Anyone ready a 2nd look at Sodom and G?

[Ps82]

Regarding this story in Genesis I note the following:

In verse 1 :

"And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;"

So the Lord has at this point appeared whilst Abraham was sitting in his tent door.

Yes.

Verse 2:
"And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,"

I have trouble reconciling the statement "stood by him" and Abraham subsequently having to "run to meet them". Doesn't make sense.
Surely "stood by him" can't mean standing say 20 yards from him! So surely this means that there was "the Lord" PLUS there were 3 men standing by him (the Lord). So the verse is saying first the Lord appeared and then there were 3 men standing by "the Lord" and Abraham ran and went to meet them all. So we're looking at 4 people here, the Lord and 3 men.

Love how you pay attention to detail ... and how you ask God for understanding. You are a seeker for sure... and I believe he will reveal truth to honest seekers.
Well, a person could study the ancient word which was interpreted into English to mean "stood by him. That might be a good way to decide truth ... but I think there are enough contextual clues within the verse to know that the three were not right next to him. Things like: when he looked he saw... and when he saw he ran to meet them. IOW, he left the tent door ...

The main things which jumped out to me: The three were together ... but the only name Abraham used to great them was LORD/lords. I happen to have read where The Spiritual God gave a name to his presence-his living image created to represent himself as the living God. Read this event [Ex 3:13-15]. First you hear God tell Moses who He is. I AM THAT I AM. This is like saying I AM the eternal ONE, but God does not stop there explaining who Moses has SEEN inside the bush.

He ends by telling Moses His chosen name:
Verse 15 And God said moreover unto Moses, "Thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel, 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you:' this is MY NAME FOREVER."

Did Abraham and Jacob know the chosen name of LORD/YHWH when they worshiped God? No. Watch.

Exodus 6:3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
IOW, they did not know God's chosen name - of LORD/YHWH or here mentioned Jehovah. One might do a study of the KJV name Jehovah to see how it was derived.

Is it any wonder that Jacob asked God what his name was [Gen. 32:24-30] ? ... Yet, God did not reveal it to Jacob:
Gen. 32:29 And Jacob asked HIM, and said, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy name."
And HE [God] said, "Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after My name? And He [God] blessed him [Jacob] there."

God who appeared to Jacob and wrestled with him never told Jacob his chosen name but waited to tell his friend Moses. Why? I don't know ... but I do know that after Moses learned God's chosen Name of LORD The LORD God he knew exactly when and where to put it in scripture when writing the first five books. Therefore, you will see the name LORD mentioned through out those books ... and the first time Moses inserts the truth was in Genesis 2:
Verse 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens ...

Wish I knew why the invisible God waited to reveal his chosen name for his visible presence to Moses.

Verse 3:
"Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:"

Rest? Does the Lord (God) need to rest? Does he get tired all of a sudden? Surely not. The men however, yes they might need rest and food.

Abram said exactly what any human might say when three special/unusual sojourners came for a visit. BTW, they could and did eat... but I agree with you that they probably could not get tired or even be harmed.

Verse 4:
16 And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.
17 And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;

There's a clear distinction here between "the Lord" and "the men". They are not one and the same. The Lord asks the men "Shall I hide from Abraham . . ."etc.

Just my 2penneth

I agree ... but consider things this way: Only the name LORD was ever spoken - no LORD and you angelic messengers ... or You, Michael and Gabriel. Just LORD... and Abram worshiped them without any two saying - No. Stop.

I see the Three representing the ONE Creator visually ... and remember Abraham did not know God by the name LORD. It was Moses who interjected the name LORD and lords. I figure it was just the way Moses chose to distinguish between the three... for later two lords went into Sodom and arrive around evening. First, Lot worshiped them in the same manner that Abram had worshiped the three, then he invited them for dinner and to spend the night.

The third, singled out by Moses as The LORD, went later that night and stayed on mission in the streets all night judging the citizens. He was the sojourner that the mob man-handled and wanted to harm along with the other two lords inside Lot's house.

Now, scripture does not explain how the mob knew the two at Lot's house were the comrades of the third LORD which they had outside Lot's door; so, I asked God to help me understand ... All I can say is that this information came to me. I am ONE God with ONE image and I designed it as our image for us. [Genesis 1:26-27]. I used it to appear as the Father and again to appear as the Son ... I am not limited to using it only once but I can manifest it even in multiples. I concluded the three LORD/lords looked like the ONE presence belonging to ONE God. I am yet to find anything to prove to me that this was not possible.

I find all these ideas fascinating to consider and in my case believe ... but I do not look down on any one who does not see things my way ... for believers know the plan of salvation and that is our gift from God.

 

[Ps82]

Yet if you do not go down that trail then you will simply bend your knee to any tyrant that demands you worship it for fear of the consequences.

I'm not sure why you concluded this [you will bend your knee to any tyrant...} from the question I asked: "A man dares to hold God accountable for his behavior? Well, not sure I want to go down that trail ... in Ps 82 Satan did and it did not go well." As a believer I really think it is God who sets the standards for us created mortal humans to live by ... and it is my duty to serve and glorify him as LORD.

Now whilst that might be understandable in terms of preserving your life and avoiding suffering this in no way lessens the fact that you have surrendered to a tyrant. If you lived in Germany WW2 and Hitler demanded you submit to him and scrub his boots you might well comply for fear of the repercussions. Similarly if you lived in the Middle East you might also find similar examples of punishments for non-compliance.

I understand why people will serve a tyrant. It will save their lives and things will go well for them on earth ... for a while. But somewhere it is said: Those who try to save their lives will loose them. It might apply in this case. I think about and pray that I will be able to resist Satan when he reveals himself among men. He may already know my weaknesses, but I won't share them here just in case he doesn't. Only God in me can help me at that time.

Yet is this right? Do we not have a moral responsibility to demand that anyone we worship and revere should demonstrate certain behaviours and characteristics? Otherwise what's the point? You live under tyranny and is that really much better than dying anyway?

God The Creator is not equal to imperfect men on earth. He is not a hateful lying tyrant such as Satan. Only God is good. The rest of us have fallen short of what was planned/desired for us. Why would he even want us back? Right there people should know he is merciful, kind, enduring us until the saints are manifested in the eternal kingdom.

The gods may well be vastly superior and more powerful than I am but should I just submit through threat of punishment for non-compliance?
Surely that's not right. Surely there must be accountability and demonstration of moral behaviours before we consider worshipping anyone or anything. If an entity punishes someone for daring to expect such moral accountability then that entity is surely a tyrant.

Perhaps if you list all the ways you see God behaving like a tyrant ... I can better understand your thoughts. I keep asking: Why would God even care to still be dealing with humanity unless he is merciful? He could have destroyed us as a created group right there in The Garden. He still deals with us because he is Good not because we are good.

Do you know that God cursed the ground FOR MANKIND'S SAKE? That means he did it for our good. It reminds me of how a mother might make her child take some terrible medicine for she knew it was for the good. We are not having fun taking our medicine due to sin ... but we trust that it will be for the good of those who trust the LORD God.

 

[SwordOfTruth]

Elohiym/Elohim does not particularly mean there are many Gods ... but ONE God having a multiplicity of living nature.

No that's just a bastardisation of the term done by Trinitarians to justify their models. There's no question that Elohim is plural and means EITHER any god with a little "g" or a particular god who wishes to be seen as the top dog and thus likes to be known as God with a capital "g".

Strong's Concorance - Elohim :

Original Word: אֱלהִים
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: elohim
Phonetic Spelling: (el-o-heem')
Definition: God, god

Well, I think we agree on this point also.

No I don't think we agree at all.

I don't worship God and My Lord because I fear him harming me. I reasoned and life taught me that I was helpless like an orphan without a Father in this tough world.

If you believe that then you should be asking who made you helpless as an orphan and who put you in this tough world. In your belief system this amounts to wilful forced coercion. i.e an entity puts you in a hopeless environment in which you will surely die and says hey, worship me, bow down, and I'll save you. That's a sick way to acquire followers and none of them can thus be genuine. Your god lacks the will to make humans free. He has imprisoned them on this planet and curtailed their natural abilities. He has taken free will from them and stripped them of life years that they would otherwise live. And why has this been done? Well according to the literal (incorrect) reading of the Bible it's because Adam and Eve dared to want to know things, to learn, to be better than they are, something your god cruelly forbade them to do. In fact the Bible clearly says that the gods were concerned that humans might be like them and live forever. Not very nice. In fact pretty wicked. Such a story taken literally, doesn't support the Christian concept of a loving god. It paints a picture of a despotic god who wants all the power and be top dog whilst everyone else is subjugated beneath him. Small wonder the other gods sought to rebel against such tyranny. The reality of course is that the Bible text is not literal in much of Genesis, it is purely allegorical which is why a literal reading makes no sense. The proper allegorical reading conceals the secrets of alchemy and the Elixir Of Life (manna, Soma, Ambrosia, Philosopher's Stone etc). The Church peddles its BS literal nonsense and keeps the masses in ignorant stupor. Genesis is a declaration of wonder, it's announcing the Stone, it's describing how it is made, what some of the practical processes are. The male and female principles required for that Work and so on.

I've seen how the hearts of mankind are bent on evil continually. What a cruel and judgemental people we are. I reasoned I needed the gift of the Holy Spirit brought by my Savior or there is no hope for me/mankind.

Your reasoning was religious indoctrination not critical thinking. Mankind is bent on evil as you put it because mankind has been forced into a planetary prison and the key substance humans need to survive and flourish (the Stone) has been taken from them by your god. In other words your god has set up the environment, removed what's needed to exist in that environment and as a result has forced humans to vie for scarce resources. Humans have no choice but to fight each other because otherwise they die. They must eat, drink, acquire shelter, warmth from the elements etc etc. All the things that the Stone would otherwise bestow on them. Note teh story of Eden. Adam and Eve wandered around naked. They didn't feel the extremes of heat or cold. They didn't need to eat or drink per say other than to take in quantities of the Stone in whatever form god supplied it be that in the waters available to them or in the foods around them. They went from an existence in which they would have lived forever with no needs whatsoever to living in a hellish planetary world stripped of that most vital substance which god witheld from them.
I'm sorry but everything that followed on Earth from that point was the direct result of god keeping the Stone for himself and witholding it from humanity. We are nothing more than grunt slaves as a result destined to die. How loving indeed !

I enjoyed responding to your post for you are a seeker. God promises - Proverbs 8:17 Seek Me ... early ... you shall find me. Pa 9:10 is another place where the promise is made.

I am certainly a seeker and I did seek and I did find, by following a Hansel and Gretel trail of breadcrumbs that has been laid out for 1000s of years. What Philosophers call Ariandne's Thread. Anyone who is able to cast off the harmful and oppressive shackles of religious indoctrination born from a false interpretation of the Bible will free themselves up to look in new directions and WILL inevitably stumble across Ariadne's Thread as a result and that will over time, inevitably lead them to the true source of all life, the Spiritus Mundi and the Stone. This is why the Stone is referenced so many times throughout the Bible text. This is why Jesus warns us (allegorically) that unless we eat of the White Stone and drink of the Red Stone, we have no life in us and are basically going to perish. Jesus was a man. A gifted and remarkable man, but a man nonetheless. Jesus was an alchemist quite clearly and had in his possession the Stone(s) and he taught his disciples the "mysteries of the kingdom" which include that Stone and how to create it and use it. The Church will of course never teach this to its flocks because it wants control, wants humans in an indoctrinated state so they comply and behave as they want them to.

