Is it a sin to seek knowledge?

[HexHammer]

Hmmm? Why would water not be wet in itself?

Wet is the effect that water has on dry objects. You might as well say that fire is 'burnt'.

Just looked it up, and there's nothing to support your claim.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wet

Else please prove your claim.

[Hobbes' Choice]

What I see in the USA everyday is people freeing themselves of the church and returning to a natural morality.

Have you seen the fanatism that reign in the religious environment?

Yes - but I also see young people turning away form the church. Fundamentalism might be on the increase, but so is atheism.

[Hobbes' Choice]

[

And replace it with what to assuage our natural hivish natures that demand fellowship?


Regards
DL

Religion does not serve any function that requires replacement.

That is not what leading atheists are saying. If it was, they would not bother opening schools.

You might listen to the links I put above and perhaps think a bit more on why atheists are doing what they are doing.

Regards
DL[/quote]

The vast majority of atheistic people don't give a rat's arse about "atheist" schools. They are content to join a pottery club, or a football team, or a reading group.
And even the ones that actively choose to send their kids to a secular school (as all schools in the US ought to be constitutionally), they do it to avoid indoctrination, but not to seek it.

[Greatest I am]

As a parent I would teach them. I wouldn't let them learning by themselves.

Now compare your actions to God's who put Satan in Eden as the talking snake to insure that A & E learned on their own.

I suggest that you are a way better parent than God.

Regards
DL

It becomes obvious that you are not a parent, there are some lessons that you can teach, and some that you must allow them to learn for themselves. Would you teach them to ride a horse by telling them about it, or would you arrange for riding lessons knowing that they might fall off once in awhile.

I have 4 boys, now men and that is why I saw us both as better parents than the God you follow who put Satan right where Eve was to insure her deception.

Sure children can, do and should learn some things on their own.

That is hardly the case when a parent uses deception on them and then punishes them because their deception works.

Your fear of God has corrupted your morals where you forgive God for what you would condemn a man for doing.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

[

And replace it with what to assuage our natural hivish natures that demand fellowship?


Regards
DL

Religion does not serve any function that requires replacement.

That is not what leading atheists are saying. If it was, they would not bother opening schools.

You might listen to the links I put above and perhaps think a bit more on why atheists are doing what they are doing.

Regards
DL

The vast majority of atheistic people don't give a rat's arse about "atheist" schools. They are content to join a pottery club, or a football team, or a reading group.
And even the ones that actively choose to send their kids to a secular school (as all schools in the US ought to be constitutionally), they do it to avoid indoctrination, but to seek it.[/quote]

That last made 0 sense. Likely a grammatical error.

The term I used was atheist church, not school, and I do not agree as more of those are popping up all the time.

Regards
DL

[thedoc]

Your fear of God has corrupted your morals where you forgive God for what you would condemn a man for doing.

Regards
DL

One small error on your part, you are attributing to me all that you accuse all other Christians of being, and this is not the case. I'm not like every other Christian. I don't see the need to forgive God, because I don't attribute to God all that is written in the Bible, much of it is elaboration and exaggeration by the human writers of the Bible, done to impress a people whose world was violent by nature. It seems that you have fallen into the trap of stereotyping me with all the other Christians you have encountered in the past. Someday when you are willing to listen rather than accuse, I might elaborate, but I don't have everything worked out yet. I'm still working on it.

[Greatest I am]

Your fear of God has corrupted your morals where you forgive God for what you would condemn a man for doing.

Regards
DL

One small error on your part, you are attributing to me all that you accuse all other Christians of being, and this is not the case. I'm not like every other Christian. I don't see the need to forgive God, because I don't attribute to God all that is written in the Bible, much of it is elaboration and exaggeration by the human writers of the Bible, done to impress a people whose world was violent by nature. It seems that you have fallen into the trap of stereotyping me with all the other Christians you have encountered in the past. Someday when you are willing to listen rather than accuse, I might elaborate, but I don't have everything worked out yet. I'm still working on it.

Working with a corrupted book that you are cherry picking that shows a vile and immoral God.

Good luck with that.

Regards
DL

[thedoc]

Working with a corrupted book that you are cherry picking that shows a vile and immoral God.

Good luck with that.

Regards
DL

And you have cherry picked that same book in order to characterize God as you do. It looks more like projection on your part.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Religion does not serve any function that requires replacement.

That is not what leading atheists are saying. If it was, they would not bother opening schools.

You might listen to the links I put above and perhaps think a bit more on why atheists are doing what they are doing.

Regards
DL

The vast majority of atheistic people don't give a rat's arse about "atheist" schools. They are content to join a pottery club, or a football team, or a reading group.
And even the ones that actively choose to send their kids to a secular school (as all schools in the US ought to be constitutionally), they do it to avoid indoctrination, not to seek it.[/quote]

The term I used was atheist church, not school, and I do not agree as more of those are popping up all the time.

Regards
DL

There are no "atheist churches" in civilised countries.

[ReliStuPhD]

How can you use so many quotes and I can't. Sigh.

You can nest up to three and it looks something like this (I used parentheses rather than brackets so it shows up): (quote="Greatest I am")(quote="ReliStuPhD")(quote="Greatest I am")...
Then, at the end of each individuals quote, you add the /quote code.

My main comments are that you have taken the good out of the tree of knowledge of good AND evil and seem to think that evil can be known without also knowing it's opposite. You are brighter than that.

