Is the knowledge of good and evil, good or evil?

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Greatest I am, May 31, 2020.

  1. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    You are suggesting, I think, that the U.S. jails so many and abort so many, while being homophobic and misogynous to enhance group cohesion.

    I agree, but see it as the cohesion of white racists against all other colors.

    Regards
    DL
     
  2. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes, what I said about Genesis is what I think more closely matches standard Christian interpretations.

    I don't believe the pride being discussed is what we might describe as pride of workmanship, or as a motivator for good works, a driver toward personal success, etc.

    The Bible sees another kind of pride. In Proverbs one finds that "pride goeth before a fall". That' was a warning concernig the dangers of pride..

    In Genesis, pride led to ignoring God's law. One could say that Adam decided that he was capable of the knowledge of good and evil that would place himself in a position to judge what must be followed. Genesis does not sugget that God put man on earth to be equals in determining what is good and evil.

    In nature, competition can't be considered to involve doing evil.

    With humans, you and I may compete, but if I'm doing you evil that is a problem as far as the Bible is concered.
     
  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I certainly am concerned when science is ignored, berated, denigrated, or whatever due to reliious views on how this physical universe works.

    Today we seem to have a cult of disparaging the very notion of people developing expertse through years of hard work.

    That's the direction of economic suicide. As noted with COVID, it's also incredibly bad for our health.
     
  4. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    I made no such suggestion, that is an interpretation of my words filtered through your bias. There has been a repeated theme that morality is defined by God (or Gods) shared by a narrated/guided human recording the word in scripture propagated and interpreted by organized religion, and absent the word as conveyed by the doctrine of organized religion, morality (as dictated by God) cannot exist. Having lived with indigenous people with no such indoctrination, I challenge that supposition.
    My argument has no statement of racism, no justification for it, nor do I personally ascribe to any flavor of rational for discrimination of any type, except I do make distinction of those that try to justify any rational as a basis for discrimination. Where I was raised, I was subject to ethnic discrimination similar to that experienced by people of color in the US and the prejudice that yet lingers. If I return to where I was raised, even after some 50 years, I have the experience of the lingering prejudice that extends not because of my skin color, but assumptions drawn from my accent, despite it being significantly modified by living in the US all these years. Hell, the stigma associated with the area I was raised has followed me to the US... every time I have renewed my passport, I have been flagged by the authorities, then interviewed by the FBI (up for renewal soon so we will see what happens this time) who repeat the same questions. I always found it strange, I was born in the US, but as a consequence of where I was raised...
    As for the distinction of ‘white racists’ as if they were a villain class of their own, racism, ethnic discrimination, or any destructive discrimination of the many types that exist, are not the exclusive domain of being ‘white’, whatever that is. It is derived from making a collective identification using some distinguishing difference and based in defining the ‘us’ from ‘them’ delineating a social boundaries where the rules of civil behavior change from unacceptable to rationalized acceptable. I always found it interesting that among the many different groups in the early Americas, the names of the groups used by the members of the groups, often meant something similar to ‘the People’. Among the groups I meant in the Amazon, each was ‘the People’, ‘the Good People’ or something similar where the underlying rules of behavior were different for those among your group that you where rules of behavior were different and highly constrained than were those afforded to anyone not of ‘the People’. When people refer to the phenomena of ‘Tribal’ and ‘Identity’ politics, I find analog among the groups I observed in the indigenous area I visited.
    What I see happening in the US today, is an increase in the divides, a growing segmentation of the ‘us and them’., with each group blaming the other for those divides, each insisting the other should accept the blame, repent, and accept the ‘cultural truths and norms’ of the other rather than finding common cause as ‘the People’.
    As to who is responsible or more responsible, the song ‘For What It’s Worth’ originally by Buffalo Springfield in the late ‘60 and performed by the later band permutations of it’s original members, the line ‘nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong’ is as relevant now as it was then and suggests, at least to me, it doesn’t matter; in the words of the song, ‘We better Stop’.
     
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    The tree of knowledge of good and evil was exclusively reserved by God for God - not for man.

    So, one has to consider that it meant far more than that eating the fruit of that tree was a net positive in terms of manking avoiding evil.

    For man to partake of that tree was a demonstration of mankind's fundamentally sinful nature - it demonstrated a fatal flaw - a flaw so serious that salvation of mankindd became impossible without serious sacrifice.

    You can read what theologians say about Genesis and the the meaning of the tree of knowledg of good and evil.

    But, there is no way to interpret that event as being a net positive.
     
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  6. yabberefugee

    yabberefugee Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, Mankind was given a choice, just as achoices are given in any relationship. There are right choices and wrong choices. There is always responsibility for choice and Adam did his best to dodge by accusing God.......as is still done today.
     
  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Well, I'm fine with how anyone wants to interpret the Genisis story of Eden.

    However, I think most protestant theologians would have a different takke than you are suggesting here.
     
  8. yabberefugee

    yabberefugee Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am not a theologian and I am not "protesting" anything. I am a believer and I fellowship with other believers not of any certain sect. We read the scriptures and believe the Holy Spirit will guide us, so I am always open to accountability from other believers because iron sharpens iron. What do you suppose that "different" take might be?
     
  9. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I fully respect your view on Eden.

    While I do believe there are differences between yours and those of experts in mainstream Christian faiths, I have no interest in promoting any of them over yours - that's for sure! So, I'm not going to go beyond what I said in post #30.
     
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  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Since he was dependent on God (and presuming God is good), he did not need the knowledge of good & evil.
    The idea is that they were living in a paradise and would never die.

    After the fruit, he might have had the sight but not the moral acuity to handle it.

