"Atheists Killed >140 millions" is Fallacious

[bahman]

If she was fooled, it was not without her deliberate will and consent. The passage clearly says,

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate." (Gen. 3:6)

It says she made her choice on three considerations: the tree looked good, it was appealing to the eyes, and that it would bring new information. She had her reasons, obviously, and for her, they were weighed against the commandment of God. She chose her rebellion.

However, her sin is later slightly -- but far from totally -- extenuated on the basis you mention...that she was at least a little bit fooled, but Adam knew fully what he was doing. The difference, however, is not great; nor is the difference in the result very great.

I am talking about the verse that the Serpent said that God would not punish you if you eat from the tree.

Keeping in mind that we are debating the details of a myth, as in something that never actually took place in any real sense,...

...the question is, how can beings who do not yet possess the knowledge of good and evil (right from wrong) be held accountable for their actions, especially when the one making the big stink about it (God) did absolutely nothing to protect such clueless beings from, again, the evilest most insidiously persuasive demon in all of reality?

Should we punish a toddler because an adult pedophile talked her into allowing the pedophile to sexually abuse her?
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True. And the Serpent lied to Eve and fooled Eve according to Genesis:

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

[seeds]

Should we punish a toddler because an adult pedophile talked her into allowing the pedophile to sexually abuse her?

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.
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[promethean75]

Boom.

[bahman]

Should we punish a toddler because an adult pedophile talked her into allowing the pedophile to sexually abuse her?

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.
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Yes.

[Peter Kropotkin]

to my mind, the question is really about this ''tree of knowledge of good and evil''
innocence is thought of to be ignorant of the ''knowledge of good and evil"
to gain knowledge, gaining knowledge of ''good and evil'' is wisdom..
and yet forbidden by god.... and so the question must be asked,
why ban/forbid the wisdom of knowing what is, good and evil?
why this knowledge and not another knowledge?

would human beings benefit in some fashion in not knowing
''good and evil?" in thinking about this, why is it even ''good AND evil''
instead of ''good vs evil''.... saying ''good and evil'' implies/suggest
that there is no difference between good and evil.... they are the same thing,
if the tree of knowledge has the apple which gives us ''good and evil''
if god can't tell the difference between the two, then perhaps there
is no difference between good and evil?

in the Garden of Eden, there is no knowledge of good and evil, it is
innocent of that knowledge...and it is considered to be an ideal place
to live in... a superior model as it were...and yet, there is no knowledge
of ''good and evil'' does that mean if we wanted to return to the Garden
of Eden.. would we need to dump any knowledge of ''good and evil?''

if as god suggests, that the highest knowledge to know, was
''good and evil'' then why don't we spend more time on understanding
what good is and what evil is? oh, wait god did tell us?
and most people, including so called Christians just ignore that
knowledge... ''thou shall not kill'' for example is completely ignored...
as is the one about adultery..... or said another way, Christian pick
and choose which aspects of the ten commandments applies to them..
which is... wait for it, situational ethics...the situation dictates the
ethics.. but does situational ethics, actually part of the knowledge
of good and evil and that we should know? which is just another
brick in the wall....

Kropotkin

[Immanuel Can]

I am talking about the verse that the Serpent said that God would not punish you if you eat from the tree.

He doesn't say that, actually. His lie is more subtle. It's that he calls into question God's motivation for prohibiting Eve from getting knowledge that there are such things as good and evil. He tells her that she will "be like" God, if she knows these things.

And in one sense, that's actually true: God does know what the difference between good and evil is; but where the Tempter lied is when he said, "You shall not surely die." That much is a plain lie.

But Eve did not need to believe the lie. She could have believed God, instead. But she didn't. As we saw, she had her own reasons for preferring what she was hearing. And that's why her choice was not just a choice of a fruit, but rather a decision to sever her own choice from God, and thus to rupture her formerly benign relationship with God.

He certainly said that you won't die if you eat the fruit opposite of what God said.

You didn't read carefully. Look above: I wrote, "...where the Tempter lied is when he said, "You shall not surely die." That much is a plain lie."

Pretty clear, no? Pretty hard to misread, if one was reading at all.

[Harbal]

Should we punish a toddler because an adult pedophile talked her into allowing the pedophile to sexually abuse her?