Seek and you WILL find, it is most true but it is Ariadne's Thread that you will find not a tyrannical fictitious god. The true source of life and love is all around us, it pervades everything. It's nothing like a human. It's a constant flow of supreme energy that can be tapped into. It will raise a human up back to who they should be and beyond. The Earthy powers will thus do anything and everything to prevent us knowing about that life energy and the Stone and will try to prevent us finding it. Yet throughout history numerous humans HAVE found it but they unfortunately have to remain ever cautious and careful because if found out the Earthly powers will remove them from the playing field.

None of this can make sense if you do not have the "eyes to see and ears to hear" that Jesus constantly mentioned especially during his allegorical parables. You can only gain those eyes and ears once you discard the religious programming you received from childhood and cast aside all ego and thoughts of self-worth. Your religious mind control will prevent you from looking where you need to look using fear and guilt as its primary weapons. When you are ready to start the true search you will have discarded your shackles. May that be so one day.

 

[SwordOfTruth]

Perhaps if you list all the ways you see God behaving like a tyrant ... I can better understand your thoughts. I keep asking: Why would God even care to still be dealing with humanity unless he is merciful? He could have destroyed us as a created group right there in The Garden. He still deals with us because he is Good not because we are good.

A tyrant rules by force of arms or instilled fear. God's proposition is worship me, follow me, or else I'll destroy you in a lake of fire. He put the lake of fire there, he is responsible for the creation of this Earth and its limited resources. He is responsible for witholding from mankind the one true thing mankind needs to survive, maintain perfect health and flourish. God wants the human slave force. He must be bored as hell if he is the all-powerful all-knowing entity Christianity claims him to be. The story of Genesis (if taken literally which is incorrect) tells us that god created Adam (man) to tend a bloody garden which god had created. Why the hell would an all-powerful god need a man to tend a garden. He can just will the garden to maintain itself and it happens. Your god is a jealous being, he somehow needs to create other beings so that he can be worshipped by them. That's pretty pathetic. Worse still when he gives them a very limited choice of actions and they don't do what he wants then he punishes them brutally, consigning them to a very limited lifespan instead of immortality and limiting all the votal resources they will need to flourish resulting in mankind having to constantly fight amongst itself for those resources. We are a doctored species. Our pineal glands are suppressed. Our brains are suppressed preventing us from using about 80% of its capacity. We feel the extremes of heat and cold where before we were immune to them. The free flow of vital universal life force is kept from us, we are generally kept ignorant of it, the secrets of how to tap into it are hidden from us and those that find it are forced into hiding. I could go on and on. The human condition is a pathetic vulnerable weak one made deliberately by your god. His proposition is worship or die. Such are the dictats of tyrants.

Do you know that God cursed the ground FOR MANKIND'S SAKE? That means he did it for our good. It reminds me of how a mother might make her child take some terrible medicine for she knew it was for the good. We are not having fun taking our medicine due to sin ... but we trust that it will be for the good of those who trust the LORD God.

You may as well worship Hitler. This is just an apologetic stance. A stance you would make no matter how disgusting the attrocities your god perpetrates or permits. Therein lies your problem and the reason you don't have the eyes to see and ears to hear that Jesus spoke of.

 

[Ps82]

A tyrant rules by force of arms or instilled fear. God's proposition is worship me, follow me, or else I'll destroy you in a lake of fire. He put the lake of fire there, he is responsible for the creation of this Earth and its limited resources. He is responsible for witholding from mankind the one true thing mankind needs to survive, maintain perfect health and flourish. God wants the human slave force.

His position is our choosing to worship him for he holds hope for us with reconciliation and the gift of eternal life where there will be no strife, sickness, and pain. I look forward to that. God did not create puppets but rather sentient individuals and then gave him the ability to choose him. God gave man and angels this choice too. Now, I know in the case of mankind there was the warning about choices: Partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good AND evil and death will come. I can't blame God... for not wanting evil in his perfect kingdom. So what is evil? Satan and his 1/3 is an example of evil - the great liar, deceiver, the one who covet what others have, an accuser of his Creator, a rebellious one who wanted to be God not a god/angel. To this day if humanity chooses evil over a good God then then the warning of death persists. But physical death was done for our sake. Hard to believe but that is the way God rescues us from the curse of death and gives us a new eternal body. Read Genesis 3. God cursed the elements of the ground for man's sake. He did not curse mankind ... but he did leave the gift of choice. Man's first death for those who choose to follow God's Savior as Lord is to release us for better things.

Now, regarding the Lake of Fire - another favorite topic of mine. Most students of the Bible believe that mankind will suffer forever in burning flames. At this point in my studies I think there is room for something else to happen. I do believe that lost souls do suffer in a place called hell at this time and that angels dread being cast away from this present world into a place called the Pit. They must be afraid of some sort of suffering there or perhaps fear that their time is drawing near. Anyway, because God is a good God and a fair judge both lost angels and lost humans will meet the same final fate. That is the Lake of Fire. Second death for mankind ... I am assuming at this time, since God IS LIFE and the power which provides life to all creatures came from him, then it can return to him when ever he wishes. I see no reason, at this time, to say he might not obliterate the existence of a living creature like mankind and therefore not leave them suffering forever. I know people will disagree with me ... but at this time it's my thoughts. I do believe He is a good God. Until God decides it time to end things as we know it ... there is a lot of suffering going on right here on Earth and in hell. Even the martyred saints are impatient and asking, "How Long must we wait for ...?"

Here is a thought regarding a good God... He made death a process happening overtime so that mankind could fulfill the command: Reproduce and multiply. Having children a process taking time ... physical death a process. I once whined a prayer to God one night about suffering and was asking God WHY about a lot of things. Almost accusing him of being a bad God. Well, I was stopped in my tracks when this came to mind: "I waited on you ______my name ____!" After that statement floods of scripture started to fill my mind. He has waited on me to be born... and he has waited on you! Even thought He knew we would accuse him of being unfair ... he waited on us! I decided after this experience that I would get through this life and endure what suffering might come my way. With his help I would endure the shadow of death and it would all be worth it if I could be in his kingdom with my children and children's children etc ... where there would be no more sickness and pain nor death or hell. I choose this ... not out of fear but out of hope.

He must be bored as hell if he is the all-powerful all-knowing entity Christianity claims him to be. The story of Genesis (if taken literally which is incorrect) tells us that god created Adam (man) to tend a bloody garden which god had created.

If it is bloody mankind made it that way. Just saying.

Why the hell would an all-powerful god need a man to tend a garden. He can just will the garden to maintain itself and it happens. Your god is a jealous being, he somehow needs to create other beings so that he can be worshipped by them.

You are so correct about how God does not need mankind. Yet he chose to create us anyway and offered us fellowship with him as our Father/Creator.

That's pretty pathetic. Worse still when he gives them a very limited choice of actions and they don't do what he wants then he punishes them brutally, consigning them to a very limited lifespan instead of immortality and limiting all the votal resources they will need to flourish resulting in mankind having to constantly fight amongst itself for those resources.

Why would God want judgmental people [filled with the knowledge of good and EVIL] to live as immortals with him eternally? Would you as a human create a handy tool to get a job done and still keep it after it broke so that every time you used it it cut your hand. Or would you fix the tool or make it better. We are the handy tool who cuts as well and I say God is making us better. Would you like to live eternally as an immortal with despots like Hitler or etc? Somehow I don't think you would. I think God knows best how to do good things.

We are a doctored species. Our pineal glands are suppressed. Our brains are suppressed preventing us from using about 80% of its capacity. We feel the extremes of heat and cold where before we were immune to them. The free flow of vital universal life force is kept from us, we are generally kept ignorant of it, the secrets of how to tap into it are hidden from us and those that find it are forced into hiding. I could go on and on. The human condition is a pathetic vulnerable weak one made deliberately by your god. His proposition is worship or die. Such are the dictats of tyrants.

I am very sad to hear how life is going for you. Honestly. I understand life is tough. Hang in ... there is hope with God. He is a promise keeper and his gift of the Holy Spirit is a comforter and gives strength when we are down and joy when we face sadness. I do get it. You seem to believe there is a Creator ... shouldn't the one who created us know what is best. He gave us The TEN so that things would go better for us in this world. He even added health practices to protect our bodies. Example: Sexual sin, he told us, is a sin against one's own body. Poor hygiene and gluttony lead to sickness. He knows we suffer but he hasn't finished waiting on his children to be born so he can bless them ... therefore we suffer because of one man Adam [male/female] but we are saved by one man- our Lord and Savior Jesus.

You may as well worship Hitler. This is just an apologetic stance. A stance you would make no matter how disgusting the attrocities your god perpetrates or permits. Therein lies your problem and the reason you don't have the eyes to see and ears to hear that Jesus spoke of.

I know you are exhausted from reading my post ... I am so full of words ... but I am a woman! I wish you the best. Lean on Jesus as your Savior ... he / his spirit in us will answer your questions like he has mine. Learn to hear his voice. I have to remind myself of that constantly.

 

[Ps82]

I'm not sure why you concluded this [you will bend your knee to any tyrant...} from the question I asked: "A man dares to hold God accountable for his behavior? Well, not sure I want to go down that trail ... in Ps 82 Satan did and it did not go well." As a believer I really think it is God who sets the standards for us created mortal humans to live by ... and it is my duty to serve and glorify him as LORD.

I understand why people will serve a tyrant. It will save their lives and things will go well for them on earth ... for a while. But somewhere it is said: Those who try to save their lives will loose them. It might apply in this case. I think about and pray that I will be able to resist Satan when he reveals himself among men. He may already know my weaknesses, but I won't share them here just in case he doesn't. Only God in me can help me at that time.


God The Creator is not equal to imperfect men on earth. He is not a hateful lying tyrant such as Satan. Only God is good. The rest of us have fallen short of what was planned/desired for us. Why would he even want us back? Right there people should know he is merciful, kind, enduring us until the saints are manifested in the eternal kingdom.


Perhaps if you list all the ways you see God behaving like a tyrant ... I can better understand your thoughts. I keep asking: Why would God even care to still be dealing with humanity unless he is merciful? He could have destroyed us as a created group right there in The Garden. He still deals with us because he is Good not because we are good.

Do you know that God cursed the ground FOR MANKIND'S SAKE? That means he did it for our good. It reminds me of how a mother might make her child take some terrible medicine for she knew it was for the good. We are not having fun taking our medicine due to sin ... but we trust that it will be for the good of those who trust the LORD God.

 

[Ps82]

No that's just a bastardisation of the term done by Trinitarians to justify their models. There's no question that Elohim is plural and means EITHER any god with a little "g" or a particular god who wishes to be seen as the top dog and thus likes to be known as God with a capital "g".

Strong's Concorance - Elohim :

Original Word: אֱלהִים
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: elohim
Phonetic Spelling: (el-o-heem')

The Strong's Concordance says regarding God in Genesis 1:1-3 says: I added a few things like spelling things out instead of using the Strong's abbreviations and my comments inside [...]
430 Elohiym - plural of the root word 433. [IOW ... a plural or sort of collective noun form showing the multifaceted nature of his spiritual essence]
433 gods in the ordinary sense, but specifically used [in the plural form especially]... of the supreme God ...
It also can be applied to mention magistrates [ IOW ...authority] sometimes as a superlative - angels x exceeding.

Well, all of this lines up with some of my conclusions of who I believe God to be.
1.) Elohiym [lots of people just seem to spell it Elohim???] is an invisible multifaceted living invisible Spirit. So full of all things that only a plural or compound word could be used to express the fullness of who he is.
2.) He stated He has his own personal heavenly supernatural image for his personal use. This concept of being able to do this for himself certainly aligns with how he was able to also give angelic beings their own heavenly supernatural bodily forms and to why they can be referred to as gods versus being the extreme potentate - God.
3.) God gave his body of heaven a name forever: YHWH/The LORD. BTW ... Jesus is referred to by the name or title Lord because The WORD of God came into the world as God but with human flesh. That addition made a slight difference in glory between him and the Father.

