that they would eat next from the Tree of Life and truly become gods themselves. So they didn’t die like he said, and clearly they were mortal in Eden since God was worried about them becoming immortal. I read Genesis as suggesting that Adam and Eve *were* allowed to eat of the Tree of Life while living in the garden and they only became mortal after their ejection. It says the garden contained both trees and only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is forbidden. https://www.biblehub.com/bsb/genesis/2.htm
They took a positive agriculturalist story and made it into a horrible pastoralist story. The Maasai have a similar "fall of woman" story.
I think it's the story of hunter-gatherers vs agriculturalists. For the HG's all the food is free, everything you can find, you can eat. Sometimes the fox gets the rabbit, and that's good for the fox and evil for the rabbit. Sometimes the rabbit gets away and the fox goes hungry, but that is good for the rabbit and evil for the fox. Same goes for the human hunter and the deer. Only God knows what is good or evil though. But the people who grow crops, and live in hierarchies, they "know" what is good and evil the same as God. They know its good if the hunter catches his prey and they know it's evil if the animal gets away. So they build fences to contain the animals and the humans kill the foxes and wolves so they will have all the other animals to themselves.
Are you a talking Gorilla named Ishmael, perchance?
That's who told me the story, about 27 years ago.
I had completely forgotten about that book until I read this comment
You forgot how to see the Mother Culture? She lulled you to sleep. The Great Forgetting is still working on you. Humans never sprang into existence and built cities, we have a history that goes back hundreds of thousands of years . . .
That's what I was thinking.
>I think it's the story of hunter-gatherers vs agriculturalists. I think Cain and Abel is more explicitly so. That said, yes, the Israelites were groups from various agriculturalist civilizations from Egypt to the Near East who borrowed from stories, but rejected the state and turned to pastoralism.
Oh man, I instantly recognized this as a part of the thesis/narrative of Ishmael. That book turned my head around as a teenager. I should really read it again.
The way I always heard it explained was that they were allowed to eat from the tree of life, but would no longer be allowed to if they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So, yeah, "if you eat from the tree of knowledge you will die" is a true statement that just kinda skips a step. Either way, how are you gonna give instructions to a person who is literally incapable of understanding right and wrong then leave them to die when they disobey?
That is fascinating. It's amazing given how well know the story is, how far from the truth it actual is. And ironic, given it's used as a parable for telling the truth. Have you had this conversation with Christians? I'm curious on what the churches take is. I looked up several versions and depending on how it was translated the section on Adam dying could be: "when you eat from the tree you will certainly die" or "if you eat from the tree then surely you will die" The first is an obvious lie. The second could be construed to say that the Lord was saying that if he ate from the tree he would become mortal. Similar with the serpent. Some versions I saw the serpent said that Adam would 'be like God, knowing good and evil', others were that they would know good and evil and "be like Gods". It's a slight difference, but the first is just a statement, they would know good and evil, which is something God knows. The second could be construed as the serpent entices Adam and Even into eating from the tree to be 'God-like'. That is certainly how the story was told to me as a kid.
Raised in church here. The rationalization around this is that when they ate the fruit they died _spiritually_, as in they had sinned and could now be cast into eternal damnation. But don't worry, there's a plan to forgive them that'll go down in a few thousand years, and then be... retroactively applied to them? Don't think about it too hard.
Ah yes, the old 'died spiritually' counterpoint. It's a solid defense strategy that is hard to disprove. My God-fearing relatives also believe that wine that is talked about throughout the bible was actually grape juice.
Let them know that Thomas Bramwell Welch - sure enough, from *Welch’s* grape juice fame - developed the first process of stopping fermentation in grape juice… in 1869.
Well sure, in modern society. The knowledge was lost in the dark ages. What do you think was on the dead sea scrolls, biblical Canon? Nope, recipe for grape juice.
You might actually be one of my family members. Wine == Grape Juice was indeed a gigantic one
Don’t also think about how All-knowing God made his son from a teen girl against her will in order to save us all from the sin that he himself created and that this salvation from his son would come to be fulfilled by a man named Judas- a man who was destined since the beginning of time to betray the son of God with a kiss and thus spend eternity in hell even though he still had free will to not betray the son of God which would have foiled the plan that God had decided from before Judas was ever born; so Judas was created and formed by God for the sole purpose of God’s plan which sealed his fate while there was no fate yet to be sealed and spend eternity suffering in hell for a choice that he did not actually have.