    We also don't know with 100% certainty that he was unable to reproduce, just to point out.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2020
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  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The same type of people who can't fathom or understand why taking on the knowledge of good & evil might be a bad thing, are the same type of people who think
    " I'd make a good God "


    I believe this fruit that they took on involved something a little beyond just ordinary knowledge (like the type you'd read out of a book).
    Probably changed their natures.

    Probably there was an element of something divine, in either them or the "knowledge" (they took) that couldn't be so easily changed by God.
    It was something of the divine nature that would demand certain things.

    And of course you have to ask why God put it within their reach in the first place. Perhaps he was obliged to, for some reason, and felt he had to offer them choice, even if he did not want them to choose it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2020
  12. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    So God's creation was flawed.....not very god like and he accidentally created sin...oopsy.
     
  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    One needs to understand the full story as presented.

    And, I don't mean that you have to BELIEVE it - I'm an atheist, for example.

    But passing off superficial assessments as you do serves no purpose.
     
  14. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    From the losers POV, it was not good, unless it improves his fitness.

    Regards
    DL
     
  15. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    By fools. Not by me.

    Regards
    DL
     
  16. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    What despicable prick of a god created such a sinful nature for Adam?

    Please do not insult us for the usual free will gambit that your bible says we do not have.

    Such B.S. deflections are beneath you.

    Yahweh, the incompetent fool, created the nature you condemn.

    Regards
    DL
     
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  17. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    If Adam and you and I presume that god is good, then we need the knowledge god denies us to judge. Satan would look no worse than Yahweh.

    Good would mean absolutely nothing in terms of good and evil to Adam or us, as scriptures indicate, which opened his eyes and our minds.

    Why you think good is, you could not answer.

    To your last. Adam was told to reproduce with Eve way back in gen 1.

    Would you wait till way up in Gen 3?

    Thus I refute your view.

    Regards
    DL
     
  18. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    LOL! Quite true!

    But, a meaningful finding of an act being evil comes from an external analysis, right? I don't get to convict assaults on my person or stuff as being evil simply on the grounds that it cost me.
     
  19. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Hey - I'm an atheist!

    I just don't like the assaults on the Bible when they aren't fully considered or are based merely on disputing the existence of a god.

    The question isn't whether God is evil. And, it's not very meaningful to accuse God of being the source of evil when there is no way to determine God's objectives, his methods, the existence of other operators. We don't know God's purpose or methods, so humans assigning blame against God is ridiculous.

    To me, the Eden story just points to man believing we have equal standing with God in determining good and evil.

    We do behave like that. And, it is a fairly fundamental flaw.
     
  20. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    I do not think so.

    Why would you trust external sources before our own internal opinion on something effecting you?

    Regards
    DL
     
  21. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    That has produced moral secular laws as compared to the laws of a genocidal prick.

    Note how theistic law is never promoted.

    Regards
    DL
     
  22. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I don't see that as the issue.

    The point I'm considering is more that from a dispassionate outside view we can evaluate whether our world as a system includes certain features (predators, disease, etc.) could be considered evil or that even rise to suggesting that our world is evil.

    Adam may have had opinions about his situation, but I'm not so sure that matters in terms of whether god set up an evil world.

    Of course, my own view is that the Eden story is an allegory that describes mankind pretty darn well. We do think we are smarter than god, for example. We see ourselves as ready for the fruite of the tree of knowledge of good and evil - God's knowledge. Surely the Eden story is FAR more informative if it is considered allegorical.

    As an atheist, I still see the Eden story as indicitive of what might be called man's original sin or maybe it could better be termed an inate flaw that we have. Part of it is that we think we are so damn smart that it literally hurts. Not even a directive from a god could disuade us from thinking that.
     
  23. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    OK, we don't promote Mosaic law. But, the USA has seriously considered laws based on nothing more than religion.

    The USA set up Iraq with a constitution that points to the Qur'an as containing the overriding legal opinion.

    Some of our own colonies paid their taxes directly to the majority religion - colonial times, of courese, but that's within our own history. Plus, today we have a government set on using our tax dollars to promote the religion of the majority.

    The US promotes the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians - surely a throwback to Mosaic law, the slaughter of all living beings in Jericho in order to obtain land, etc. And, US Christians are the ones behind that - it's not our law, in fact it is against all our fundamental principles, but religion overrides all of that in a startling display of hypocrisy noted by those throughout the region as well as the world

    The sole justification for laws we've had against same sex marriage and related moves against LGBTQ members are well recognized as being based in nothing but religious beliefs of some, but not all.

    Our actions vs. USSR, Russia, and China have a fundamental root in "godless communism" - not just communism. Our military foreign policy has an "Onward Christian Soldiers" flare to it - if you remember the hymn.

    Abortion law is an issue steeped in religion. In fact, only laws against abortion based on sin are allowed to be considered even when there are examples of far more successful methods of reduction in abortion numbrers.

    - sorry for the ramble. I'm not suggesting you disagree with any or all of this.
     
  24. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    A good thing we think this way or we might stop creating gods.

    Do not stop the secular from creating new laws as they are showing themselves to be way better laws than what the garbage gods we created have come up with.

    Progress is good. God religions should try it.

    Regards
    DL
     
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  25. Greatest I am

    Greatest I am Well-Known Member

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    I share your view that we have had to suffer the great majority claiming to be religious and good, while worshiping a genocidal piece of garbage god, Yahweh, because they see genocide as good.

    Soldiers who like genocide. Sound familiar?
    Soldiers who like genocidal leaders.

    Sound familiar?

    Let's collaborate on an O.P.

    Regards
    DL
     
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