If you believe that then you should be asking who made you helpless as an orphan and who put you in this tough world.

God did not say that in Ps 82. That was Satan telling God how pitiful humanity is. In Ps 82 Satan stands before God accusing him of being an unjust judge ... much like I did once and you now. Then he began accusing mankind of being pitiful and the cause of all that is wrong. Actually, he was not too far wrong ... BUT God is a fair judge ... and he offers mankind hope after all things are completed.

In your belief system this amounts to wilful forced coercion. i.e an entity puts you in a hopeless environment in which you will surely die and says hey, worship me, bow down, and I'll save you.

My brother was bitten by a rabid dog. He had to take a lot of shots in his stomach ... but he listened to the doctor who said it would be for his good ... he endured the pain and suffering and all turned out well. Perhaps humanity [Adam], who played with evil, should listen to their doctor and trust that things are being done for their good. Otherwise people may just be rebellious and foolish.

That's a sick way to acquire followers and none of them can thus be genuine.

I'll just say: You don't have to follow him. Who is making you. I'm giving my opinions of how I see things ... but your current life is in your hands.

Your god lacks the will to make humans free. He has imprisoned them on this planet and curtailed their natural abilities. He has taken free will from them and stripped them of life years that they would otherwise live. And why has this been done? Well according to the literal (incorrect) reading of the Bible it's because Adam and Eve dared to want to know things, to learn, to be better than they are, something your god cruelly forbade them to do. In fact the Bible clearly says that the gods were concerned that humans might be like them and live forever. Not very nice. In fact pretty wicked. Such a story taken literally, doesn't support the Christian concept of a loving god. It paints a picture of a despotic god who wants all the power and be top dog whilst everyone else is subjugated beneath him. Small wonder the other gods sought to rebel against such tyranny. The reality of course is that the Bible text is not literal in much of Genesis, it is purely allegorical which is why a literal reading makes no sense.

I love the symbolism of the Bible, but I happen to believe scripture can be parables and the truth. Truth can even be played out in the stories of the lives of real people... and used to explain the works of God.
One example of symbolism is: A tree represents a kingdom ... IOW, citizens with a powerful leader. To me The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the kingdom Satan built. The fruit of which Woman and Adam partook was knowledge they were not suppose to embrace. This means they rejected God's plan and took Satan as their master. I happen to believe they actually did pluck something from a tree ... I know weird huh? But it all represented their rebellion toward God and the choice to become like the angels. I actually consider that woman wanted the physical glory which the angels had as gods ... and she thought she could obtain it from Satan ... but after they trust him they saw they were naked of what they hoped to obtain and were ashamed they had been fooled and failed; so, they covered themselves with earthly leaves and hid from the LORD as he approached calling to them ... but these are just my thoughts.

Your reasoning was religious indoctrination not critical thinking.

Hmmm ... there are all sorts of religions ... To the best of my ability I am a follower of the LORD Jesus and God's Word. I know he is real, alive, knows what is going on in this world and cares. How do I know? He has made himself real to me personally. When I listen and hear he can speak to me ... usually it's that still small voice or through a dream ... Nothing earth shaking just stuff between Him and me.

Mankind is bent on evil as you put it because mankind has been forced into a planetary prison and the key substance humans need to survive and flourish (the Stone) has been taken from them by your god. In other words your god has set up the environment, removed what's needed to exist in that environment and as a result has forced humans to vie for scarce resources. Humans have no choice but to fight each other because otherwise they die. They must eat, drink, acquire shelter, warmth from the elements etc etc. All the things that the Stone would otherwise bestow on them. Note teh story of Eden. Adam and Eve wandered around naked. They didn't feel the extremes of heat or cold. They didn't need to eat or drink per say other than to take in quantities of the Stone in whatever form god supplied it be that in the waters available to them or in the foods around them. They went from an existence in which they would have lived forever with no needs whatsoever to living in a hellish planetary world stripped of that most vital substance which god witheld from them.
I'm sorry but everything that followed on Earth from that point was the direct result of god keeping the Stone for himself and witholding it from humanity. We are nothing more than grunt slaves as a result destined to die. How loving indeed !

Life is rough ... God warned Adam and he has warned us ... but suffering with hope in the end.

I am certainly a seeker and I did seek and I did find, by following a Hansel and Gretel trail of breadcrumbs that has been laid out for 1000s of years. What Philosophers call Ariandne's Thread. Anyone who is able to cast off the harmful and oppressive shackles of religious indoctrination born from a false interpretation of the Bible will free themselves up to look in new directions and WILL inevitably stumble across Ariadne's Thread as a result and that will over time, inevitably lead them to the true source of all life, the Spiritus Mundi and the Stone. This is why the Stone is referenced so many times throughout the Bible text. This is why Jesus warns us (allegorically) that unless we eat of the White Stone and drink of the Red Stone, we have no life in us and are basically going to perish. Jesus was a man. A gifted and remarkable man, but a man nonetheless. Jesus was an alchemist quite clearly and had in his possession the Stone(s) and he taught his disciples the "mysteries of the kingdom" which include that Stone and how to create it and use it. The Church will of course never teach this to its flocks because it wants control, wants humans in an indoctrinated state so they comply and behave as they want them to.

Seek and you WILL find, it is most true but it is Ariadne's Thread that you will find not a tyrannical fictitious god. The true source of life and love is all around us, it pervades everything. It's nothing like a human. It's a constant flow of supreme energy that can be tapped into. It will raise a human up back to who they should be and beyond. The Earthy powers will thus do anything and everything to prevent us knowing about that life energy and the Stone and will try to prevent us finding it. Yet throughout history numerous humans HAVE found it but they unfortunately have to remain ever cautious and careful because if found out the Earthly powers will remove them from the playing field.

None of this can make sense if you do not have the "eyes to see and ears to hear" that Jesus constantly mentioned especially during his allegorical parables. You can only gain those eyes and ears once you discard the religious programming you received from childhood and cast aside all ego and thoughts of self-worth. Your religious mind control will prevent you from looking where you need to look using fear and guilt as its primary weapons. When you are ready to start the true search you will have discarded your shackles. May that be so one day.

Keep searching. I think God is calling you ... but you need to know the Savior. Why? God wants him glorified for what he did to willingly suffer and die for his friends. What greater man is there than the one who dies for his friends. What other gods, which people claim, are known to have died to save people?

 

[SwordOfTruth]

His position is our choosing to worship him for he holds hope for us with reconciliation and the gift of eternal life where there will be no strife, sickness, and pain.

But mankind was already in such a place but your god decided to throw us out. He seems mightily confused for a god. If he wants us to live without strife and sickness he can make it so in an instant. Yet he doesn't. I'm afraid your religious indoctrination is very deep, and I say this most sincerely for I have been where you are. You're not ready to exercise sharp critical thinking and be hinest with yourself. You're still at the point where you will make any excuse for your god's inactions and questionable traits.

God did not create puppets but rather sentient individuals and then gave him the ability to choose him.

Arguing for your sake (I don't believe for one second that your god exists, god is something quite different to what you have been programmed to believe)

He gave them Hobson's choice which is no real choice at all. The ability to worship is not the free choice whether to worship. There is no free choice in this matter. If I hold a gun to your partner's head and say "you have a free choice, you can pay me £1000 or I will shoot your partner", only a brainwashed sheep would consider that to be a real free choice. It's no choice at all. If your god does likewise by saying worship me or else you're going into hell or some other facile concept of fear mongering nonsense then that's not a free choice.

A free choice is and can only be "worship me or don't, free choice and there's no punishment for not worshipping me"

Such doesn't exist in the Christian world. Wake up, you're entranced in the spell.

God gave man and angels this choice too. Now, I know in the case of mankind there was the warning about choices: Partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good AND evil and death will come. I can't blame God... for not wanting evil in his perfect kingdom.

The tree was not evil. The tree in the story simply bestowed one with the knowledge of good and evil. It gave a person knowledge of reality which dispells the illusion that Adam and Eve were otherwise entranced in. Prior to eating from the tree they were ignorant, kept (deliberately) in the dark by your god. God knew that they were naked but didn't allow them to know this. What does that say about him?
If a set of parents today raised their kids in a totally locked up environment away from society, TV, radio, external feeds and taught them nothing about clothes so that they were naked all their lives, society and our judicial system would likely prosecute the parents for gross exploitation and abuse of the children. It would be a wicked thing to do.

Why shouldn't Adam and Eve know what god knows? Why shouldn't all entities be equal?

So what is evil?

Evil is a human construct. A societal machination. The universe has no concept of good or bad, it just is. Somewhere out there in space a star is going supernova and is destroying all the planets in that system and thus all life in that system. There's no right or wrong, no good or bad. It's just how the universe is.

Satan and his 1/3 is an example of evil - the great liar, deceiver, the one who covet what others have, an accuser of his Creator, a rebellious one who wanted to be God not a god/angel. To this day if humanity chooses evil over a good God then then the warning of death persists.

You're still locked into classic Christian indoctrination. None of this stuff is true. Read Genesis again. Taking the story literally for your sake (because its allegorical not literal).

God said explicitly, if you eat of the tree of good and evil you will die that same day.

The snake told Adam and Eve that they would not die but would instead know what god knows about good and evil.

Who was the liar here? Be honest.

The snake told the truth for as soon as they ate they indeed DID NOT DIE and gained that knowledge.

God lied. Plain and simple. It was a lie deliberately given to try and keep them from eating from the tree but a lie nonetheless.
After eating from the tree Adam and Eve went on to walk around the garden, they found fig leaves and covered themselves with them, they spoke with god and then after he cruelly banished them to the prison of Earth Adam went on to live 930 yrs had plenty of sex and spawned a large family. Pretty good for a dead guy eh? This is plain text in the Bible. Yet being religiously indoctrinated you have no choice but to concoct some kind of excuse for this terrible discrepency in Genesis. How can god lie?

Don't bother posting the excuses. I've heard them all before. They are wide and far reaching. They include absurdities like, "Adam didn't really die, not physically, but he did die spiritually", and "Adam did die instantly but then God created a 2nd copy of Adam, that's the difference between Adam and Adama" and so on. The plain FACT from that story (when taken literally which is incorrect) is that Adam did not die. Black and white. He lived, went on to live 930 years. So in the story, god lied.

Any need you feel to try and apologise for that uncomfortable part of the story is your religious indoctrination kicking it. You will search and search for an excuse, but your intelligent critical thinking mind will always think and know that something is not right. Either the story is not true (which is the real answer, it's all allegorical) or god isn't the entity you have been taught he is. He's neither all-powerful or all-loving or all-knowing.
It doesn't really matter much which conclusion you reach. What matters more than anything is that you are honest with yourself and allow your intelligent mind to run its course for otherwise you are living a lie, deceiving yourself for the sake of comfortable indoctrination.

Now, regarding the Lake of Fire - another favorite topic of mine. Most students of the Bible believe that mankind will suffer forever in burning flames. At this point in my studies I think there is room for something else to happen. I do believe that lost souls do suffer in a place called hell at this time and that angels dread being cast away from this present world into a place called the Pit. They must be afraid of some sort of suffering there or perhaps fear that their time is drawing near.

How lovely. What kind of tyrant creates such a place and designs such suffering and punishment?!! Do you seriously think an all-loving entity would ever concoct such punishments? Do you think loving parents of children would ruthlessly discipline them by saying "do this otherwise I'm going to throw you into a tub of burning petrol"? Think it through. Something is massively off with what you have been taught.