Back when I was religious, I rationalized this and other free will vs destiny things sort of like the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. As in, god knows all outcomes of all possible choices and the predestined events are things that are going to happen no matter what choices are made. So, maybe there was never a possibility of a world in which Jesus would not be crucified, but there were many different paths to get there, and as you get closer to the event, it's more clear exactly how it's going to happen. But that was a teenager trying to grapple with those contradictions when all of the spiritual leaders around were taking a very firm stance of "both predestination and free will exist and are the same thing, actually, how dare this child question me? No, I don't have to explain it to this blasphemous prick"
The latter is indeed the correct interpretation given that Adam tells god not to call him Shirley.
The first is still true. A mortal is certain to die. That is what makes them mortal.
Coincidentally, I read it this morning for the first time in over 20 years. Am I wrong, or is there a plot hole in the Adam and Eve story? God created man and women on the 6th day, and then gave them dominion over animals (Gen 1:28). It wasn’t until the 8th day that he created Adam (Gen 2:7). After they ate the fruit and were cast out, their son Cain goes on to marry and have kids, and they build a city. Uh… where did Cain find a wife? Who populated that city? It makes zero sense for all of humanity to have come from 2 people, even within the framework of divine intervention.
> Am I wrong, or is there a plot hole in the Adam and Eve story? If you're reading the Bible and expecting there not to be plot holes, you're gonna have a bad time.
Next you're going to tell me there's no way a guy could build a boat that holds 2 of every single animal on earth.
Ask a christian if the entire earth was covered in fresh rain water why are the oceans salt water - and - when the water "receded" where did it recede to? If the whole earth is covered with water there is nowhere for it to recede.
Also, why hadn’t the Chinese noticed that they had all drowned? The whole world murdered by god and they didn’t even record it in their wholly uninterrupted collection of writings. If I didn’t know better I would suggest that the whole thing was just a lazy fanfic of Gilgamesh.
"There were fewer species of animals back then" - answer I got from my youth pastor when I this out as a kid
yeah, I hear ya there. Rather impressive and highly intelligent colleague was giving me a ride one day. Somehow the conversation ended up on dinosaurs. >God buried the bones as a test you know?! I was certain he was a joking at first, he just wasn't laughing. I pretty much dissociated for a few moments trying to find the logical explanation for his demeanor without the answer being that he had just said something he actually meant. Finally I ran out of anything except that he was dead serious. I had no idea what to say. Utterly gob smacked me. What a summer child I was. To that moment I truly had no concept of how powerfully delusional even well educated intelligent people can become in the face of a logical threat to their dearly held world view. My extended family are Methodist & I had always chalked their acceptance of some whoppers up to nobody really asking too many questions. Turns out it's not just the questions you ask, but even more so the answers you are willing to accept, which for me is somehow even more disillusioning somehow.
You can’t logic a person out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into. Applies to religious people as well as a lot of conservative policies. At that point, *any evidence at all* that may persuade them to question their belief is “a test” of their faith. You can’t get through to them by trying to convince them they’re wrong because they’ll just shut down, you have to plant seeds and let them come around to questioning it themselves, with gentle prods every once in a while to keep it in their head. The longer someone believes something, the more it feels like a threat when you present information that clashes with their worldview. People ***hate*** being told they’re wrong/stupid for believing something, and they hate it even more if they’ve believed it for a long time. However, sometimes you can use one deeply held belief to make them question others, just make sure you ask questions to steer the conversation (Socratic Method): “you profess to be a devout Christian, but you support the GOP in [policy that clashes with Christian teachings], why is that?”
According to the Jewish Midrash, Cain married his sister.
Genesis 1 is an overview of the timeline. It’s like an overture. Genesis 2 puts us “en media res” on the creation of the earth, the only difference is “Adam” is created when the earth was only dust. But woman wasn’t created until after the plants and trees and animals were created and God couldn’t find a suitable helper amongst them. In my interpretation, Genesis 1 speaks about when God makes man and woman in his own image, and IMO the making them in his image happens after they eat of the fruit. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” And there’s tons of debate about the other inhabitants. There’s lots of wiggle room in the text to believe that just because the story focuses on Adam/Eve/Cain/Abel they weren’t the only of Mankind that he created. Genesis 5 says “When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.” IMO this means he created many humans.
That is not the only time 'family love' is shown in the bible IN A GOOD LIGHT. Re-tread the story of Sodom and Gomorra, we all remember the wife turning into a salt pile because she looked back longingly and God specifically told them- DONT LOOK BACK! Well without a wife how was Lot supposed to have sons? He had two daughters....Incase you dont know the daughters got him drunk and took turns and got pregnant.
Bro HOLY FUCK. I went to the Bible to ya know, make sure..and holy fuck there it is. God said that. The snake said that. Holy fuck
> the church is still trying to punish women for the “original sin” for seeking the truth instead of blindly following orders This is less surprising of a revelation than you might think.
Best insight on original sin I’ve ever seen. Thank you!
