Reading The Bible Properly Can Improve One's Reasoning Skills.

Jesus Christ = the tree of Life overcoming death from the fall of man.

Hi Mr Crank, I'd like another chance to answer to answer your allegation the in the bible (Genesis 1-3) was akin to "do you give your children sharp knives to play with? " along with the challenge: "always a good idea to consider the implications of what you're about to defend".

I think that it is a mistake to call Adam and Eve "children" as they were obviously old enough not obey rules, but also old enough to feel embarrassed about their nudity: and thus the urge to cover up. A better analogy would be entry requirements for commercial airline pilots whereby a high level of professionalism, if not self discipline is required (or of medical practitioners, lawyers etc). I wouldn't be surprised if a professional had his/her license revoked if found intoxicated with alcohol on the job even if no property was damaged and no one was hurt: a flaw in character has been observed and henceforth, the professional might suffer a lengthy suspension or have his/her practising/ flying license revoked altogether. Thus, Adam and Eve LOST their right to reside in the Garden of Eden and had to settle for somewhere else not just less comfortable, but also ruled by themselves being (by choice) a distance from God: where the only certain outcome would be death and despair (it would be just an issue of time).

Likewise has the fallen professional/ pilot nobody to blame but self for endangering the safety (sanctity) of the whole. The punishment is just desserts: he may have to sell his house and his car, downgrade his lifestyle and maybe find a new job for this 'fatal' work error. Likewise the plight of mankind: no longer is he as carefree as he was in the Garden of Eden, even friends and family have now become suspicious/ fearful of each other.

Greed and negligence fuels inequalities and pollutive industries: the seeds from which all forms of cancers, disease and handicap will grow: life has become very difficult, yet it is all BY CHOICE: if only we could turn back the hands of time, but evidently we cannot... then god reveals his grand plan, Jesus has overcame death and set the example and methods that we might follow: it involves great love for one's fellow men to the extent of sacrificing one's own life for the good of everyone else... we are enlightened when we believe in the good for all, by the loving example of Jesus Christ (the Tree of Life), death is obstacle/ hindrance no more...

 

Whether mil svce or civilian service in such as the Peace Corp. serving one's country as opposed to tearing it down over an ideology, is quite a bit different!

The opposition has nothing to do with the president' skin color, but rather his ideology in regards to what has made this nation great!

Having been a boomer, I see the predisent's ideology as tearing down the fabric of America based on ideology and not in bringing together those of all races & beliefs.

If a 'liberal' or progressive' cant see that then they are blinded by a ideology!

 

Just about every ancient culture had a tree of life or a tree of the knowledge of good and evil..

 

I think 'condone' is presumptive. Some say silence means consent, however, again, devil is in the details. In fact, I would say that slavery (i.e. inequality) is still very prevalent today even though it isn't as institutionalised as it was in the past (technology/ commerce was much simpler then): there constitute many forms of slavery (aka ill-treatment). Slavery is just an umbrella category: its the particulars of the slave-owner relationship that matters most: e.g. in a benevolent monarchy, all the citizens can be considered slaves since everything the monarch says is law including the possibility of death sentences conducted for amusement purposes: however, the enlightened monarch loves his people very much and will not hurt a fly: thus society is well managed and the people live prosperous lives even though all are technically slaves to the authority of the monarch. If 'slaves' effectively live quite independently, are paid a fair wage and allowed to own property and buy themselves out of such indenturement, then such form of slavery is no more indentured than the owing by foreign labourers of the employment agency fee (which has to be repaid from salary earned from provided/ assigned job).

Picture of caged housing occurring in HongKong due to high inequality and stratospheric property prices: these poor residents are slaves in all but name:
Pict source: http://www.soco.org.hk/artwalk2009/#5
: even in HongKong, a territory with first world per capita GDP, many in the underbelly of society live in such squalor, it could be argued that even some slaves in the old testament did actually live more comfortable lives...

The bible does not promulgate slavery, however, due to the lesser detrimental effect of slavery at that point in time, as well as its prevalence amongst different societies: all the bible was able to do was to mitigate its impact since slavery was the default relationship between business owners and employees etc...