Anyway, because God is a good God and a fair judge both lost angels and lost humans will meet the same final fate. That is the Lake of Fire. Second death for mankind ... I am assuming at this time, since God IS LIFE and the power which provides life to all creatures came from him, then it can return to him when ever he wishes. I see no reason, at this time, to say he might not obliterate the existence of a living creature like mankind and therefore not leave them suffering forever. I know people will disagree with me ... but at this time it's my thoughts. I do believe He is a good God. Until God decides it time to end things as we know it ... there is a lot of suffering going on right here on Earth and in hell. Even the martyred saints are impatient and asking, "How Long must we wait for ...?"

Though you don't yet realise it, your comments there show plainly how your intelligent mind wrestles with the religious indoctrination. The mind knows fact from fiction. Your mind is exercising critical thinking quite naturally. It is questioning how any entity can be deemed good and loving if it creates such awful places of suffering and torture. Your mind is quite right to question this. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Listen to that mind. Have the courage to do so. Be sincere and honest with yourself for only you can rescue yourself from the shackles that you have allowed to be placed on your hands and feet and mind. Don't try to make excuses for the situation as you did there. Just see that it's complete nonsense, a total fiction and do not fear it. If your god is loving and understanding he WILL absolutely 100% expect that you will have doubts and want to question things so don't be afraid to do so. Even to the point of coming to the conclusion that he doesn't exist (in the sense that religion has programmed you with) and that god is in fact something very different.

Why would God want judgmental people [filled with the knowledge of good and EVIL] to live as immortals with him eternally?

Well he wouldnt if he were a jealous powermad entity of course. He would want all the knowledge and power for himself.
But tell me, if you had a cure for cancer today, would you not go out and immediately share that knowledge with all mankind to end their suffering? Of course you would. It would be the loving thing to do. A despot would bottle it, keep it from others and seek to gain power from that advantage. Why shouldn't everyone share the fullness of all knowledge? Why should humans or angels for that matter be kept in the dark, kept ignorant, suppressed? It's a wicked thing to do. It's all about the heirarchy. It always is. Entities vying for power at the expense of everyone else.

Would you as a human create a handy tool to get a job done and still keep it after it broke

How could a perfect god create a tool that breaks? Think that through. If you design a cat (as cats are as we know them) and that cat jumps on a mouse and kills it, who is at fault? Is the cat evil for killing a mouse, or is it just doing what it has been designed to do? If the latter then it is the cat designer that is at fault, not the cat.

Would you like to live eternally as an immortal with despots like Hitler or etc? Somehow I don't think you would. I think God knows best how to do good things.

Despots like Hitler only exist in the first place because we are all stuck in this prison planet with limited resources and have to fight and jostle for our own survival. That's on god. If god had given us the Elixir of Life, The Philosopher's Stone, which Jesus had then we would have no wants. We would all live in harmony wanting nothing. It is the direct consequence of god's wilful removal of that Stone from humanity that we are all left to fight, suffer endlessly, decay and die. God took this from us. No-one else. Some fortunate souls have since discovered it in their lifetimes through long diligent study and experimentation. Only a very few. For narrow is the gate and few there are that find it. The rest are left to suffer and die.

I am very sad to hear how life is going for you. Honestly. I understand life is tough. Hang in ...

No idea what you are talking about. I am very comfortable. Retired very early, escaped religious indoctrination, have no real wants or needs.

I do get it. You seem to believe there is a Creator ... shouldn't the one who created us know what is best.

No you don't get it unfortunately. There is a universal life source that pervades everything. That is "god" not some ridiculous fictional religious psychological machination.

He gave us The TEN so that things would go better for us in this world.

Moses created the TEN as a way to try and make people conform and behave the way he felt they should. His system of control.

He even added health practices to protect our bodies. Example: Sexual sin, he told us, is a sin against one's own body. Poor hygiene and gluttony lead to sickness. He knows we suffer but he hasn't finished waiting on his children to be born so he can bless them ... therefore we suffer because of one man Adam [male/female] but we are saved by one man- our Lord and Savior Jesus.

Religious nonsense. You're reading the Bible incorrectly. We suffer because we don't have enough life energy coming into our bodies. Whatever you eatin this Earthly world won't stop you ageing and dying except of course the White and Red Stones. When you are newly born your body is fizzing with this life-energy gained from your mother. As a young child you can go out and play in the cold snow in a t-shirt and not feel the extreme effects of the cold whilst your parents have to wrap up in numerous layers of jumpers and scarves. THAT is life-energy. That's what it does. Humans need this energy. But around age 30 we lose that ability to attract that energy into our bodies. From that point we are effectively running on batteries, daily using up what life-energy still remains in us until that runs down and we die. If we could keep bringing in that life-energy (like being plugged back into the mains supply) then we would live indiefinitely and in perfect health.

You suffer because you don't have the White and Red Stones of alchemy which facilitate the transfer of this life-energy that is all around us, into your body. That's why Jesus said:

John 6:53-58: "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

The Flesh is allegorically the White Stone of alchemy
The Blood is allegorically the Red Stone of alchemy


Revelation 2:17: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of
the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."

It's all there hidden in plain sight for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

I know you are exhausted from reading my post ... I am so full of words ... but I am a woman! I wish you the best.

I wish you the best too. Listen to your mind, it is screaming in the background to be let loose from the shackles you have allowed to be placed on it. Free your mind. Everything else will follow naturally after that.

Lean on Jesus as your Savior ... he / his spirit in us will answer your questions like he has mine. Learn to hear his voice. I have to remind myself of that constantly.

Your questions will only be answered once you free yourself to be able to ask the right questions.

 

[Ps82]

But mankind was already in such a place but your god decided to throw us out. He seems mightily confused for a god. If he wants us to live without strife and sickness he can make it so in an instant. Yet he doesn't. I'm afraid your religious indoctrination is very deep, and I say this most sincerely for I have been where you are. You're not ready to exercise sharp critical thinking and be hinest with yourself. You're still at the point where you will make any excuse for your god's inactions and questionable traits.

Just time to comment on this paragraph.
Yes, mankind was in a great place ... and God had on asked two things:
1. Multiply and reproduce
Stay away from the knowledge of good and evil. Seems that should have been simple, but free will has two sides.

Obey and thrive. Disobey and suffer something called death as well as having a heart of some good and some evil.

God didn't force them to partake of that forbidden knowledge. Satan tempted ... and because mankind made the bad choice it was by one mankind/Adam that we all suffer today. Yet, God was ready to make the WAY to return to a life of wonderful things.

But there was something not completed in God's plan. The command to multiply and reproduce ... so God made death a process over time because birthing babies was a process over time. In God's perfected kingdom, mankind will be like the angels, with no reproducing; therefore we are left to fulfill our first purpose until God has all the children he wants and all that are going to choose him.

We endure long-suffering because we are now mortal vulnerable to all sorts of things that can and will ultimately take our first life. We also suffer because people all around us and even we do evil things. IF God had ended the processes of birthing and dying. You would not be here. Think about that.

Yet Jesus told us: I am the WAY, The Truth, and the LIFE.

I interpret it this way: I am the WAY [God provided for mankind to inherit a place in God's kingdom].
I am The Truth [believe and trust God's promise of salvation]. I am the [Gift of] LIFE [eternal].

Arguing for your sake (I don't believe for one second that your god exists, god is something quite different to what you have been programmed to believe)

Believe me and a few other on TOL ... I am not programmed. LOL

He gave them Hobson's choice which is no real choice at all. The ability to worship is not the free choice whether to worship. There is no free choice in this matter. If I hold a gun to your partner's head and say "you have a free choice, you can pay me £1000 or I will shoot your partner", only a brainwashed sheep would consider that to be a real free choice. It's no choice at all. If your god does likewise by saying worship me or else you're going into hell or some other facile concept of fear mongering nonsense then that's not a free choice.

A free choice is and can only be "worship me or don't, free choice and there's no punishment for not worshipping me"

Such doesn't exist in the Christian world. Wake up, you're entranced in the spell.

IF I am wrong... I have nothing to loose. If I believe I have lots to gain in this life and the next.
Whether you grab the chance at the prize or not is your choice.

The tree was not evil. The tree in the story simply bestowed one with the knowledge of good and evil. It gave a person knowledge of reality which dispells the illusion that Adam and Eve were otherwise entranced in. Prior to eating from the tree they were ignorant, kept (deliberately) in the dark by your god. God knew that they were naked but didn't allow them to know this. What does that say about him?
If a set of parents today raised their kids in a totally locked up environment away from society, TV, radio, external feeds and taught them nothing about clothes so that they were naked all their lives, society and our judicial system would likely prosecute the parents for gross exploitation and abuse of the children. It would be a wicked thing to do.

Why shouldn't Adam and Eve know what god knows? Why shouldn't all entities be equal?

I believe the tree represented a kingdom because different prophets often spoke of trees and interpreted them as kings and kingdoms. Even Jesus is considered The Tree of Life and believers understand he is promised a kingdom of his own.

Symbolically, the Tree in the Garden represented the knowledge found in Satan's kingdom: lies, hatred, jealously, envy, rebellion - evil things. Woman and Adam may or may not have fully understood what they were getting into, but they couldn't say that God did not warn them of consequences. They rebelled.

Evil is a human construct. A societal machination. The universe has no concept of good or bad, it just is. Somewhere out there in space a star is going supernova and is destroying all the planets in that system and thus all life in that system. There's no right or wrong, no good or bad. It's just how the universe is.




You're still locked into classic Christian indoctrination. None of this stuff is true. Read Genesis again. Taking the story literally for your sake (because its allegorical not literal).

I disagree.

God said explicitly, if you eat of the tree of good and evil you will die that same day.

Nope. The LORD did not say that... regarding die the same day.

The snake told Adam and Eve that they would not die but would instead know what god knows about good and evil.

Who was the liar here? Be honest.

Satan -obviously .... for we die.

The snake told the truth for as soon as they ate they indeed DID NOT DIE and gained that knowledge.

We die from the moment we are born. These days some innocents don't make it to that point. We are all dead / dying from conception.

God lied. Plain and simple. It was a lie deliberately given to try and keep them from eating from the tree but a lie nonetheless.
After eating from the tree Adam and Eve went on to walk around the garden, they found fig leaves and covered themselves with them, they spoke with god and then after he cruelly banished them to the prison of Earth Adam went on to live 930 yrs had plenty of sex and spawned a large family. Pretty good for a dead guy eh? This is plain text in the Bible. Yet being religiously indoctrinated you have no choice but to concoct some kind of excuse for this terrible discrepency in Genesis. How can god lie?

Don't bother posting the excuses. I've heard them all before. They are wide and far reaching. They include absurdities like, "Adam didn't really die, not physically, but he did die spiritually", and "Adam did die instantly but then God created a 2nd copy of Adam, that's the difference between Adam and Adama" and so on. The plain FACT from that story (when taken literally which is incorrect) is that Adam did not die. Black and white. He lived, went on to live 930 years. So in the story, god lied.

Any need you feel to try and apologise for that uncomfortable part of the story is your religious indoctrination kicking it. You will search and search for an excuse, but your intelligent critical thinking mind will always think and know that something is not right. Either the story is not true (which is the real answer, it's all allegorical) or god isn't the entity you have been taught he is. He's neither all-powerful or all-loving or all-knowing.
It doesn't really matter much which conclusion you reach. What matters more than anything is that you are honest with yourself and allow your intelligent mind to run its course for otherwise you are living a lie, deceiving yourself for the sake of comfortable indoctrination.