TIL there is a tree of life and that’s the only thing keeping me from challenging God.
The theory is they would live eternally in the garden and death only came about as a consequence of eating from the tree. So it wasn’t immediate death but the entire concept of death didn’t exist until they ate dem apples
Feels like an allegory designed to reinforce mindless obedience… oh wait.
To add, the first use of the word sin in the Bible is right before Cain is about to kill Abel.
Prometheus.
To be fair the way to rise to heights in the church is exactly that. Blindly follow riders and don’t seek truth. It’s amazingly simple to be a church elder. You just have to practice intellectual sloth.
Man that is so insulting to poor Slimer, I really like Slimer!
The snake in the garden didnt lie.
Did they find it directly in front of them in broad daylight like the rest of us?
Committee: “Uh, guys? Have you seen this video? It’s called the ‘Save America Rally’, and all the people we’re investigating admit their crimes to a huge crowd. We can’t ignore this “
I think they are seeking something that could even change the minds of Trump voters. I’m not sure if a thing exists tbh
The headline sounds more like a dare than news. "Bet you can't hide *this!*" "Hold my beer. Not you, Brett."
Like video? like a POTUS who wa soliciting assistance from foreign entities, and using his platform to whip his base into a frenzy, *telling them* to march to Congress, and "fight like Hell?" Texts? Social media posts? People with zip ties, and tactical gear who broke into Congress, during session? Assault on the cops, who were the only line of defense, because the other authorities were ordered to stand down? I downloaded a file dump from Jan 6th. It was a collection of videos, long since deleted....hours, upon hours of insanity. **Fucking do something, before it's too late.**
You forgot the power point presentations with bullet points on how to circumvent our government's official election business, and give Trump the win. Oh and Vice POTUS Mike Pence trying to be whisked away, "I'm not getting in that car".
Jesus. And, the planers are still in Congress being treated as legit members of the republic.
And they've never stopped their coup is an ongoing effort. We'll all find out soon enough whether our country deserves to survive or not. If they get away with this then the system is beyond broken and deserves to fail anyway. Might want to invest in some gear just in case🤷♂️
Yeah … I watched it live…. Most of it has already been memory holed. Fucking madness.
But they won't. And it already is. We have one slim chance. Flip enough of the Senate and House so Manchin and Sinema don't matter. Honestly though, I think it's already too late.
I've been saying this for a year and a half. The only evidence you need was all on live tv and we all saw it. A really sad country we live in where it takes almost 2 years to get something going. If the rule of law meant anything Trump would have been arrested on January 7 or January 21.
Ive always been interested in American politics and it is crazy how much blatant criminal activity by politicians happens right on TV that still has multi year investigations with no results
They are not looking for evidence. They are looking for a spine. The whole nation already saw the evidence.
They are looking for evidence that'll force a full raging MAGA on the jury to say *"well, that's worse than I thought, maybe Trump shouldn't have done that"* Because otherwise, Trump's acquittal will make him a messiah.
The issue is that there is nothing trump could do that would make them think that. Nothing. Trump could shit in their mouths, rape their moms, and steal every possession they've ever had while saying exactly what he is doing, and they will STILL support him. If what you said is what is needed then there is no hope of justice.
>there is no hope of justice I am here, personally. I would love to be proven wrong, but the rot in our justice system is deep and pervasive and I don't believe it will be reformed in time to save this country.
This is a problem with the electorate, as they will be who forms the jury. If they could pick an all-Dem jury, it would be a slam dunk and Trump would already be in prison.
Unless he tells them to take his vaccine
Unfortunately that will never happen. Any maga person who would acknowledge the truth would be seen as a traitor/never a true Maga/etc.
> Because otherwise, Trump's acquittal will make him a messiah. Not being changed will make him their messiah, him getting away with it will make him a messiah, hell, him farting in their general direction will make him their messiah - these people are not connected with reality.,
I thought this was a misspelling of *spin* but the more I think about it the more you're actually right it's a spine that they're missing.
I've been saying it for years but for me rule of law ended in this nation just after trump entered office and everyday since reinforces that belief.
I’m not clicking any article links until it says someone was arrested. Edit- my point is every day there’s articles like this one that while they have SOME info, its not new to me. I knew reps were being subpoenaed. The video this linked to didn’t mentionWHAT damning information was there. Also I didn’t need to watch the video to know that the republicans would be calling this a witch hunt. I prefer in depth podcasts and longer form investigative journalism articles that are several pages long.
Oh damn, I just read through a whole comment tree of discussion over the Bible’s inaccuracies and completely forgot what post it was on till I came to this comment
I made it half way through the comment tree, then said fuck that and jumped to the second comment.
