In my example the child was not a math expert.

Will get back to this later hopefully, just skimmed it.

My bad I misread it. But the answer stays. Just because someone tells you 2+2 = 4 doesn't mean the person understands it why it is equal to 4 and what does the whole thing means.

Ok. Then can u quantify how much knowledge one has to have on a subject for them to 'know' anything?

Here's a thing... Let's come to an agreement about Adam and Eve and their mental abilities.

What moral knowledge do you think they possessed before eating the fruit from the tree of a knowledge of the good and evil? Do you think they reasoned the idea of death what it is and what it would feel to lose life ?

Let's make a speculative conversation between ADAM and GOD.

First lets look at Genesis 2

"The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:15

OK so it looks like God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree. How could this conversation look like?

God : Adam!
Adam : Yes , Lord?
God : Adam my child, one more thing I almost forgot to mention. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.
Adam : Tree of the knowledge of good and evil? What does it mean? What is good and what is evil?
God : I can't tell you! That is why I'm forbidding you to eat the fruit of it so that you don't know what is good and evil.
Adam : Oh!!! Ok God, I got you.


So now let's go onto Genesis 3

Genesis 3

The Fall of Man

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Ok So Eve confirms that God told them that they will die, but can Adam an Eve even understand what death would mean? How can one understand the idea of death if they don't even comprehend the idea of good and evil? They got no idea what is good, they don't know that life is something good and loosing it would not be good. Did you ever try to explain to a 3 year old what death is? Yeah, don't even bother , they got no idea what death means and what it feels to lose life.

4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So Satan is tempting Eve, while the omnipresent God must be watching all of this from above. Why isn't he stepping in and telling Satan to **** off? Wouldn't you step in if some ******* was trying to give your kids some crack and cocaine?



6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Ok so they eat the fruit and all of the sudden for the first time they are able to have emotions like shame, guilt, etc.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

God seems to not be able to find them? Was he not omnipotent? The story seems to imply he wasn't..


10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Ok , Adam blames the woman...

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Poor Eve since she was deceived by the serpent now has to take the blame. She wasn't aware that the Serpent was lying, she never knew that there is something like a lie, how could she? She had no knowledge of good and evil!

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

Kind of lame cause there are plenty of other animals who got it worse then serpents... , I mean , he is to be blamed for everything and that's all the punishment that it's getting?


16 To the woman he said,

“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

**** ! She was deceived and God is taking out all the anger on her now?? That's just ****ed up!

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’

How could he not listen to his wife, he had no knowledge of good and evil to make a decision thinking , "**** I don't wanna eat this ****, it would be bad of me eating it since god said so" clearly this mental conversation can only happen once someone knows that there is something bad about going against God's requests. How could he have not listened to his wife if in the past it never created any problems! Did God ever told him that?

God: Hey, sometimes you shouldn't listen to your wife.
Adam: why GOD?
GOd : Cause she might tell you something incorrect that can lead to a bad conclusion
Adam: What is incorrect and a bad consequences?
God: Well I can't tell you what's bad cause that's why I don't want you to touch and eat from the tree of knowledge of good an evil.
Adam: Oh ok GOD..

This whole idea of tree of knowledge of good and evil just makes no sense.

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

****!! really? just because of some damn fruit? What is wrong with knowing the good and the evil. BEing able to distinguish that some actions are wrong and some right is a good thing. God wanted humans to stay idiots forever?

20 Adam[c] named his wife Eve,[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Ok, God seems selfish, he claims that now Humans know good and evil but they should not eat from the tree of life and live forever like "them"..... that's just selfish... Once again , seems like the humans were some type of scape goats in this story...

Cliffs: You think A&E have little to no intelligence or awareness, because they haven't yet eaten from the tree. You then post a part made up, part scripture based conversation portraying A&E as slightly ******ed, and God as a cruel and clueless father of 2 downie brownies. You draw stretching conclusions to support your worldview, and your reasoning is lacking.

I could pick it apart, but I don't think it's going to be very beneficial and I'm guessing it would take a lot of time to wade through it.

Pick it apart please.

There's no "darkness" in "heaven".

I was thinking about this awhile ago and listening to some related talks that seemed to make sense ( at least to me! ) ; the following is a reasonable answer for "Christians" or Messianic believers:

IMHO,

1) A baby or child with no experience of what it is to "eat of the knowledge of good and evil" is also not able to either accept or reject the message of the "good news" of Yeshua HaMashiach; therefore, that being cannot be a "child of G-d".

