Originally posted by moonbusCould I ask why you feel the garden and Adam and Eve were not real? What makes you think this and what proof do you or anyone else have other then mans philosophies that it isn't real?
"What did the soil in the garden consist of?" is a facilely materialistic interpretation of the Garden myth. It's not about rocks and soil. It's an allegory about growing up, about achieving moral maturity. Man starts out in a child-like state of ignorance and knows nothing about morality or mortality. Man comes to a knowledge of his true nature ("in the ima ...[text shortened]... man to do it. Had God not forbidden it, man would have remained ignorant and child-like forever.
I'm curious as to where this idea started because all of God's followers right up to Jesus and beyond took it literal.
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-Removed-Juvenile? So are you going to start the insults again or are we going to have a civil discussion?
No Jesus is not talking of literal friut, do you think he was?
Do you really not understand what he is speaking of?
When the Bible speaks of producing fruit from ones actions either good or bad, do you think it is speaking of real fruit?
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-Removed-Well first of all it's not just the JW's that take it literal in case you missed that.
And why don't you take it literal? Did not all the men of old who believed in God and his son Jesus not take it literal including Jesus himself? Did any of them ever say it wasn't literal? No not one.
So why do you say it's not real? Because some man who doesn't believe in the bible says so? Just as satan himself said that God lied and what he said wasn't so?
Last question... What makes you deside to believe in some parts of the bible but then not other parts? It would seem that if your going to believe in some of it, why not all of it?
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-Removed-I don't have a problem with your beliefs. I don't agree with most but that's nothing new.
But take the time if you can and prove to me it's not literal?
In turn I don't have to prove it's a literal because nothing or no one in the Bible ever even slightly hints that it's not real.
+++++++++ So the bibles account of Jesus's lineage coming from Adam is not real and a lie? +++++++++++
Do you believe Adam even existed?
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-Removed-Are you comparing the fruit of the spirit to literal fruit that comes from a tree? People bear fruit too, according to the Bible... "you will know them by their fruits", but this doesn't mean you might find plums growing in someones armpits, does it...
There is nothing to suggest in the book of Genesis that the tree of knowledge of good and evil is not a literal tree, or that it necessarily must be a supernatural tree bearing supernatural fruit. There was also a tree of life, but they were prevented from eating of that tree and again there is nothing to suggest it wasn't a literal tree. Imagine what it would be like to live forever in sin, and forever growing more and more disfigured and disabled from sin.
What you don't seem to realize is that it could have been a literal event that also foreshadowed what would come later. God is not limited to doing only one thing at a time... or for one thing or event to mean only one thing.