How lovely. What kind of tyrant creates such a place and designs such suffering and punishment?!! Do you seriously think an all-loving entity would ever concoct such punishments? Do you think loving parents of children would ruthlessly discipline them by saying "do this otherwise I'm going to throw you into a tub of burning petrol"? Think it through. Something is massively off with what you have been taught.



Though you don't yet realise it, your comments there show plainly how your intelligent mind wrestles with the religious indoctrination. The mind knows fact from fiction. Your mind is exercising critical thinking quite naturally. It is questioning how any entity can be deemed good and loving if it creates such awful places of suffering and torture. Your mind is quite right to question this. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Listen to that mind. Have the courage to do so. Be sincere and honest with yourself for only you can rescue yourself from the shackles that you have allowed to be placed on your hands and feet and mind. Don't try to make excuses for the situation as you did there. Just see that it's complete nonsense, a total fiction and do not fear it. If your god is loving and understanding he WILL absolutely 100% expect that you will have doubts and want to question things so don't be afraid to do so. Even to the point of coming to the conclusion that he doesn't exist (in the sense that religion has programmed you with) and that god is in fact something very different.


Well he wouldnt if he were a jealous powermad entity of course. He would want all the knowledge and power for himself.
But tell me, if you had a cure for cancer today, would you not go out and immediately share that knowledge with all mankind to end their suffering? Of course you would. It would be the loving thing to do. A despot would bottle it, keep it from others and seek to gain power from that advantage. Why shouldn't everyone share the fullness of all knowledge? Why should humans or angels for that matter be kept in the dark, kept ignorant, suppressed? It's a wicked thing to do. It's all about the heirarchy. It always is. Entities vying for power at the expense of everyone else.



How could a perfect god create a tool that breaks? Think that through. If you design a cat (as cats are as we know them) and that cat jumps on a mouse and kills it, who is at fault? Is the cat evil for killing a mouse, or is it just doing what it has been designed to do? If the latter then it is the cat designer that is at fault, not the cat.




Despots like Hitler only exist in the first place because we are all stuck in this prison planet with limited resources and have to fight and jostle for our own survival. That's on god. If god had given us the Elixir of Life, The Philosopher's Stone, which Jesus had then we would have no wants. We would all live in harmony wanting nothing. It is the direct consequence of god's wilful removal of that Stone from humanity that we are all left to fight, suffer endlessly, decay and die. God took this from us. No-one else. Some fortunate souls have since discovered it in their lifetimes through long diligent study and experimentation. Only a very few. For narrow is the gate and few there are that find it. The rest are left to suffer and die.




No idea what you are talking about. I am very comfortable. Retired very early, escaped religious indoctrination, have no real wants or needs.



No you don't get it unfortunately. There is a universal life source that pervades everything. That is "god" not some ridiculous fictional religious psychological machination.


Moses created the TEN as a way to try and make people conform and behave the way he felt they should. His system of control.


Religious nonsense. You're reading the Bible incorrectly. We suffer because we don't have enough life energy coming into our bodies. Whatever you eatin this Earthly world won't stop you ageing and dying except of course the White and Red Stones. When you are newly born your body is fizzing with this life-energy gained from your mother. As a young child you can go out and play in the cold snow in a t-shirt and not feel the extreme effects of the cold whilst your parents have to wrap up in numerous layers of jumpers and scarves. THAT is life-energy. That's what it does. Humans need this energy. But around age 30 we lose that ability to attract that energy into our bodies. From that point we are effectively running on batteries, daily using up what life-energy still remains in us until that runs down and we die. If we could keep bringing in that life-energy (like being plugged back into the mains supply) then we would live indiefinitely and in perfect health.

You suffer because you don't have the White and Red Stones of alchemy which facilitate the transfer of this life-energy that is all around us, into your body. That's why Jesus said:

John 6:53-58: "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

The Flesh is allegorically the White Stone of alchemy
The Blood is allegorically the Red Stone of alchemy


Revelation 2:17: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of
the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."

It's all there hidden in plain sight for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.




I wish you the best too. Listen to your mind, it is screaming in the background to be let loose from the shackles you have allowed to be placed on it. Free your mind. Everything else will follow naturally after that.



Your questions will only be answered once you free yourself to be able to ask the right questions.

I can tell you are tired of our conversation ... You don't want any more excuses ... and I assume no more opinions; so I wish you well in this life. See you around TOL with another topic.

 

[SwordOfTruth]

Yes, mankind was in a great place ... and God had on asked two things:
1. Multiply and reproduce
Stay away from the knowledge of good and evil. Seems that should have been simple, but free will has two sides.

Obey and thrive. Disobey and suffer something called death as well as having a heart of some good and some evil.

There you go, you've cited exctly what I described, the "choice" of tyrants. Do as I say or else . . . . . threat, violence, punishment.
These are NOT the traits of a benevolent entity.

God didn't force them to partake of that forbidden knowledge.

Yes he did. It was perverse.

Let's consider a simple example. You have an empty room with just a table in ot and you put 10 kids aged 5-9 in it. You place a bowl of jelly babies and chocolate buttons on the table and just before you walk out of the room you say to the children "Don't eat the sweets".

Very obviously before very long the children WILL start eating the sweets. Why? Because they are there. Because they are human children.

A cat will jump at a fast moving mouse because it's a cat. It's by design. A child will eat sweets because children love sweets.

Who is to blame if the kids eat those sweets?

Answer: The parent who put the sweets there. End of.

If the parent didn't want them to eat sweets then simple, don't put the bloody sweets there in the first place.

God put the forbidden tree right there in the garden with Adam and Eve. He could have not done that if he didn't want them to eat from it.
But he did. So he fully intended them to eat from it. He could have put it out of their reach. He didn't. He drew great attention to that one tree by forbidding Adam and Eve to eat from it. That's a well known psychological method. Tell a kid not to do something and they are FAR more likely to do it. Stop making excuses for God. He intended everything that happened, he knew it would happen, and he still did it.

Satan tempted ... and because mankind made the bad choice it was by one mankind/Adam that we all suffer today. Yet, God was ready to make the WAY to return to a life of wonderful things.

Utter hogwash. The serpent didn't tempt anyone. He simply told Adam and Eve the perfect truth which was that if they ate from the tree they would not die and would gain the knowledge of Good and Evil. He exposed God's lie for what it was.
Again stop making excuses for God. He lied, plain and simple. You HAVE to deal with that. Stop ignoring it, stop brushing it under the carpet. Exercise critical thinking.

We endure long-suffering because we are now mortal vulnerable to all sorts of things that can and will ultimately take our first life.

That is only the case because your God removed the Stone from humans. He took away the most important thing that humans need for survival and perfect health. Not a very nice thing to do !

We also suffer because people all around us and even we do evil things.

People are forced to do such things because we've all been thrown into a prison planet lacking the one vital thing we need for survival. Because of that we have to use available resources which are scarce and not enough to survive. God basically created a Roman gladiatorial arena on a planetary scale and lobbed humanity into it and has been watching the carnage ever since. Again not a very nice thing to do, certainly not a benevolent action.

IF God had ended the processes of birthing and dying. You would not be here. Think about that.

Everything in this universe has always been here in one form or another. Birthing is merely just another transfer of the energies that are already here in the universe and have always been here. YOU are as old as the universe itself for every atom and particle in your body has been in existence from the very start. It's the law of conservation of energy. So birthing and dying are in fact misnomers. You're just talking about forms.
Everything is a giant Lego set. You can build a castle with it or you can build a horse. You can tear down that creation any time and reassemble the bricks into something else. Do there is no death really. There is only the "death" of a given form. YOU CAN NOT DIE. Thinking you can is the greatest lie ever told by wicked religious nutjobs who delight in enslaving hearts and minds of weak-minded people. Death is not to be feared. It is merely transformation.

Yet Jesus told us: I am the WAY, The Truth, and the LIFE.

I interpret it this way: I am the WAY [God provided for mankind to inherit a place in God's kingdom].
I am The Truth [believe and trust God's promise of salvation]. I am the [Gift of] LIFE [eternal].

It's all allegorical. Sometimes in the Bible Jesus himself is the allegory. You have to have the "eyes to see and ears to hear" that he spoke of. Otherwise you will interpet the text incorrectly.

Believe me and a few other on TOL ... I am not programmed. LOL

I sadly disagree

IF I am wrong... I have nothing to loose. If I believe I have lots to gain in this life and the next.
Whether you grab the chance at the prize or not is your choice.

This is a very standard defacto Christian adage that I learned as a child. When indoctrinated it seems to make much sense. Unfortunately it is horribly wrong. You have lots to lose. Reason being that indoctrination prevents you from critical thinking which in turn prevents you from searching for answers in certain directions and places. So you're wandering blissfully along believeing an absolute pile of codswallop which you think will prevent your "death" and your disastrous accompanying theory is that even if that's wrong you will have lived a good life, enjoyed contenedness and been good to people around you. The truth is you're decaying, ageing and heading for "death". The only way to prevent that is to find, create the White and Red Stones of alchemy for without them "you have no life in you". As Jesus starkly warned:

John 6:53-58: "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

This is allegorical. It's referring to the White and Red Stones. You don't know about them because you've never searched outside your programmed bubble. Your conditioning teaches you that all these other esoteric avenues are wicked occult things.

"The gate is narrow and few there are that find it. "

How could that statement ever gel with the concept of salvation for all human beings on Earth? That's a nonsense. To avoid "death" you have to find the Stones and eat/drink them otherwise "there is no life in you". Jesus had these Stones and he taught his disciples about them.

You have EVERYTHING TO LOSE by shutting down your innate critical thinking and human brain and shackling it with religious nonsense peddled by a corrupt Church.

I believe the tree represented a kingdom because different prophets often spoke of trees and interpreted them as kings and kingdoms. Even Jesus is considered The Tree of Life and believers understand he is promised a kingdom of his own.

The "Tree Of Life" is another name for the Stone. So is Nectar, Ambrosia, Soma, Pearl Of Great Price and many more names. If you think the tree represented smething else then you are treating it as allegorical not literal. Make your mind up. Was the story literal or allegorical?

Symbolically, the Tree in the Garden represented the knowledge found in Satan's kingdom: lies, hatred, jealously, envy, rebellion - evil things.

Utter cobblers. The tree represented the "knowledge of good and evil" which was the same knowledge that God had. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree God then said "They have become like us". They had new knowledge that's all. Their infantile ignorance had been wiped away and their eyes had been opened. They then knew they were naked. Again you've allowed yourself to believe religious dogma instead of reading the text openly.

Woman and Adam may or may not have fully understood what they were getting into, but they couldn't say that God did not warn them of consequences. They rebelled.

No they just had an innate thirst for knowledge which all humans have BY DESIGN. God lied to them saying that they would die teh same day if they ate from the tree. They didn't die. They gained knowledge. That's it. God wasn't pleased about that and punished them for wanting more knowledge, for daring to want to learn more. How malevolent !

Nope. The LORD did not say that... regarding die the same day.

What the heck version of the Bible are you using ?!!!!

Genesis 2
"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."


There it is, black and white. God's lie. You might at best consider it a white lie, a type of coercion to prevent them eating from the tree, but it was a lie nonetheless.

Satan -obviously .... for we die.

You're in denial which is the right response for an indoctrinated person. The serpent told the exact truth. The serpent said "you will not die" and "you will gain knowledge". Both statements were totally true. God's statement was a falsehood.

We die from the moment we are born. These days some innocents don't make it to that point. We are all dead / dying from conception.

We are merely a form and we've been millions of other forms before being a human form. There is no death. It's impossible. There is only loss of form. Tell me, with all your faults, weaknesses and vulnerabilities do you really think the human form is the pinnacle of existence? Or do you think there might be better form designs out there?