2) A grown adult human being knows what it is to sin, i.e., to fall short of perfection in any way; however, this human is also able to understand the message of the "good news" in that by accepting the gift of unmerited favor can be a "child of G-d".

There is a "grey area" concerning children or adolescents, but IMHO, it's best to think of the common extremes.


Then, in the olam ha-ba, those in category 1) are unable to fully exercise free will - they haven't matured enough in the world to know what it is to use it fully, so I suppose that they will receive some sort of transformation - however, that is not equivalent to the real experience of living to maturity, so they don't understand fully the grace and the mercy of G-d; they will be like angelic beings and are servants in the "Kingdom of Righteousness" but not in the same capacity as a "child of G-d".

Those in category 2) basically have to repent and make restitution for not just what they knew was wrong/sinful behaviour, but what they were unaware of and need to trust in the Mashiach to deliver them from their sin; they do understand what it is to receive unmerited favor and have a much better understanding on how to relate to beings that are "different" or sometimes sinful. For those that have received and accepted much forgiveness ( or acknowledge that they have received much ) also love much more and are therefore closer to Hashem or closer to "image of Yeshua". Those that reject the free gift are believed ( by many theists ) not to have a share in the olam ha-ba; however, if they accept the free gift ( and some hold there exist specific conditions and some hold those that live a "life of sin" will be somehow unable to accept this gift ), then they are part of the "family of G-d" and are rightful heirs of everything that Hashem has.

Not that unrelated, but in the parable of the prodigal son, the son is treated as a son, even if he was distant and acknowledges he doesn't deserve to be treated as such, and is not treated like a servant.

Thanks for your answers bigpooch. You should post more in here.

+1

Since majority of humanity that have ever existed falls into the category 1 majority of beings god has created don't understand fully his grace and the mercy, so it looks like a bit of an unsuccessful project.

Care to explain why (Category 1 > Category 2) makes it a bit of an unsuccessful project?

sure...

If overwhelming majority of beings god has created don't understand fully his grace and the mercy then that means that either

1. God doesn't care if his creation doesn't understand his grace and the mercy, in this case then creating some that have to go through pain and suffering so that they could understand seems unnecessary and evil.

2. If God cares for his creation to understand his grace and mercy then his project fails since a huge majority of his creation still doesn't understand it after creating this elaborate project in which small percentage of creation needs to go through unnecessary pain and suffering.

This is the part where I ignore what I think is bad reasoning, and it makes you feel superior. Enjoy.

SO you admit you lost the argument ... I like it when people admit a defeat , hopefully you learn something from it...

I know this is the case because I noticed that you tend not to reply to strong arguments or arguments you have no idea how to reply to..

Similarly, I don't have theological debates with 3 year olds. That means I admit defeat according to you.

If you are not willing to debate or discuss fully when people actually reply to you then don't even bother starting topics or talking to people. I have noticed it on few occasions that some of my replies to you were completely disregarded by you and you would not address them, in those cases you decided to attack me personally rather then the argument itself. It's a well know tactic of someone who just lost an argument( ad hominem).

So if you want to redeem yourself address my replies in such way that you actually show me where in my replies lies the " bad reasoning" .

If you show that you'll make an effort to understand theology and scripture contextually and more fully then i'll make an attempt to talk to you about it. I'm tired of putting in a lot of time and effort to address some of your reasoning based on a misconstrued understanding of the theology and/or scripture that you quote. And as far as I can tell, you don't give what I say much thought because you have labeled me in other threads as either a psychopath or an indoctrinated ******. It's draining, and I'm not required to do it. I do it because I love you.

You're a dishonest person , you ask me questions, when I spend time replying to them you decide not to answer them or commit the ad hominem fallacy.

Second, you don't know who you are dealing here with. I'm pretty sure I have went through more theology classes then you considering that from age 7 to age 16 I had to attend theology/bible studies almost daily due to the place I grew up in. Adding to that 3 courses of theology in a Catholic University. Atheists hear this all the time from theists "you need to study theology, or bible more", not realizing that many of us were believers, some of us in fundamentalist families.

You love to claim that I use bad reasoning based on a misconstrued understanding of the theology and/or scripture , YET you don't explain in what way or address my responses, again only making claims that I AM THE ONE NOT UNDERSTANDING IT... how about you actually address the argument/claim and point out one by one what is wrong with my arguments/claims.