 

Which numeral system is in use when you make these numerology claims?
http://education.ed.pacificu.edu/charlesm/courses/mathsci/numsys/numsys.html

 

Nice to see you did your 'homework' on number systems (and have no life outside of this forum) since my last post on the topic.

The Babylonian civilization in Mesopotamia replaced the Sumerian civilization and the Akkadian civilization.

Per your link:

.

If numbers span across several civilizations yet are consistent in their usage, I would say that correlation has been achieved.

 

Quite a leap of presumption on your part.
I am in a similar boat as FreshAir. Upon graduating high school, I felt I had a calling to go to a seminary. Was pretty into christianity in later high school life. I did not, as I chose not to attend any university immediately upon graduating high school.
Fast forward a few decades, I decided to again engage seriously christianity as my children were going through catechism. Only this time I went out to see what the differences were between my religion, LCMS, and others as well as other religions besides christianity.
Long story short, my current thinking is, God would not confine his message to 1 religion or 1 messenger. There are to much similarities between christian and many others. So I don't believe, jesus is the only path. God is much more than just that. Provided God exists as sole creator of everything ever.

 

Sure. And I say your context is different than 1000s of others context when reading scripture.

 

I did it as a part time GI. Army National Guard. Where there's a will there's a way.
But I agree, R's want to profitize education. A college education should be near free for all who want it and maintain a certain GPA. Just like through HS.

 

My main point being. Numbers can mean many things. The number system can change meanings.
Just about anything one can think of can be done with numbers.

 

I do appreciate that---my daughter, as you served in the Nat Guard, married, and went back to school to become an RN while raising 3 kids.

Now I need to discern the 'madness to your method' (as she plays keyboard & sings in her church) of your grievance postings on this forum....

 

My grievance postings?
'madness to my method'?

 

You have an 'obvious' bias to your postings...when I 1st came across you on this forum years ago, you appeared 'agnostic' in your responses---now hard-hearted and bitter in them. Is that your 'progression' in this life?

 

No. I guess it comes from the couple of years here and seeing the same things posted over and over.
I am hardly bitter, now some posters tend to act bloviated and snobbish, those I tend to return same kind of responses.
Those who think their thought/beliefs is the only one to have, tend to rub me wrong. For no one can know anything. They can only reason to themselves why they believe certain things.

 

I appreciate that. There is no perfection in this life. I hope that you find that which will rest your soul as scripture says "we know in part..." Again I appreciate & value your service...OD

 

Have a merry Christmas.

 

And you & yours also..

 

Just remember, that we all havnt asked the questions that you have...but what is important is how we live our lives with what we 'know'---whether it be for Jesus (and His words) or for our fellow mankind..

 

Sorry but your knowledge of the Bible is in the 1% range. Any atheist on this site will steamroll you without a burp.

Luke 4:23-29 (CEV) = "23 Jesus answered:You will certainly want to tell me this saying, “Doctor, first make yourself well.” You will tell me to do the same things here in my own hometown that you heard I did in Capernaum. 24 But you can be sure that no prophets are liked by the people of their own hometown.
25 Once during the time of Elijah there was no rain for three and a half years, and people everywhere were starving. There were many widows in Israel, 26 but Elijah was sent only to a widow in the town of Zarephath near the city of Sidon. 27 During the time of the prophet Elisha, many men in Israel had leprosy. But no one was healed, except Naaman who lived in Syria.

28 When the people in the meeting place heard Jesus say this, they became so angry 29 that they got up and threw him out of town. They dragged him to the edge of the cliff on which the town was built, because they wanted to throw him down from there."

Jesus didn't help anyone there because he didn't have any ringers in the crowd. And if he had faked it like he had done elsewhere then the really sick locals would have been pissed because he didn't help them. As it was they came within seconds of tossing him off of the cliffs.

Jesus spoke in parables to keep the outsiders from knowing what he was really talking about. He wanted people to end up in the lake of fire. so if the people who heard him speak couldn't figure out what he was really saying what makes you think that you know when you don't have any of the cultural references that they had?
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_parables_of_jesus/use_of_parables_explained/mk04_33-34.html

Mark 4:11-12 (ERV) = "11 Jesus said, “Only you can know the secret truth about God’s kingdom. But to those other people I tell everything by using stories.12 I do this so that‘They will look and look but never really see;
they will listen and listen but never understand.
If they saw and understood,
they might change and be forgiven.’”"