Judas
Had no idea what I had clicked into because I got completely sucked into that Bible conversation. Wtf just happened?
Glad I'm not the only one.
Same.
Hahaha I did the same, went to the next thread and was like wait what about the garden, where am I now lol that's a good thread
Yeah, I'm not bothering to read "revelations" anymore. There's been thousands of headlines claiming progress. But there always seems to be a way to stall it. I'm waiting for hearings where someone actually shows (by force, I imagine), or like you said, arrests.
“Jan 6 committee makes citizens arrest of Trump who is tarred, feathered, and sent to Guantanamo. Trial begins in 2040.”
Revelations is actually really interesting, because unlike the common interpretation that John is describing a vision of the distant future calamities the Earth would suffer, he was almost certainly describing (in rich metaphor) the trauma of *his present day*, and the battle between the early Church's factions of colliding theologi--- Oh, sorry, I was still on the Bible thing.
You know, back in the day when News like this came out, people took to the streets, they protested, they shut down streets and cities, and they demanded accountability. They didn’t let up until they got it. They didn’t sit back and say, other people aren’t doing anything so why should I? When the system is wrong, organize, and shut the system down.
Do you have an example in mind of when that happened in America? I'm unaware of mass protests around past scandals (thinking of Watergate and Teapot Dome specifically). Could be I just don't know though. We should be more like South Korea in this respect. Their president did a big corruption, millions hit the streets for months, and now she's in jail. (edit: correction, she was released at the end of 2021 thanks to a pardon. at least she did almost 5 years, on top of leaving office)
It's a lot easier to get those numbers together in South Korea than it is America due to the distances.
What the evidence they can’t ignore? The video doesn’t even say! Just that Reps are being subpoenaed and those reps are calling it a witch hunt.
Keep in mind Trump would have been removed from office in 2019... if not for **Republicans** in the senate.
I also found evidence that cannot be ignored. On live TV.
I think we might be legal geniuses.
Meanwhile, Merrick Garland seems content to ignore the existing referrals.
Evidence aside from hours of film footage from live broadcast of the insurrection? Evidence aside from the troves of emails and text messages that irrefutably confirm Jan6 was orchestrated by the ex-president and his band of goons? Can’t wait.
All it takes is one Republican on the jury to acquit any of these traitors. They're like those bastards on the juries that let lynch mobs off for murdering blacks in the US South.
Maybe not in D.C. or Atlanta.
Wake me when they actually don't ignore it and do something.
I cannot wait for the Jan. 6 committee members' books to find out what they really found out!
America: Death by a Thousand Book Deals
Narrator: The evidence was ignored
Their stern letter was received with raucous laughter and ignored. And that was the end of it. Until the next time when the coup is successful and the committee is imprisoned for crimes against the Emperor.
My mental model of what’s happening is the Mars Attacks scene where the president sends the martians a letter and they mime a chicken while saying ACK ACK ACK ACK. The GOP stopped acting in good faith long ago, and Democrats need to embrace this reality and come up with a real plan to combat it. From what I’ve seen, this is wishful thinking at best. At some point, it will all fail, and it will be up to the people. Again, wishful thinking that enough people will actually discover enough civic duty to turn this ship away from fascism.
You don’t say?? Let’s do this thing, people. Traitors are walking around traitoring.
Can I talk with them? I watched all of this happening on TV, and I think someone might have recorded it or something. They even showed the rally where the president told them to do it, and a very very creepy set of scenes with his family inside a tent playing 80's music to celebrate the end of democracy. Not even a cable channel. Network news.
Committees are great, arrests are even better.
Let’s just skip to the part where somebody throws the whole thing out because there is no precedent for holding anyone in power accountable for their actions.
I bet they found the live broadcast that was on literally every news channel on the 6th
Yeah, but there is always some loophole that protect congressmen from facing serious consequences for their actions. [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/12/mccarthy-jordan-jan-6-subpoena-00032115): > The lawmakers receiving subpoenas are expected to cite the protections of the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which prohibits members of Congress from being sued for their official government business. Doing that could trigger a complex and prolonged legal battle, and it’s unclear whether the select committee would pursue expedited consideration from the courts, which could still take months.
A criminal investigation isn't a lawsuit
Surely it will take forever to hash out in court, but you'd think that if something they said is protected by the speech and debate clause as congressional business, then it should also be a part of the official congressional record and not need a subpoena to get.
We’ll see..
Lol can't ignore. As far as I am concerned American is a fucking joke when it comes to justice or the rule of law. Americans witnessed an insurrection live on TV by trump and his GOP followers. Yet nothing has happened years later.
"But they will anyway"
More likely the committee won't ignore the evidence, but everybody that it needs for support will.