I had to steal this from my SMP thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/47...70/index4.html

The OT says A&E ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Assuming this is a parable it could mean that Man would have continued evolving just as we have now, accept without knowledge of Good and Evil. This is a philosophy forum, you guys should be able to chew on that one for a while; what would this world have been like if we were as smart as we are now, but our lives were spent *IN THE ZONE*

Like when you do something and an hour later you realize you were *IN THE ZONE*

That's how the rest of the animal world lives.. they don't *KNOW*

Your post makes no sense.

Specially the zone part, what is that supposed to mean?

(theory)

Genesis is a parable for how hominid becomes Man. Before, we were just hominid, thinking and acting like every other creature in the kingdom - trying to survive – never thinking about the past or worrying about the future. We would have evolved into the same intelligent creatures that we are now, but we would have done no wrong.. because we never would have known what “wrong” was.

Like animals. They don’t do wrong things that they’re aware of.

Here's a post which I left in the original thread that theorizes this:

But here’s the punchline:

There would have never been a “would have evolved into the same intelligent creatures that we are now”, because this was,







ALL PLANNED

okay

Think about a dog. When a dog is just laying on the ground, what’s going through his head?

Now imagine an entity viewing us in that same way. Man. That intelligent creature who works all day, so hard. He doesn’t even know…

The example of another entity viewing us, is really us now. (viewing the world)

But we could have spent our lives as the example, not the one examining the example.

Wow. That’s some deep ****.

UHOS?

does it not work?

After i yell bad dog lay down?

Probably damn what did i do wrong.

This is a theory many religious accept, atleast those who believe in evolution. There are variations of it, in general I really like your variation, but I'm not sure if it's possible to be homosapian and not have a soul, but the more I think about it I guess it is possible.

Our soul would have been the same as dog, or horse, or bird. IMO soul is hard to define so maybe even spirit works. The souls/spirits of animals don't change; the "spirit of the bear" is the same for all bear. So therefore the soul of Man would've been the same for all Man. (50k years ago hominid was no different than bear in regards to his motivation - his motivation was survival)

But the soul of Man is not the same for all. In our current state, it can be formed. And I suspect that it forms out of Good and Bad decisions. Over time if bear too was capable of acting against his instinct, repercussion would follow.

I am going to post something in a minute that I think helps illustrate this.

Gen 3:17

And to Adam, God said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit when I told you not to, I have placed a curse upon the soil. All your life you will struggle to extract a living from it."

Other versions:

cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Let's look at, "All your life you will struggle to extract a living from it." Well, so, are you telling me that if Adam wouldn't have listened to Eve then we would have never struggled, we would have never worked hard? The word struggle is subjective, because what is struggle? Does a dog struggle? When we see other animals we may view them as struggling but in their own minds are they struggling? We may *think* an animal is struggling (because he may *appear* to be) but this animal only knows his struggle as "the way it is."

From OUR POINT OF VIEW WE WILL STRUGGLE.

in sorrow, in toil, shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

A dog does not eat of it, in sorrow. A bear does not eat of it, in toil. This is ONLY a *point of view*. And in our current state, MAN is the only species capable of this point of view.

Life is a struggle. In sorrow, in toil, you work hard day in and day out to extract a living. The *mind* gets in the way of what would have been, just the way it is.

Gen 3:16

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.

I will greatly multiply thy sorrow

in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.

At some point you're going to have to realize that you're just making **** up.

interesting thread

This thread was the result of information that just came to me. Because of the way I presented it, it doesn't allow you to see the missing link. But the answer is here and as I left it in the SMP thread..

How do you know animals (besides ourselves) don't have an idea, even if a limited one, of right/wrong or good/bad?

Whats the difference between an animal you can train and one you cant?