I can tell you are tired of our conversation ...

Not remotely.

You don't want any more excuses ...

Ideally yes, I'd rather you stopped making silly excuses for your God and stand back, be more honest with yourself than you've ever been before in your life and exercise critical thinking, without fear, without guilt, without thinking a bolt of lightning will suddenly smite you for even daring to believe the religious dogma might be wrong or false.

and I assume no more opinions

I welcome all your opinions. It's a slow process and a difficult one to shed conditioned psychological traits. I've been there, done it, escaped. You can too. If not, your form is going to perish.

 

[JudgeRightly]

I will simply say:
You have not yet grasped the totality of what I believe about The One Spiritual God with his multiplicity of living essence/character.

Gobbledygook.

God is one God.

He is three Persons.

That's what the Bible teaches.

Not whatever nonsense you've been hooked into.

Nor understood how he created his ONE image

Look, I don't have any problem with God creating an image for His Son to indwell, and that He then made man in that image.

But of course, that's not what you're saying here.

to represent his being the ONE God...

You're connecting the dots on a zebra.

There's no such representation indicated in the Bible.

but in addition had/has the ability to use that one image multiple times.

More nonsense.

One example of this ability is: First, as the Father seen with his BODY OF HEAVEN in HIS clearness...

The Father does not have a body.

who was seen by 74 men who ate food in his presence and were not harmed. He gave a name to his visible presence: The LORD/YHWH - The LORD God.

The Father is not the Son.

Only the Son has a body.

Second, the ONE God was able to send His Word [who was with God and WAS GOD] into the world bearing his express ONE image in the form of flesh. People have spoken of him as Emmanuel, Jesus, Messiah and My Lord and Savior.

You seem to be arguing against polytheism.

I am not a polytheist.

I am a Trinitarian. (And you are not)

Trinitarians are not polytheists.

The Creator is not chained to the same inabilities to which mankind has been subjected. Shockingly, He can use his image multiple times in multiple ways! He used it to appear as the Father out right in visions, dreams, and outright in safe manners. And again as the Son of mortal flesh. He only uses his ONE image ... for his purposes.

Meaningless gibberish.

Now, at this time I believe the only way we can say that the Holy Spirit has appeared is to say that: Because He is in us we are his bodily form on Earth at this time. I know it is just a wish of mine, but I hope one day we might see Him appear along with the Father and the Son ... but I don't think scripture bears that out. Yet, I still feel he is an individual, whether we see Him or not, of the known God Head. Perhaps he is in us as the living Power of God.

The Holy Spirit is not "power."

The Holy Spirit is a Person.

This is why you are not a Trinitarian.

All of God is LIFE ... so all of his essence/character is alive. Just like The WORD of God is alive ... so is The Power of God.

Again, the Holy Spirit is not "power."

 

[JudgeRightly]

No that's just a bastardisation of the term done by Trinitarians to justify their models.

Because you say so?

There's no question that Elohim is plural and means EITHER any god with a little "g" or a particular god who wishes to be seen as the top dog and thus likes to be known as God with a capital "g".

Strong's Concorance - Elohim :

Original Word: אֱלהִים
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: elohim
Phonetic Spelling: (el-o-heem')
Definition: God, god

It even applies to angels and men.

In your belief system this amounts to wilful forced coercion. i.e an entity puts you in a hopeless environment in which you will surely die and says hey, worship me, bow down, and I'll save you.

But that's not what happened...

God made man, gave him life, and placed him in the garden.

He then gave only one law to man. That law was "Do not partake of the Tree."

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a symbol of the law, because the law is the knowledge of good and evil.

In other words, the only law God gave to Adam was "do not partake of the law."

His warning to Adam was that if Adam partook of the tree (and therefore of the law), the law would kill him.

This is demonstrated throughout the Bible. The law is a bringer of death. If you partake of the law, it will kill you.

God was literally telling Adam do not eat of the Tree, because that way leads to death.

That's quite the opposite of "an entity puts you in a hopeless environment in which you will surely die."

In fact, the only way it would have been such is if God HAD NOT placed the Tree in the garden, and HAD NOT told Adam to not partake of it.

An entity putting you in a hopeless environment where you have no means of escape makes the entity cruel, and certainly not worthy of worship.

As stated before, the Tree was the way out of the garden, the way out from the presence of God, the way to reject God.

God made it explicitly clear by presenting Adam with a choice that if he disobeyed Him, and partook of the Tree, that Adam would die.

That's a sick way to acquire followers and none of them can thus be genuine. Your god lacks the will to make humans free.

Weren't you arguing in the other thread about how men DON'T have free will?

If so, then what are you complaining about?

If men are not free, then your ranting and raving is also just part of what God has determined would happen, and therefore utterly meaningless, according to your own view.

But because God DID make men free, then your arguments fall flat.

He has imprisoned them on this planet and curtailed their natural abilities.

Rather, He created a world for us to live on, and on which to be fruitful and multiply.

He has taken free will from them

No, he hasn't. If He had, then none of your arguments matter, because they were all predetermined to happen anyways.

and stripped them of life years that they would otherwise live.

Preventing men from living as long as they did was an act of mercy.

Otherwise, men would be wicked for much longer, and deserving of much more punishment for evil deeds.

God doesn't want that.

He doesn't want His creation to become so evil.

And why has this been done? Well according to the literal (incorrect) reading

We've been over this already.

Just because you don't like the literal reading of the text A) doesn't therefore make everything in the Bible figurative, and B) doesn't make the literal reading incorrect.

The literal (not woodenly literal) interpretation is the only one that makes sense.

of the Bible it's because Adam and Eve dared to want to know things, to learn, to be better than they are, something your god cruelly forbade them to do.

First of all, ou keep saying that a literal interpretation of Genesis is incorrect, yet argue as though it were correct.

This is called a stolen concept fallacy.

Don't use fallacies to support your position.

Second, that's not why God reduced man's life expectancy, nor is it what happened for which God kicked them out of the garden.

God told Adam to not eat of the tree, "for in the day you eat of it, dying you shall die."

The serpent deceived Eve, by telling her, when she said, not what God told Adam, but a law around the law he was given, " 'you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die' ", that "you will not surely die."

He wasn't talking about eating of the tree. He was talking about touching the tree, which God gave no such command against.

It's likely that Eve thought he was referring to not eating of it as well, and was thus deceived by the serpent.

God said "Do not eat."

Somehow, Eve heard "do not eat or touch," likely from Adam.

The serpent used that addition to deceive Eve, who then gave the fruit to her husband, who then broke God's law to not eat of it, and ate of it.

The knowledge they gained was not some abstract knowledge that only God had.

It was knowledge of sin, the experience of sinning, which God had told them not to do.

Thus, their eyes were opened, because now they comprehended why God warned against eating it.

Before, they had only known good.

After they ate of the Tree, they knew of both good and evil, because disobeying God is evil, something they had not known before, because they had never disobeyed God before.

In fact the Bible clearly says that the gods were concerned that humans might be like them and live forever.

No, it doesn't say anything about "gods," plural.

It also doesn't say they "might" be like Him, rather, that "the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil."

Thus, "lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever," therefore God kicked them out of the garden.

An act of mercy, and a punishment for disobedience.

Not very nice.

Nicer than God | KGOV.com

kgov.com

In fact pretty wicked. Such a story taken literally,

Rather, such a story perverted as you have done so...

doesn't support the Christian concept of a loving god.

The story taken literally, and not figuratively, does in fact show God to be loving and just.

It paints a picture of a despotic god who wants all the power and be top dog whilst everyone else is subjugated beneath him.

Rather, it paints a picture of a just God who has the right to demand that His creation obeys him, and punishes those who do not.

Small wonder the other gods sought to rebel against such tyranny.

Addressed elsewhere in this post, or in the other thread, I don't remember which.

The reality of course is that the Bible text is not literal in much of Genesis, it is purely allegorical which is why a literal reading makes no sense.

False.

The proper allegorical reading conceals the secrets of alchemy and the Elixir Of Life (manna, Soma, Ambrosia, Philosopher's Stone etc). The Church peddles its BS literal nonsense and keeps the masses in ignorant stupor. Genesis is a declaration of wonder, it's announcing the Stone, it's describing how it is made, what some of the practical processes are. The male and female principles required for that Work and so on.

This is worthless nonsense.

Consider this my response to the portions of your posts that I quoted here that I snipped out due to being related to the notion that the Bible is a book about alchemy.

Your reasoning was religious indoctrination not critical thinking.

Says the one who refuses to think critically about what he's saying.

Mankind is bent on evil as you put it because mankind has been forced into a planetary prison and the key substance humans need to survive and flourish has been taken from them by your god.

Rather, mankind is bent on evil because men would rather satisfy their own desires than obey the God who made them.

And for that reason, they do not deserve to partake of the Tree of Life.

In other words your god has set up the environment, removed what's needed to exist in that environment

Humans seem to exist just fine without this supposed "necessary item."

and as a result has forced humans to vie for scarce resources.

Scarce?

My friend, have you never looked out the window of a plane in flight?

"Scarce" my foot!

Humans have no choice but to fight each other because otherwise they die.

Humans die even without fighting.

So that can't be it.

They must eat, drink, acquire shelter, warmth from the elements etc etc.

Yes. Why?

"Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it':

Cursed is the ground for your sake...​

"

Note the story of Eden. Adam and Eve wandered around naked. They didn't feel the extremes of heat or cold.

Arguably, because they had only been alive for a week before they sinned, and hadn't yet experienced the seasons.

Also, the yearly cycle of seasons we experience today are not what would have been experienced before the Flood. They would not have been anywhere near as harsh.

They didn't need to eat or drink per say other than to take in quantities of the Stone in whatever form god supplied it be that in the waters available to them or in the foods around them.

There is no "Stone."

Also, Genesis 3:22 indicates that man had not yet eaten of the tree of life, and thus your argument falls flat there, as well.

They went from an existence in which they would have lived forever with no needs whatsoever to living in a hellish planetary world stripped of that most vital substance which god witheld from them.

Rather, they went from an existence in which they would have lived forever with their Creator, with some needs, which would have been easily taken care of through normal life in the garden, to disobeying God, Him kicking them out so that they could not live forever (because they had rejected life, God), into a fallen world that was not "hellish" nor "stripped of substance."

The world was a bountiful place, just not as bountiful as the garden.

. . . We are nothing more than grunt slaves as a result destined to die. How loving indeed!

Utter nonsense.

A tyrant rules by force of arms or instilled fear.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

God's proposition is worship me, follow me, or else I'll destroy you in a lake of fire.

He has the right to demand that. --- He is the Creator.

He is life, the source of life. --- Rejecting Him is the same as rejecting life.

The lake of fire is simply where God is not. --- The flames are not literal flames, but are figurative of the pain that one will experience there. The pain is not a result of God torturing those there, but simply the knowledge that they will never again have the opportunity to form a relationship with their Creator. Yet for those who go there, it is preferable to living with Him for eternity. Their hatred of Him is what burns them.

It is where you will end up, if you do not repent.

He put the lake of fire there,

He made the lake of fire, because forcing someone to live with Him for eternity is worse than sending them there.

he is responsible for the creation of this Earth and its limited resources.

Limited? Good sir, the resources we know about show no sign of running out anytime soon, and have lasted us for 7500 years or so.

He is responsible for witholding from mankind the one true thing mankind needs to survive, maintain perfect health and flourish.

Nonsense.

God wants the human slave force.

More nonsense.

He must be bored as hell if he is the all-powerful all-knowing entity Christianity claims him to be.

Even more nonsense.

(if taken literally which is incorrect)

False.