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.
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Excellent point, seeds.

[Immanuel Can]

Should we punish a toddler because an adult pedophile talked her into allowing the pedophile to sexually abuse her?

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.

That's incorrect, actually.

She had already been told, by God,"...for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." She did not know what evil was, but she knew very well what the consequences of arrogating to herself that knowledge were. And she knew very well Who was telling her that, so she knew very well which relationship she was prioritizing when she did what she did. It was, at the very best, a clear action of disloyalty and betrayal.

[Immanuel Can]

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.
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Excellent point, seeds.

Not so great. Read the response first.

[nemos]

She had already been told, by God,"...for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." ...

Eve and Adam were the first people, what exactly did they know about death? Did they bury someone while living in paradise?

[seeds]

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.
_______

Excellent point, seeds.

Thank you, Harbal.

Indeed, it seems pretty obvious when you think about it.

However, as you can see, the resident "spin doctor" is having none of it.
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[seeds]

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.

That's incorrect, actually.

She had already been told, by God,"...for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die."

And why in the world would you expect a person,...

(who, by all practical definitions, was a "child" who had absolutely no knowledge of what good or evil was truly about)

...again, why would you expect that child to trust the word of a Being who stood by and did absolutely nothing to prevent the evilest demon in all reality from taking advantage of her "pre-sin" cluelessness by using its biblically acknowledged "crafty-ness" to talk her into sampling a forbidden fruit?

Now maybe an argument can be made about the fact that after Eve acquired the knowledge of good and evil, then perhaps...

(depending on how fast acting the magic in the fruit was )

...she should have known not to drag poor ol' Adam into the situation.

But, hey, what are wives for if not to get us guys into trouble (and vice-versa). Or perhaps it was simply an instance of "misery loves company," right?

Anyway, the bottom line is that no matter what God may have said to Eve, the fact still remains that, again, prior to her eating the forbidden fruit, Eve had absolutely no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong.

In other words, Eve's (before and after) innocence is implicit in the very premise of the story.

In which case, when it comes to that so-called "original sin" representing the official point in time when the "fall of man" took place, which, in turn, condemned all subsequent humans to be the inheritors of the guilt and consequences associated with the sins of Adam and Eve,...

...let's consult the forum's leading expert on the proper way of viewing the situation...

Do you want to make children guilty for what their distant forefathers chose to do? In what court would that be considered "justice"?

You don't become guilty by being born. That's ridiculous...

...So I call "hogwash" on that.

Such reasonable and logical words are rarely ever spoken by IC, which is why I like to trot them out from time to time.
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[Immanuel Can]

She had already been told, by God,"...for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." ...

Eve and Adam were the first people, what exactly did they know about death? Did they bury someone while living in paradise?

I can't tell you for sure what they knew about the meaning of death. Maybe little, maybe much, depending on what God had revealed to them. But I can tell you that they knew very clearly Who told them that that knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, was not intended for them, and that they should not desire it.

[Immanuel Can]

...who, by all practical definitions, was a "child"...

Very adult, actually. And they had all the volition they needed to do the right thing, and to do the wrong thing.

[Age]

Toddlers have insufficient judgment to make decisions. Eve clearly was capable of deliberation and of finding her own reasons to do whatever she chose to do. And she was informed of and knew the full consequences in advance, as well; that, toddlers do not do. So the analogy really doesn't fit at all.

Prior to eating the fruit, the mythological Eve had absolutely no knowledge of good and evil, as in no way of knowing if her decision to eat the fruit was right or wrong, period, end of story.

That's incorrect, actually.

She had already been told, by God,

How exactly do you propose God spoke to "eve"?

And, how did "eve" hear, those words?

When you also come to know and understand the True and Right Correct answers here, then you will be better able to speak of and about such things, and also be better able to be heard, and understood.

Until then what you say and claim here just sound utterly absurd and ridiculous, to a lot of people.

"...for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." She did not know what evil was, but she knew very well what the consequences of arrogating to herself that knowledge were. And she knew very well Who was telling her that, so she knew very well which relationship she was prioritizing when she did what she did. It was, at the very best, a clear action of disloyalty and betrayal.

Which you believe "yourself" "immanuel can" you are doing here, right?