How different do you think the world would be if.............

[ABikerSailor]

Okay, finally decided to start a thread about this.

The other day, my roomie and I were sitting around talking about theology and God, and I asked her what would have the world turned out like if Adam and Eve had simply admitted to what they did? I mean, God is Love and God forgives if you are sincere in your repentance and resolve to never do that again.

The original sin of the Garden of Eden isn't really talked about much, but what was it? The answer is simple.........it wasn't so much about eating the apple, it was refusing to take responsibility for their actions.

When God asked Adam why he ate the apple, Adam told Him that it was the fault of the woman He'd made for him, because she was the one to give it to him.

Eve refused to take responsiblity either, because she blamed it on the serpent.

Now, in both the 7 Noahide Commandments AND in the 10 Commandments, there is a very specific rule concerning lying. Father said don't when He stated "Thou shalt not bear false witness".

So, my question is, if Adam and Eve had told the truth and took responsiblity, what would the world be like today? Because as previously stated, God forgives sins if you are truly repentant, and I'm pretty sure He could have fixed the situation quite easily if they hadn't lied to Him about what they did.

Discuss...........................

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Adam and Eve were, prior to the fall, perfect beings. No disease, no sickness for all intents immortal.

One has to figure out first where the people that Cain joined came from when he was driven out. It would appear to me that God created other people or Cain would have had no one to join.

So lets assume God Created the other imperfect humans as well. If Adam and Eve had not sinned then we would have had perfect people in the Garden and imperfect people on earth. No telling where that would have lead. I assume from the telling that the Garden of Eden was a special place.

 

[ABikerSailor]

And for a follow on question............if God had actually forgiven Adam and Eve and allowed them to remain in the Garden, do you think sending Yeshua would have been necessary?

 

[ABikerSailor]

Adam and Eve were, prior to the fall, perfect beings. No disease, no sickness for all intents immortal.

One has to figure out first where the people that Cain joined came from when he was driven out. It would appear to me that God created other people or Cain would have had no one to join.

So lets assume God Created the other imperfect humans as well. If Adam and Eve had not sinned then we would have had perfect people in the Garden and imperfect people on earth. No telling where that would have lead. I assume from the telling that the Garden of Eden was a special place.

Yes, but they would still be living with Him, and probably would have spread out all over the place.

As far as other "imperfect" humans? Do you think that the Genesis story took place around the same time as the "missing link"? Maybe humans were God's experiment in genetic modification to change us from Neanderthals into modern humans.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Some writers have proposed that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in antiquity or prehistory and made contact with humans. Such visitors are called ancient astronauts or ancient aliens. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of human cultures, technologies and religions. A common variant of the idea is that deities from most, if not all, religions are actually extraterrestrials, and their technologies were taken as evidence of their divine status.[1][2]

Ancient astronauts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even History Channel's "The Universe" as well as several other shows have explored this possibility.

 

[The Irish Ram]

God did forgive them, but rules are rules and they only had 1. He continued to watch over them, but not from the garden. Jesus would not have been necessary, had they not broken the rule.
But God, and Jesus knew before God created these new beings, these little lambs, these children, exactly what Adam and Eve would do. They knew who to blame, and put the redemption plan together, before Adam was even born. It is odd, but that act of that particular disobedience by Eve actually in bedded sin into her blood. And Eve passed it along to every human born after her, like a congenital defect.
If you never sinned once in your life, without Christ shedding his blood, you would not meet the requirements for admittance to Heaven because sin is coursing through your veins. I'm not sure why, but what they did went way beyond eating a piece of fruit. There are tons of similarities between Jesus and Adam. He is referred to as the 2nd. Adam.

Jesus started into motion, a plan that will end in a renewed Earth. It will be the garden God intended. The lion will lay down with the lamb, no tears, no sorrow, no death, an abundance of dimensions, Agape love. We'll be able to walk with our Father in the cool of the evening. There will be no pain in childbirth, no thorns, no sickness, no hatred, no evil.

ABS, you really don't believe your grampa was a Neanderthal do you? Neanderthals were a different species than Modern Man, although they have found some Neanderthal DNA is a few humans. Camps consisting of a mentally advanced people were living side by side. We have dug their camps up and compared the two groups. The more Modern group may have even mated with a few Neanderthals. The Neanderthal species, died out possibly due to climate change, leading to a lack of food, or may have been killed off.

 

[Dragon]

There are actually two creation stories in Genesis. The first one is the one where "the Gods" (Elohim) created the world in six days, and created man as their last act, "male and female." It bears a strong resemblance to creation stories from Mesopotamia, and, given that Abraham was from Ur, that's probably where it came from.

The second is the one where the Hebrew God (YHVH) created a man, Adam, and placed him in the Garden of Eden. This is a different story altogether, with a different message and meaning. I don't find anything like it in Mesopotamian mythos, so it may be indigenous Hebrew oral tradition.

(Note: I use the word "Hebrew" rather than "Jewish" because I don't believe that Judaism properly so called existed prior to the Babylonian Captivity. The Hebrews before that time were not monotheistic, which is surely a cardinal tenet of Judaism as it exists today.)

There are echoes of polytheism in this story, as when JHVH says -- apparently to his fellow-Gods -- that something needs to be done, or, knowing good and evil, man will become like the Gods.