The story of Genesis . . . tells us that god created Adam (man) to tend a bloody garden which god had created.

That wasn't man's only purpose, nor was it man's primary purpose.

Why the hell would an all-powerful god need a man to tend a garden.

Apparently you believe that such a thing is purposeless.

He can just will the garden to maintain itself and it happens.

Why?

Your god is a jealous being, he somehow needs to create other beings

No.

God has no "need" to create.

He created because He wanted to.

so that he can be worshipped by them.

No.

SoT, what is the most important thing in life?

Do you know?

That's pretty pathetic. Worse still when he gives them a very limited choice of actions

Adam and Eve were free to do whatever they wanted.

The only thing they were not allowed to do was eat of the Tree, so I'm not seeing the problem.

and they don't do what he wants then he punishes them brutally,

No.

God told man "do not do this" and then punished him when he disobeyed.

He wanted them to obey Him, but gave them free reign to not obey him, while still warning them of the consequence of disobeying, which was death.

They were not punished for acting out their will.

They were punished for disobedience.

They rejected life, therefore the result is death.

The moment Adam partook of the fruit of the Tree, he knew he had disobeyed, and broken God's law. This was the knowledge the Tree gave him, which God had forbidden, because He loved man and did not want man to die.

consigning them to a very limited lifespan instead of immortality

Yes, that's what happens when you reject life. You die.

God has therefore set before you this day, SoT, life and death. Therefore, choose life, that you may live.

Repent of your rejection of God. He will forgive you, and give you life eternal.

and limiting all the votal resources they will need to flourish resulting in mankind having to constantly fight amongst itself for those resources.

The reason men fight is because we are fallen creatures, not because of a lack of resources.

To the extent man rebels against God, to that extent, we suffer. That's how we were made.

We are a doctored species.

Whatever that's supposed to mean...

Our pineal glands are suppressed. Our brains are suppressed preventing us from using about 80% of its capacity.

I agree, we do not perform to the same extent that ancient man did. But that's by design. If men today were capable of the same level of thinking as Adam was, we would be MUCH worse off, because men would be capable of coming up with even more wicked ways to rebel against God.

It's a mercy that God designed us this way, that if man fell, even though we are slowly breaking down, it prevents us from becoming too evil.

That's brilliant design, of you ask me.

We feel the extremes of heat and cold where before we were immune to them.

Does pain serve a purpose?

If you could not feel heat or cold, what would happen if you accidentally put your hand on a hot stove?

This argument is silly, on its face, because it assumes that neither pain nor our senses have a purpose.

The free flow of vital universal life force is kept from us,

And yet, life goes on...

Fascinating how that works...

we are generally kept ignorant of it, the secrets of how to tap into it are hidden from us and those that find it are forced into hiding.

Yawn.

I could go on and on. The human condition is a pathetic vulnerable weak one

False.

Rather, God designed man to be capable of survival even despite having fallen.

That's not pathetic at all. That's brilliant design.

made deliberately by your god.

God made us capable of surviving even in a fallen world.

Yes, that was deliberate.

If he were cruel, He would not have done so, and mankind would have perished long ago.

His proposition is worship or die. Such are the dictats of tyrants.

No, His proposition is "I have set before you this day life and death, therefore choose life, that you may live."

The way to life is through His Son, Jesus Christ. He died for you, so that you and He could be reconciled. Why do you continue to reject Him?

You may as well worship Hitler.

Do not compare God to Hitler again. This will be your only warning.

You are on a mainline Christian board. Show some respect.

This is just an apologetic stance. A stance you would make no matter how disgusting the attrocities your god perpetrates or permits.

Says the one who rejects any standard of justice, calling it arbitrary.

Therein lies your problem and the reason you don't have the eyes to see and ears to hear that Jesus spoke of.

Or, perhaps we (yes, even Ps82, despite some of her weird beliefs) see the truth, and you have hidden your eyes from it?

There you go, you've cited exctly what I described, the "choice" of tyrants. Do as I say or else . . . . . threat, violence, punishment.

It would be tyrannical only if He was not the Creator.

If any created being said that, you would be justified in rejecting his words.

But because God is the Creator, and thus in a position of authority over you, and because He is objectively good, He is justified in demanding obedience and worship, because He is worthy.

These are NOT the traits of a benevolent entity.

Rather, His demand for justice and righteousness is what leads to His wrath against those who disobey Him and refuse to repent.

Yes he did. It was perverse.

No, He did not.

You argue against man having a will, then demand that God is evil for having forced man to do something.

Do you not see the problem with that?

If man has a choice in the matter, then your condemnation of God is unfounded, because he could have chosen otherwise, but instead chose to disobey God.

The idea that God willed someone to do something against God's will is contradictory. God is not irrational. He cannot violate the law of non-contradiction.

It is rationally equivalent to saying "A = !A."

Let's consider a simple example. You have an empty room with just a table in ot and you put 10 kids aged 5-9 in it. You place a bowl of jelly babies and chocolate buttons on the table and just before you walk out of the room you say to the children "Don't eat the sweets".

Very obviously before very long the children WILL start eating the sweets. Why? Because they are there. Because they are human children.

This is an argument FOR God, not against Him.

It goes a bit deeper than just "because the sweets are there, therefore the children would naturally eat them" though.

If you placed the bowl of candy on the table and didn't mention it, or put it in a cupboard, hiding it from them so they didn't know about it, and then left them alone with it, they would not know it was there, and would thus never eat from the bowl.

Let's take this further. If you had said to them, "don't take any candy from theis bowl, because if you do, you will be grounded for a week," and then leave the room, the children will, at least for a while, avoid the bowl. But eventually, curiosity will get the better of them, and they'll approach the bowl, and eat from it, having either forgotten about the warning of punishment should they disobey, or having decided they don't care.

Either way, they disobeyed the command, "do not eat of the bowl," and thus, when you come back, must rightly punish them

A cat will jump at a fast moving mouse because it's a cat. It's by design.

A cat does so because of instinct. Men are not cats. Cats are not men.

Men have the ability to choose otherwise, ie, a will. Cats operate mostly on instinct, in that while they have, to some extent, a will of their own, their will is generally to follow their instincts.

Trust me on this, I own a cat.

A child will eat sweets because children love sweets.

Yet children, unlike cats,

Who is to blame if the kids eat those sweets?

The children, especially if you told them not to.

Answer: The parent who put the sweets there. End of.

Wrong.

If the parent didn't want them to eat sweets then simple, don't put the bloody sweets there in the first place.

If you would allow it, let's change the analogy a bit.

Instead of sweets, let's say it's the key to the door that leads out of the room.

Would not hiding the bowl, or not putting it in the room in the first place, not be exactly what you are accusing God of doing?

You say you want them to have the ability to leave, but your actions say otherwise. By hiding the bowl with the key in it, or by refusing to provide them the key, you effectively lock them in the room with no way out.

Isn't that cruel, by your own standard?

God put the forbidden tree right there in the garden with Adam and Eve.

Yes, He did. On purpose.

He could have not done that if he didn't want them to eat from it.

So you would have God lock up Adam and Eve in the garden, and not provide them away out of it, or make it impossible to leave?

But he did. So he fully intended them to eat from it.

If you put the bowl with the key in it in the locked room with the children, are you not providing the way out of the room?

Let's put it this way:

A man loves a woman, and desires to be with her, so he kidnaps her and takes her to his home, where he boards up the windows and doors out of the house, and tells her she cannot leave, then demands that she love him.in return. You and I would both agree that that man is mentally ill, and needs help, no? You could rightly call him a sadist and cruel, a tyrant not deserving of love.

A man loves a woman, and desires to be with her, so he woos her, trying to make her fall in love with him, but never demands it of her, and tells her that if at any point she desires to part with him, she is free to do so, and eventually, he marries her, having won her love, yet when they arrive at his home, he doesn't board up the windows and doors out of the house, and continues to tell her that she is free to leave at any time. You and I would both agree that such a relationship is wholesome and good, no?

The latter is a description of not only the tale of Genesis 1-3, but also a description of God trying to woo humanity back to him.

Heaven is the home the man in the second scenario leads his bride to.

The man symbolizes God, the God of the Bible.

God will not lock up humans in heaven with Him, and refuse to let them leave, and demand that they love Him.

Love cannot be coerced.

He could have put it out of their reach. He didn't. He drew great attention to that one tree by forbidding Adam and Eve to eat from it.

Yes, because He wanted to make it clear that if at any point they desired to part ways with Him, all they had to do was eat of the Tree.

Had He not put the Tree dead center, but instead had hidden it, or put it somewhere else in the universe, they could rightly argue that He was a sadist, locking them up with no way of leaving. That would be cruel.

That's a well known psychological method. Tell a kid not to do something and they are FAR more likely to do it.

You're referring to what is called "reverse psychology."

That is NOT what God was doing.

God was presenting Adam and Eve with a choice, obey me, and you can remain with Me, or disobey me, and you can leave Me.

Stop making excuses for God.

No one is making excuses for God.

God doesn't need excuses.

He has reasons for the things He does. Just because you reject those reasons doesn't make those reasons excuses.

He intended everything that happened,

No.

he knew it would happen, and he still did it.

No. Supra.

Utter hogwash. The serpent didn't tempt anyone.

The following passages say otherwise.

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Bible Gateway passage: 2 Corinthians 11:3 - New King James Version

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

www.biblegateway.com

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. . . . And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the serpent:“Because you have done this,You are cursed more than all cattle,And more than every beast of the field;On your belly you shall go,And you shall eat dustAll the days of your life. And I will put enmityBetween you and the woman,And between your seed and her Seed;He shall bruise your head,And you shall bruise His heel.”

Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 3:1-7, Genesis 3:13-15 - New King James Version

The Temptation and Fall of Man - Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of...

www.biblegateway.com

He simply told Adam and Eve the perfect truth which was that if they ate from the tree they would not die and would gain the knowledge of Good and Evil.

Wrong, on two counts.

The serpent spoke to Eve, not Adam,

and,

Eve incorrectly stated (though not that she was at any fault) God prohibited TOUCHING the fruit, when He had not done so. This is what the serpent used to deceive Eve, and cause man to fall.

It was true that if Adam or Eve touched the Tree or its fruit, they would not die.

The deception was that the serpent made Eve think that he was talking about eating of the tree, and not just touching.

It was a lie of omission, the serpent made, where ehe omitted the part about only not dying if they touched the tree/its fruit.

He exposed God's lie for what it was.

God did not lie.

Again stop making excuses for God.

Stop calling God a liar.

He lied, plain and simple.

No, He didn't.

You HAVE to deal with that. Stop ignoring it, stop brushing it under the carpet. Exercise critical thinking.

Right back at you.

People are forced to do such things

False.

God basically created a Roman gladiatorial arena on a planetary scale and lobbed humanity into it and has been watching the carnage ever since.

Wrong.

Again not a very nice thing to do, certainly not a benevolent action.

Not what God did.

Everything in this universe has always been here in one form or another.

False.

Birthing is merely just another transfer of the energies that are already here in the universe and have always been here. YOU are as old as the universe itself for every atom and particle in your body has been in existence from the very start. It's the law of conservation of energy. So birthing and dying are in fact misnomers. You're just talking about forms.

New-age nonsense.

Everything is a giant Lego set. You can build a castle with it or you can build a horse. You can tear down that creation any time and reassemble the bricks into something else. Do there is no death really. There is only the "death" of a given form. YOU CAN NOT DIE. Thinking you can is the greatest lie ever told by wicked religious nutjobs who delight in enslaving hearts and minds of weak-minded people. Death is not to be feared. It is merely transformation.

