Dawkins dissed again and again (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 05:09 (3646 days ago) @ romansh

BM:Considering that original sin amounts to not keeping the commands, we can only auume that is part of what was meant here.
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> R: From where I sit ... for the vast majority of Christians, God is the ultimate dualistic theological position.
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> Man is separate from from god. Jesus got crucified for claiming otherwise (at least in the myth). If anyone tries saying this today they are labelled an atheist.
> -Um, no. That was not why Jesus was crucified, nor is that concept supported anywhere in the Bible. Now, I am not going to debate the many varied claims of God's fanclub, but the text itself makes no such claim. -->R: Regarding original sin ... I think Christians have got the concept oh so wrong. When we read the relevant bits of Genesis 3 ... we find that in the mythical story of GoE ... Adam and Eve were thown out of Eden for disobeying God and startig to think in terms of good and evil. 
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> Thinking dualistically was the original sin 
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> Not the dressed up dogma we have today.-I don't have to refute this, the Bible does a far better job:-Genesis 3:8-20-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?"-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."-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."
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17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,'-.....-So, no, they were not kicked out simply for thinking dualistically. The were kicked out for disobedience and for not accepting responsibility. (Notice how both Adam and Eve tried to blame it on someone else.)-Thinking dualistically was part of the result of disobedience. And, for the record, I do not know nor care if it were literal fruit or something else. The intent of the passage regarding disobedience is very clear. -This is also backed up with 1 John 5:3, where loving god is equated to 'keeping his commands'. Essentially, Adam and Eve decided they knew best and screwed things up. Bears a remarkable resemblance to modern human activity, doesn't it?

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.