Doors Of Perception

Originally posted by wafflehead: ↑

Mr Gordon, let's think about this. Let's both step away from our preconceptions and the imposed belief systems and see if we might rationalise our way through this.

Genesis was not written for you or I. It was written by borrowing the most famous story of its age, Gilgamesh and weaving into it a moral tale that worked for both the simple hearted and those with deeper spiritual insight.

On the one hand it teaches a simple story about the consequences of living for self over the precepts of God.

On the other hand it has woven a deep and metaphoric spiritual tale into the fabric of an existing story. A very clever piece of work that speaks of the nature of and spiritual journey of each and every one of us.

When you grasp at different bits and pieces of the Bible and slap them together it is possible to substantiate almost any argument you like to put. The only way to make sense of the Bible is to start with some kind of real world, scientific basis.

We know that Adam and Eve where not the first humans, there are tens-of-millions of articles of evidence that prove beyond doubt that humanity was flourishing long before the Genesis story was written. So the only logical conclusion we can make is that this is a symbolic, metaphoric story. If you start off believing this is literal you make a mockery of religion and you deny the foundations of all science, a science that now supports almost every aspect of our lives.

It's pretty clear that the statement, "God Created human beings" is far more sweeping than just Adam and Eve. You are just making up a narrative to support your religions teachings when you say Adam was this way and his kids were that way. This makes not sense at all. Reality was the same in those ages as it is today.

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Genesis was not written for you or I. It was written by borrowing the most famous story of its age, Gilgamesh and weaving into it a moral tale that worked for both the simple hearted and those with deeper spiritual insight.
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Waffle, are you suggesting that not only Moses but also Isaiah, Ezekiel, the apostles Peter and Paul and Jesus are among those weavers?
(Isaiah 54:9) “This is like the days of Noah to me. Just as I have sworn that the waters of Noah will no more cover the earth, So I swear that I will no more become indignant toward you or rebuke you.
(Ezekiel 14:14) “‘Even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were within it, they would be able to save only themselves because of their righteousness,’ declares the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.”
(2 Peter 2:5) And he did not refrain from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a flood upon a world of ungodly people.
(Hebrews 11:7) By faith Noah, after receiving divine warning of things not yet seen, showed godly fear and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; and through this faith he condemned the world, and he became an heir of the righteousness that results from faith.
(Matthew 24:37-39) For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. 38 For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.