Was PARADISE really paradise?

by Terry 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  PARADISE

  Was it really paradise to be in paradise?
  
  

  Adam and Eve never were held by a mother, never cuddled and sung to with a lullaby nor nursed or coddled with tenderness or any human familial embrace. None at all.
  
  

  The first humans (Adam and Eve) never learned to toddle surrounded by brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles and grandparents cheering them on. The entire experience of childhood was excised surgically like a trauma patient awakening from an accident with amnesia.
  
  

  Adam and Eve were never in a neighborhood with other kids forming friendship bonds for life and exchanging dreams and hopes for a future they were building in their community. There was no playing with dolls with her friends, no trips to the beach, or picnics with school chums. Hell--there was no kindergarten, elementary school, Jr. High proms, dances, football games, or ballet lessons.

  Adam and Eve didn't learn nursery rhymes or sit in their Daddy's lap and read bedtime stories or get tucked in and kissed goodnight.
  
  

  Adam woke up naked and stranded among animals with no companion and only invisible voices directing him.

  Like a blind man in social darkness completely deprived of human touch, this man somehow had to fit in fully conscious and with no memory of life experience.
  
  

  He did not grow up among little girls or lovely teens or older women in a natural life cycle of beauty and age.

  He never saw his Mommy kiss his Daddy. THERE WAS NO MOMMY. Daddy was invisible.

  What love might mean between human people was never modeled in front of his eyes.
  Sure, Adam saw beasts rutting!

  How traumatizing!
  
  

  There were no cartoons, storybooks, or fairytales (except the one he was living in.)

  He did not select a choice of mates among many women along the way nor enjoy the attention of those vying for his notice. Adam's only selection was beasts of the field!

  Alone.
  
  

  Adam was surgically anesthetized and his own body rummaged for spare parts.

  He awoke to the only human he'd ever seen: Eve. Obviously a clone (i.e. also a man if you follow the science.)

  What being a man or woman IS naturally follows from the experience acquired as an infant, toddler, teen, young adult, and such.
  
  

  The first "marriage" (where was the ceremony recorded?) was an arranged mating with no choice involved and certainly no selection. Adam "chose" his own rib to marry! Yipes.

  How is this being HUMAN at all?
  
  

  Is it any wonder their first and most important choices were dysfunctional?

  I mean: really? Is this PARADISE or just bad writing?
  
  Somebody (way way back then) just didn't think this through.
• 

  cyberjesus

  Adam also suddenly appear in a place where millions of vegetarian animals already lived for many years.. so there was a lot of vegetations simlar to the tropical jungle... there he is naked, no shoes in the jungle withouth knowing what all those sounds and creatures were... sounds more like a nightmare.

  Also a paradise is in reference to another place or circumstance. There was nothing to compare it to.. that was no paradise it was just home. Paradise for him would mean... having something to wear and cover his body and feet, tools and gadgets to eat and build himself a nest.. hey a freaking pillow from walmart.

  I guess we are the ones living in paradise.
• 

  enoughisenough

  some must not think it so terrible...they like to go to an isolated tropical places and beaches and go naked.

  I think some people also like to pick on God himself. Free will allows that.
• 

  TonusOH

  I would assume that God pre-loaded his mind with some programming so that he wasn't confused when he first became conscious. That's a fascinating idea, that Adam's first seconds after being created might have felt familiar, even though he only began to exist in that moment. It would have to be, otherwise the sensory overload would have been crippling... seeing for the first time and taking in all of that new visual information, feeling the grass beneath him and the air and wind around him, the smells of the flowers teasing his nostrils and the sounds of any animals tickling his ears.

  He would know all these things and feel comfortable, but at the same time he was a blank slate. Those first moments would be his entire existence. He would be forming his first memories right there, right then. Would he have been programmed to recognize the voice of God, and understand who He was? And geez, the conversation about that thing hanging between his legs would have been pretty awkward, because when isn't it?
• 

  Terry

  The same could be said of God, it takes only a moment to realize.
  To be a CREATOR one must have created. It follows that BEFORE "In the beginning.." there was
  an eternity of "...before...the beginning" as applies to the creation of created things.
  
  ALONENESS is a stunning situation to contemplate for...GOD.
  We must not conflate infinity with eternity. Time began with creation and eternity proceeded to infinity.
  We are quick to posit an "already there" God. Otherwise, God must have a beginning and we can't let that happen - it violates the fundamental definition of who/what God is.
  
  Let us use a number line as a quick sketch (i.e. ...-5,-4, -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 ...)
  There are as many numbers on the -negative side of zero 0 as on the positive side.
  Heck - there are as many fractions between those digits as well! Infinite numbers in every direction.
  So what?
  God doesn't float at zero, able to remember the infinity BEFORE creation.
  Before He was a Creator He simply...what? Simply existed?
  All of this is, of course, PHILOSOPHY 101 and we need not exercise our imagination.
  
  If any point is to be made about Paradise or Creation or the Creator it is this point.
  We simply have all this dumped on our plate as kids.
  Take it or leave it. (Consequences for leaving it, of course).
  
  I find it necessary to question all this divinely bestowed "data" with as clear a mind free of prejudices as I can muster.
  That's probably unlikely.
  
  I could never wrap my mind around life in Heaven praising Jah eternally because it made no sense - UNLESS God was driven mad all those eons ago and His supernal Aloneness made Him crave companies of angelic and human praisers, worshippers, subjected fans.
  
  Your mileage may vary, of course.
• 

  waton

  We must not conflate infinity with eternity. Time began with creation

  there was always time, it had no beginning.

  That is the best rendering of Eve I have seen. btw.