You sound an awful lot like the one who deceived Eve in the Garden, saying "You shall not surely die..."

Get thee hence, Satan.

It's all allegorical.

No, it's not all allegorical.

Sometimes in the Bible Jesus himself is the allegory.

Indeed. Yet that doesn't mean that Jesus Himself was allegorical.

Or are you one of those weirdos who claims that Jesus didn't actually exist?

You have to have the "eyes to see and ears to hear" that he spoke of. Otherwise you will interpet the text incorrectly.

"Listen to the truth that I've discovered that no one else has!"

So cliche...

This is a very standard defacto Christian adage that I learned as a child. When indoctrinated it seems to make much sense.

It's called Pascal's Wager.

Look it up.

Unfortunately it is horribly wrong. You have lots to lose.

If God is real, then not doing what He says will result in eternal damnation.

If God is not real, ignoring for a moment the fact that nothing should exist if that were true, then there is certainly no afterlife, and thus, no reason not to just live as one pleases, with no fear of any lasting consequences, becasue what will you care, you'll be dead and gone.

Reason being that indoctrination prevents you from critical thinking which in turn prevents you from searching for answers in certain directions and places.

Have you ever considered the possibility that you've been indoctrinated against God?

So you're wandering blissfully along believeing an absolute pile of codswallop which you think will prevent your "death" and your disastrous accompanying theory is that even if that's wrong you will have lived a good life, enjoyed contenedness and been good to people around you. The truth is you're decaying, ageing and heading for "death". The only way to prevent that is . . .

To repent and ask God, who is life, to give you a new life.

He won't do it unless you ask Him to.

John 6:53-58:"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

Jesus spoke the truth.

Unless you partake of Him, you will perish

"The gate is narrow and few there are that find it. "

Indeed, and you seem very, VERY lost.

How could that statement ever gel with the concept of salvation for all human beings on Earth? That's a nonsense.

Just because God provides salvation for all humans on earth, doesn't mean all humans want to be saved.

That's the "finding" bit.

You have EVERYTHING TO LOSE by shutting down your innate critical thinking and human brain and shackling it with religious nonsense peddled by a corrupt Church.

Says the one preaching nonsense.

The "Tree Of Life" is

NOT the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

If you think the tree represented smething else then you are treating it as allegorical not literal. Make your mind up. Was the story literal or allegorical?

The tree of life was a literal tree in the garden.

The next time it is seen in scripture is in Revelation.

Utter cobblers. The tree represented the "knowledge of good and evil" which was the same knowledge that God had.

Supra.

No they just had an innate thirst for knowledge which all humans have BY DESIGN.

No one says otherwise.

But the fact remains, God, the Creator, said "do not eat of the Tree." Adam disobeyed, and therefore brought sin into the world, and death through sin.

God lied to them saying that they would die teh same day if they ate from the tree.

God did not lie to them.

God did not say "they would die the same day."

God said "in the day you eat of it, dying you shall die."

Meaning, their death would be an ongoing process, until they died physically, "in the day they ate of the Tree."

"In the day" does not mean "ON the day."

"Day" here is figurative. The context determines the meaning of the word, and in this context, it means "an age." When it is used figuratively, as is the case here, it is "a space of time defined by an associated term," and in this case, "that you eat."

Thus: [in the day] [that you eat] [of it] [dying] [you shall die]

"Dying you shall die" happens in the future age, not a specific day, and not only on that day, where Adam has eaten of the tree, whenever that occurs.

They didn't die.

Adam and Eve are still alive?

The fact is they DID die, in more ways than one, though not at the same time.

They gained knowledge.

Of what it means to disobey God.

I.E., that rebelling against God results in death.

That's it. God wasn't pleased about that and punished them for wanting more knowledge, for daring to want to learn more.

No. God punished man for disobeying Him, when He said "do not eat of the Tree."

How malevolent!

God is not mocked.

There it is, black and white. God's lie.

God did not lie.

In the day that Adam ate of the tree, he died.

You might at best consider it a white lie, a type of coercion to prevent them eating from the tree, but it was a lie nonetheless.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

You're in denial which is the right response for an indoctrinated person. The serpent told the exact truth. The serpent said "you will not die" and "you will gain knowledge". Both statements were totally true. God's statement was a falsehood.

Supra.

We are merely a form and we've been millions of other forms before being a human form. There is no death. It's impossible. There is only loss of form.

More new-age nonsense

Tell me, with all your faults, weaknesses and vulnerabilities do you really think the human form is the pinnacle of existence? Or do you think there might be better form designs out there?

Pinnacle of existence? No.

Pinnacle of creation? Yes. God gave man dominion over the earth.

I welcome all your opinions. It's a slow process and a difficult one to shed conditioned psychological traits. I've been there, done it, escaped. You can too. If not, your form is going to perish.

Most of your posts are you arguing with faulty theology, rather than what the Bible actually says.

 

[Ps82]

There you go, you've cited exctly what I described, the "choice" of tyrants. Do as I say or else . . . . . threat, violence, punishment.
These are NOT the traits of a benevolent entity.




Yes he did. It was perverse.

Let's consider a simple example. You have an empty room with just a table in ot and you put 10 kids aged 5-9 in it. You place a bowl of jelly babies and chocolate buttons on the table and just before you walk out of the room you say to the children "Don't eat the sweets".

Very obviously before very long the children WILL start eating the sweets. Why? Because they are there. Because they are human children.

A cat will jump at a fast moving mouse because it's a cat. It's by design. A child will eat sweets because children love sweets.

Who is to blame if the kids eat those sweets?

Answer: The parent who put the sweets there. End of.

If the parent didn't want them to eat sweets then simple, don't put the bloody sweets there in the first place.

God put the forbidden tree right there in the garden with Adam and Eve. He could have not done that if he didn't want them to eat from it.
But he did. So he fully intended them to eat from it. He could have put it out of their reach. He didn't. He drew great attention to that one tree by forbidding Adam and Eve to eat from it. That's a well known psychological method. Tell a kid not to do something and they are FAR more likely to do it. Stop making excuses for God. He intended everything that happened, he knew it would happen, and he still did it.




Utter hogwash. The serpent didn't tempt anyone. He simply told Adam and Eve the perfect truth which was that if they ate from the tree they would not die and would gain the knowledge of Good and Evil. He exposed God's lie for what it was.
Again stop making excuses for God. He lied, plain and simple. You HAVE to deal with that. Stop ignoring it, stop brushing it under the carpet. Exercise critical thinking.



That is only the case because your God removed the Stone from humans. He took away the most important thing that humans need for survival and perfect health. Not a very nice thing to do !



People are forced to do such things because we've all been thrown into a prison planet lacking the one vital thing we need for survival. Because of that we have to use available resources which are scarce and not enough to survive. God basically created a Roman gladiatorial arena on a planetary scale and lobbed humanity into it and has been watching the carnage ever since. Again not a very nice thing to do, certainly not a benevolent action.




Everything in this universe has always been here in one form or another. Birthing is merely just another transfer of the energies that are already here in the universe and have always been here. YOU are as old as the universe itself for every atom and particle in your body has been in existence from the very start. It's the law of conservation of energy. So birthing and dying are in fact misnomers. You're just talking about forms.
Everything is a giant Lego set. You can build a castle with it or you can build a horse. You can tear down that creation any time and reassemble the bricks into something else. Do there is no death really. There is only the "death" of a given form. YOU CAN NOT DIE. Thinking you can is the greatest lie ever told by wicked religious nutjobs who delight in enslaving hearts and minds of weak-minded people. Death is not to be feared. It is merely transformation.




It's all allegorical. Sometimes in the Bible Jesus himself is the allegory. You have to have the "eyes to see and ears to hear" that he spoke of. Otherwise you will interpet the text incorrectly.



I sadly disagree




This is a very standard defacto Christian adage that I learned as a child. When indoctrinated it seems to make much sense. Unfortunately it is horribly wrong. You have lots to lose. Reason being that indoctrination prevents you from critical thinking which in turn prevents you from searching for answers in certain directions and places. So you're wandering blissfully along believeing an absolute pile of codswallop which you think will prevent your "death" and your disastrous accompanying theory is that even if that's wrong you will have lived a good life, enjoyed contenedness and been good to people around you. The truth is you're decaying, ageing and heading for "death". The only way to prevent that is to find, create the White and Red Stones of alchemy for without them "you have no life in you". As Jesus starkly warned:

John 6:53-58: "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

This is allegorical. It's referring to the White and Red Stones. You don't know about them because you've never searched outside your programmed bubble. Your conditioning teaches you that all these other esoteric avenues are wicked occult things.

"The gate is narrow and few there are that find it. "

How could that statement ever gel with the concept of salvation for all human beings on Earth? That's a nonsense. To avoid "death" you have to find the Stones and eat/drink them otherwise "there is no life in you". Jesus had these Stones and he taught his disciples about them.

You have EVERYTHING TO LOSE by shutting down your innate critical thinking and human brain and shackling it with religious nonsense peddled by a corrupt Church.




The "Tree Of Life" is another name for the Stone. So is Nectar, Ambrosia, Soma, Pearl Of Great Price and many more names. If you think the tree represented smething else then you are treating it as allegorical not literal. Make your mind up. Was the story literal or allegorical?




Utter cobblers. The tree represented the "knowledge of good and evil" which was the same knowledge that God had. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree God then said "They have become like us". They had new knowledge that's all. Their infantile ignorance had been wiped away and their eyes had been opened. They then knew they were naked. Again you've allowed yourself to believe religious dogma instead of reading the text openly.




No they just had an innate thirst for knowledge which all humans have BY DESIGN. God lied to them saying that they would die teh same day if they ate from the tree. They didn't die. They gained knowledge. That's it. God wasn't pleased about that and punished them for wanting more knowledge, for daring to want to learn more. How malevolent !




What the heck version of the Bible are you using ?!!!!

Genesis 2
"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."


There it is, black and white. God's lie. You might at best consider it a white lie, a type of coercion to prevent them eating from the tree, but it was a lie nonetheless.




You're in denial which is the right response for an indoctrinated person. The serpent told the exact truth. The serpent said "you will not die" and "you will gain knowledge". Both statements were totally true. God's statement was a falsehood.




We are merely a form and we've been millions of other forms before being a human form. There is no death. It's impossible. There is only loss of form. Tell me, with all your faults, weaknesses and vulnerabilities do you really think the human form is the pinnacle of existence? Or do you think there might be better form designs out there?




Not remotely.




Ideally yes, I'd rather you stopped making silly excuses for your God and stand back, be more honest with yourself than you've ever been before in your life and exercise critical thinking, without fear, without guilt, without thinking a bolt of lightning will suddenly smite you for even daring to believe the religious dogma might be wrong or false.




I welcome all your opinions. It's a slow process and a difficult one to shed conditioned psychological traits. I've been there, done it, escaped. You can too. If not, your form is going to perish.

SwordOfTruth, I had written you a very long reply to your long post and was down to the last couple of comments... and I hit something and my reply was gone. I'm bad about laying my hands too close to the lap top pad as I type. Oh well, you made some credible complaints about the pitiful condition we are in, but it comes down to this: You do not want God as the authority over your life. You think he is unfair and that everything is his fault and you think being born a human is a pitiful state of existence.

Well, if you read Ps. 82 you will find that Satan stood before God at his trial and the trial of his accomplices. He pretty much agreed with you. He rejected God's authority over him and rebelled. He blamed God for being an unfair judge and that if he had never created pitiful humanity then the world would not be in the mess it is in. Just sounds like you have chosen your lord. I'm not sure you are here to find him... so there may be nothing more to be said. A number on this thread have tried to offer insight.

It a choice ...