There are also echoes of the transition from foraging/hunting to settled farming and civilized life, in this case by way of pastoralism. Herding animals was the other road to proto-civilization besides farming. Note the conflict between Cain and Abel, in which Abel kept sheep but Cain farmed.

Anyway, there's a suggestion of the acquisition of knowledge driving man out of an idyllic lifestyle. There's also a mystical meaning, in that the knowledge of good and evil, or rather the act of deciding what is good and what is evil (because there is after all no objective "fact" of good or evil), is what creates division in the universe and pulls the soul out of the bliss of oneness.

What I'm suggesting here is that it's a huge mistake to take these stories at face value, literally. Like all myths, they have layers of meaning, and those layers of meaning are what's important, not any historical value, which in this case is surely nil.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Apparently, you've missed the point............

Assuming that Adam and Eve had admitted they messed up and fessed up to the lie, if they'd asked for forgiveness, God (based on what we're told) would forgive them.

What do you think the world would be like now?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I had always come out with a different interpretation of the Eden story, I thought it was how selfawareness set us apart from the world.

I have to reread it later and respond.

Credit where due on a great OP

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Adam and Eve were, prior to the fall, perfect beings. No disease, no sickness for all intents immortal.

One has to figure out first where the people that Cain joined came from when he was driven out. It would appear to me that God created other people or Cain would have had no one to join.

So lets assume God Created the other imperfect humans as well. If Adam and Eve had not sinned then we would have had perfect people in the Garden and imperfect people on earth. No telling where that would have lead. I assume from the telling that the Garden of Eden was a special place.

Or we could just assume the likely reality that Adam and Eve never existed and are a story made up to teach a lesson.

 

[ABikerSailor]

I had always come out with a different interpretation of the Eden story, I thought it was how selfawareness set us apart from the world.

I have to reread it later and respond.

Credit where due on a great OP

Actually, this question first came up after watching a show on God's Learning Channel called "Hidden in the Hebrew" with Uri Harel. It's a really good show, because he takes the actual literal translation directly from Hebrew to English, and also shows the nuances of how the original was written and why things either are or aren't there.

His reading of the Eden story actually showed that it wasn't so much they sinned by actually EATING the apple, it was that they LIED and didn't take responsibility. Like I said, when God asked Adam why he ate it, his first statement was that the woman that God had made for him to keep him companionship was the one that urged him to eat it, and Eve avoided it by blaming it on the serpent.

And.......like I said, it states quite plainly in the 7 Noahide Commandments as well as in the 10 Commandments that "thou shalt not bear false witness".

Me personally? I think the world would be a lot better and caring because everyone would be in cooperation and harmony.

Remember.............there's only a few things that God said don't do, so what do you do if you can't do those things?

Everything else.

 

[amrchaos]

Was Adam and Eve perfect in the beginning? then how did they gain the flaw of lying from the serpent?

By example? By fear? Maybe Adam and eve were not perfect?

 

[strollingbones]

god could have forgiven them anyway, if he had chosen to?

cain goes east of eden into the land of nod....obviously...adam and eve were the first (well if you ignore lilith, adams first wife who refused to be submissive to adam) but not the only humans made

 

[ABikerSailor]

Was Adam and Eve perfect in the beginning? then how did they gain the flaw of lying from the serpent?

By example? By fear? Maybe Adam and eve were not perfect?

Actually, they were created perfect, but according to what Mr. Harel taught, they were still very much like children in their understanding of things.

Might be helpful to think of the Tree of Knowledge like a liquor cabinet, and Father tells you to keep out of it, but doesn't tell you why.

Then........Father comes to visit Adam and Eve and notices that they're acting strangely by hiding from Him, just like the parent would notice strange behavior in their kids if they came home and they were drunk.

But........like any good parent, after you get over being mad, and if the child told you that yes they did it, but it was because they were curious, wouldn't you forgive your child and teach them why they shouldn't have alcohol until they have a better understanding of what it is?

Like I said.........it's a hypothetical, but plausible question.

 

[strollingbones]

so why did god elect to banish them and not forgive them....might also be a question

 

[mudwhistle]

What they did was learn about sex.

Children run arouin naked until they find out what their genitals are ued for. Then they get modest all of the sudden.

Now if Adam had said "YEAH, I FUCKED HER!!!!!"

God would have struck him down with a lightning bolt.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

so why did god elect to banish them and not forgive them....might also be a question

To answer both you and the previous post. God banished them because the knowledge they learned from eating of the tree could not be unlearned.

 

[zzzz]

Since GOD is omniscient then GOD knew they would eat of the forbidden fruit when he created them. All that followed, GOD was aware that would happen. What became and what is to become is known only to GOD and there is no alternate scenario. Once they ate the fruit they brought sin into the world which made lying possible.

 

[strollingbones]

but why was knowing a dangerous thing? would knowing make them question god?

plus i did not realize god had limits?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

but why was knowing a dangerous thing? would knowing make them question god?

plus i did not realize god had limits?

He did not want them to have the knowledge. Once they had it he punished them for disobedience and refusing to take responsibility for their actions.

You will have to ask God why he did not want us to have the knowledge. I suspect a previous poster hit it on the head, now they could learn how to cheat and lie.