No Need For EdenTree Unless God Knew An Angle was...

by Sayswho 39 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Perry

  Many want everyone to have free will except God. And, they see no problem with that. This of course is a logical impossibility..... because he would cease to be God. They want to be God, that's all there is to it. Since they can't really be God, they settle for an illusion of total freedom and become subject to their own lusts and works of the flesh.

  When this thinking is really looked at for what it is, it makes the choice to willingly disown oneself [something against our survival instinct] and subject the will to our living Father through the blood of Jesus so much easier. This is a tremendous benefit to believers at the willing expense of the reprobate.

  It is in this sense that the proverb is proven true:

  Proverbs 21: 18 - The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright.
• 

  Mad Sweeney

  Anyone think that just maybe God (the real one) wants us to know good and bad like grownups so we can cease being a childlike race in need of threats and discipline? Time to grow up as a people, ditch religion and their oppressive anti-God dogmas, and have a real individual relationship with the divine. It's possible but clinging to ancient allegory as factual history is a roadblock on the Way.
• 

  Botzwana

  But I go back again to Adam and Eve IF they were SO wicked and chose Satan then WHY did they teach their children about Jehovah so much that Abel became a servant the and the first faithful witness? Seems to me that that was there way of apologizing for what they did...Which God did not accept. I know I have done some pretty bad things in my life but I apologized to my earthly father and he always took me back. He would never throw me out.
• 

  PSacramento

  Adam and Eve exercised their free will and "paid the price", but God did not abandon them or anything like that:

  Eve said:

  “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth c a man.”

  Cain exercised his free will and killed Abel and what did God do? did he abandon Cain?

  Nope:

  13 Cain said to the Lord , “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

  15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so e ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord ’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, f east of Eden.
• 

  tec

  Botzwana - God spoke to Cain, trying to warn him about the jealousy that he was allowing to rule him. I don't think God abandoned the children of Adam and Eve. Besides... teaching your children about reality isn't the same as apologizing. And God, to them, would have been reality... not speculation, or a matter of faith. I mean, how could they not have taught their children about Him? He was as real to them as the ground they walked on.

  Tammy
• 

  Botzwana

  Yes but Tec, if they were wicked and chose Satan's side surely they would have taught their kids to worship Satan instead! I mean, God kicked them out of the garden to a life of hell. I just don't think if they were wicked as the society says that they would have taught their kids to love God.
• 

  tec

  Why in the world would they have worshipped Satan? Look what listening to him got them? We certainly don't hear of him doing anything to help them out after they were sent out of Eden. Nor did he plead on their behalf, admitting that he had led them to their disobedience, so punish him, not them.

  Tammy
• 

  PSacramento

  In agreement with Tammy, it was The Snake that told them ( tempted) them into doing the one little thing they were told not to do.

  It cost them their perfect union with God, it cost them to prize their own desire for knowledge above God's love and they paid the price for it.

  If you were living in paradise and Bob comes by and points out to you that: as great as things are, wouldn't it be cool to be like God and this is how you do it, and you go ahead and do it and get your butt kicked out of paradise and have to live in Detroit, would you even LIKE Bob?
• 

  Soldier77

  The two trees in the garden of Eden:

  1) The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad

  2) The Tree of Life

  Can someone tell me why there was a tree of life if "God" created man to live forever? What is the purpose of planting a tree of life if you're already created to live forever? Sounds like we weren't created to live forever from the start and if Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Life then they would receive life eternal.

  Sounds like the demiurge that created this world was fallible and not God Almighty. He didn't create perfect beings. Everything in this world consumes and destroys.

  Sorry, I've been reading a lot about Gnosticism and the gnostic bible again....
• 

  Soldier77

  But the Snake aka Satan didn't lie did he? Adam and Eve did NOT die that day that they ate from the tree of knowledge and the God of the NT expells them from the Garden why? Because he was afraid that Adam and Eve would become like him! (I wish I had the scriptural quotes to add, sorry at work).