No, I get that that's your point, but my point is that the "good" part doesn't matter. In effect, it would mean simply that Adam and Eve now knew what to call what they'd been doing all along. Sort of like "Ohhhhhh, so the fact that we've been taking care of all these animals for 4 years is what God calls 'good.'" What they did not have (or so the story goes) was a sense that "I can kill this animal and leave the carcass to rot" (or, more generally, "this is what I do if I want to disobey God"). Prior to the tree, what Adam and Eve were doing was good, so the tree didn't give them new knowledge there. What it did give them was knowledge of evil, and suddenly what they'd been doing all along was now "good" by contrast. In a sense, all the "good" they learned was what to call it. The vast majority of what the learned--99.9999%--was evil. That is, they learned things they would never have thought of otherwise: bad things.

Does that make better sense?

You also indicate that it was good in the garden before they ate.

Well, it was, right? The Garden was how God wanted it, Adam & Eve were obedient, etc, etc, etc. That's the good piece.

Is a person a better person with or without the moral sense that comes from knowing of good and evil?

That's a great question, but as far as the story goes, it's just not on the radar. Adam & Eve did the only thing that mattered: they obeyed God. Until they didn't, and all this mess came about.

I would say a person is better with a moral sense so think again buddy. You are better with a moral sense.

Post-Fall, I agree. Pre-Fall, perhaps not.

Right, Original Sin comes later, but it's clear from the narrative that the original authors definitely saw Eve's move as the beginning of humans' downfall.

Sure but look at all the other garbage they believe.

Ah, but now we're not debating the narrative, which is where you started. I'm really just interested that we get the narrative right (i.e. that God was not forbidding all knowledge, just a certain type). I'm not overly concerned about whether it's "true," or "good," or trustworthy, etc.

[Greatest I am]

Working with a corrupted book that you are cherry picking that shows a vile and immoral God.

Good luck with that.

Regards
DL

And you have cherry picked that same book in order to characterize God as you do. It looks more like projection on your part.

I am somewhat depraved. No argument.

But not nearly as depraved as your God who you can somehow justify in his torturing of King David's baby for 6 days before finally murdering it because of his anger with the king.

Enjoy your satanic God but do try to keep him away from babies.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Religion does not serve any function that requires replacement.

That is not what leading atheists are saying. If it was, they would not bother opening schools.

You might listen to the links I put above and perhaps think a bit more on why atheists are doing what they are doing.

Regards
DL

The vast majority of atheistic people don't give a rat's arse about "atheist" schools. They are content to join a pottery club, or a football team, or a reading group.
And even the ones that actively choose to send their kids to a secular school (as all schools in the US ought to be constitutionally), they do it to avoid indoctrination, not to seek it.

The term I used was atheist church, not school, and I do not agree as more of those are popping up all the time.

Regards
DL

There are no "atheist churches" in civilised countries.[/quote]

I agree. The U.S. is not yet civilized.

http://www.churchoffreethought.org/

http://firstchurchofatheism.com/ministers/

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

How can you use so many quotes and I can't. Sigh.

You can nest up to three and it looks something like this (I used parentheses rather than brackets so it shows up): (quote="Greatest I am")(quote="ReliStuPhD")(quote="Greatest I am")...
Then, at the end of each individuals quote, you add the /quote code.

My main comments are that you have taken the good out of the tree of knowledge of good AND evil and seem to think that evil can be known without also knowing it's opposite. You are brighter than that.

No, I get that that's your point, but my point is that the "good" part doesn't matter. In effect, it would mean simply that Adam and Eve now knew what to call what they'd been doing all along. Sort of like "Ohhhhhh, so the fact that we've been taking care of all these animals for 4 years is what God calls 'good.'" What they did not have (or so the story goes) was a sense that "I can kill this animal and leave the carcass to rot" (or, more generally, "this is what I do if I want to disobey God"). Prior to the tree, what Adam and Eve were doing was good, so the tree didn't give them new knowledge there. What it did give them was knowledge of evil, and suddenly what they'd been doing all along was now "good" by contrast. In a sense, all the "good" they learned was what to call it. The vast majority of what the learned--99.9999%--was evil. That is, they learned things they would never have thought of otherwise: bad things.

Does that make better sense?

You also indicate that it was good in the garden before they ate.

Well, it was, right? The Garden was how God wanted it, Adam & Eve were obedient, etc, etc, etc. That's the good piece.

Is a person a better person with or without the moral sense that comes from knowing of good and evil?

That's a great question, but as far as the story goes, it's just not on the radar. Adam & Eve did the only thing that mattered: they obeyed God. Until they didn't, and all this mess came about.

I would say a person is better with a moral sense so think again buddy. You are better with a moral sense.

Post-Fall, I agree. Pre-Fall, perhaps not.

Right, Original Sin comes later, but it's clear from the narrative that the original authors definitely saw Eve's move as the beginning of humans' downfall.

Sure but look at all the other garbage they believe.

Ah, but now we're not debating the narrative, which is where you started. I'm really just interested that we get the narrative right (i.e. that God was not forbidding all knowledge, just a certain type). I'm not overly concerned about whether it's "true," or "good," or trustworthy, etc.

Bottom line.

Any who think Eden as good, --- with A & E too stupid to even reproduce, remember they were told to way back in Gen 1, must not like life because if A. & E. had not eaten of the tree of almost all knowledge, none of us would be here.

Regards
DL

[Hobbes' Choice]

There are no "atheist churches" in civilised countries.

I agree. The U.S. is not yet civilized.

http://www.churchoffreethought.org/

http://firstchurchofatheism.com/ministers/

Regards
DL

Indeed. My point exactly.

[ReliStuPhD]

Bottom line.

Any who think Eden as good, --- with A & E too stupid to even reproduce, remember they were told to way back in Gen 1, must not like life because if A. & E. had not eaten of the tree of almost all knowledge, none of us would be here.

No, the bottom line is that you're still trying to make the narrative say more than it does. The inability to procreate prior to the Fall just isn't there.