When Jesus had the opportunity to give to the poor he gave them the finger.

Mark 14:3-7 (CEV) = "3 Jesus was eating in Bethany at the home of Simon, who once had leprosy, when a woman came in with a very expensive bottle of sweet-smelling perfume. After breaking it open, she poured the perfume on Jesus' head. 4 This made some of the guests angry, and they complained, “Why such a waste? 5 We could have sold this perfume for more than three hundred silver coins and given the money to the poor!” So they started saying cruel things to the woman.6 But Jesus said:
Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. 7 You will always have the poor with you. And whenever you want to, you can give to them. But you won’t always have me here with you."

If he knew that he was going to die why was he concerned about smelling sweet? The people could have used the money for food instead of smelling a guy who smelled like a hooker. Remember, this was the same guy who had told people to sell their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. He wasn't willing to follow his own advice.

 

Command of the English language sure, but reading in general will do that. But improves ones reasoning skills...how so?

 

Okay, try it from this angle: how did adam and eve learn to be ashamed of their nakedness? Who taught them to be ashamed?

In a nutshell, you appear to have bought into the most simplistic and platitudinous justifications for a very poorly thought out and quite ugly ideology.

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hard to imagine how one could come to the conclusion that the bible would be a useful tool for the improvement of one's English - when considered against the great wealth of English literature.

 

Sounds like both you and myself agree with the following statement by 'OneMind':

PS: What is LCMS?

Experience will differ and experience will certainly colour one's perception of biblical verse. Thus the use of parables by Jesus Christ: e.g. 'Parable of the Good Samaritan'/ 'Parable of the unforgiving servant' to begin with, it would be very hard to construe any evil intent within the teaching of each of these parables of Jesus, whatever the background/ suspicions of the audience. Of course for practitioners of revisionist theology/ false translation, whatever is concluded is their own fantasy.

 

In answer to the original thesis, improving one's English by reading a text culled from at least three different languages, filtered through a myriad of translators and edited for the whim of Emperors and Kings, written in archaic English for our current believers, really? Are you this obtuse? Do you believe everything people tell you or do you just pick what the crowd goes with? On top of that you wish to apply logic to this process? Please tell me if and where you play poker.

 

I think a wise reading of the text of Gen 2 and Gen 3 supports the idea that these are referring to the maturation and evolution inside earliest mankind when the archetypal manifestations inside man's head were differentiating and developing into the present "seven angels" we now call Freudian/Jungian Archetypes.
In other words, the man was really Libido growing/evolving a dominant part of his psyche which today we call Animus, of the feminine principle inside us all.

The serpent in this story pertains to that logical Superego which helped "Eve" reason out why "her" intuition was reasonable.
The solid and sound "Self" was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad" that had for a very long time been inside men.

The clues for us here, to see this evolution and psychic development, is that it is directly mentioned, at first:

Gen 2:21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;


A second clue here is the use of this word we interpret incorrectly as "rib."
In the Hebrew, the word actually means "a side of a person:"

The reading means what us explained within the brackets as written below:

Gen. 2:21 And the LORD God, (Father Nature), caused a deep sleep, (a progressive series of evolutions), upon (the first species of mankind: [Gen 5:2]), Adam, (to psychologically change him), and he (evolved over many thousands of years as if he had) slept:
and he, (this Universal Power,... in time), took one of his (seven Freudian psychic Subconscious) ribs, (Tsela; a side of a person, figuratively, a door: [Hebrew]), and closed up the flesh (of this psychic facility) instead (of including Human Intuition) thereof (within the rest of the mind of man);

 

Yes.
And it makes sense that all non-extinct life forms, in general, from day one, had developed this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad from personal experience.
Every living creature, through maintaining existence, had learned what was good and what was bad in regard to adapting to the environment.

It would have been in man, for sure.
But it was part a vast "Tree" that had root in living things that it had become established by the Law of Evolution as "bad" behaviors had led to extinctions.