[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
…I had forgotten we were discussing whether the fruit recommended to the first human woman by a talking snake…
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Was it a snake as we now know snakes? If so, how could that be? Have you read the description of said animal in Genesis 3?
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I can’t say as I’ve known many snakes personally, but the ones to whom I have been introduced have been conspicuous in their inability to speak. So clearly, human speech is a trait that has not survived the intervening millennia of herpetic evolution.
As to the Eden serpent’s craftiness or subtlety (depending on which translation of Genesis you use), Tom T. Hall observed this quality in the modern breed, capturing its essence in his immortal ballad Sneaky Snake. So that, at least, is unchanged.
The serpent is commanded to “go upon his belly” and “eat dust”, which perhaps could be indicative of the primordial serpent’s possession of legs, and its subsequent loss of them. This is of course confirmed in the fossil record.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
No, the Hebrews compiled the Bible…Pentateuch, actually…first few chapters of Genesis more actually.
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Compiled? The Jews believe Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch - “Moses wrote down everything that The Lord had said” and then took the “book of the covenant” and “read it to the people”.
But besides, what difference does it make? You seem to be always looking for some correction you can make to anything I say about the bible.
[quote]
The first Hebrew was likely Eber (root word of Hebrew) who lived a few generations before Abraham. This feller came along in Gen 10 and 11.
So it would have been impossible that Hebrews wrote (originated, rather) the first nine or so chapters of Genesis – they could have only compiled the written or oral data that was handed down to them. And their is evidence that the data passed down had been passed down in written form.[/quote]
Well, yes written by Moses.
"I can’t say as I’ve known many snakes personally, but the ones to whom I have been introduced have been conspicuous in their inability to speak. So clearly, human speech is a trait that has not survived the intervening millennia of herpetic evolution. "
There are some seriously dangerous snakes in Australia. The one’s I have seen I haven’t tried to talk to.lol
[quote]pushharder wrote:
This is all fun to know but does nothing to advance the idea that the pomegranate was the forbidden fruit.[/quote]
I don’t think either SexMachine or I had that as a serious aim.
But I’ll betcha we could write a grant proposal to the University of Alabama botany department to fund doctoral research into the matter.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Not that it matters, SexMachine, but do you believe that there were at one time actually, literally, two deciduous trees growing somewhere in Mesopotamia, the fruit of one conferring immortality upon its eater, and the other conferring the power to discern good from evil?
Because I’ve read about this one tree, growing in the garden of the Hesperides in the southern Iberian peninsula, on which grew golden apples that similarly conferred immortality, and I wonder if you think they might have been the same or similar species. [/quote]
Well, I’m not sure about the historicity of the bible but I have commented previously about the similar themes and stories of different people’s founding myths. This is perennialists see much significance in. The deluge story for example appears in Sumerian and even Chinese mythology in very similar form.[/quote]
Well, this makes perfect sense. After all the Deluge didn’t happen to the Hebrews; it happened to their ancestors – the same ancestors of the Sumerians and Chinese.
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Yes indeed.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Well, I’m not sure about the historicity of the bible but I have commented previously about the similar themes and stories of different people’s founding myths. This is perennialists see much significance in. The deluge story for example appears in Sumerian and even Chinese mythology in very similar form.
[/quote]
Speaking of the deluge, as an Australian Christian, just how do you think all of the postdiluvian marsupials managed to find their way back home from Ararat?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Well, I’m not sure about the historicity of the bible but I have commented previously about the similar themes and stories of different people’s founding myths. This is perennialists see much significance in. The deluge story for example appears in Sumerian and even Chinese mythology in very similar form.
[/quote]
Speaking of the deluge, as an Australian Christian, just how do you think all of the postdiluvian marsupials managed to find their way back home from Ararat?[/quote]
Dunno. Homing signal like pigeons and salmon?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Dawkins is such a smug, smarmy, arrogant little non-entity. Paired with Bill Maher, applauding themselves, building a strawman about why don’t monkeys evolve in front of us at the zoo - it’s literally stomach churning. And these creeps like Dawkins are always the first to come out with morally deviant positions on things like child molestation(harmless touching as Dawkins calls it) or late term abortion on demand, “encouraging” the elderly to submit to euthanasia - and why not? Ethics are fluid and subjective and what does anything matter anyway to a nihilist?[/quote]
He called the molestation that happened to him, harmless touching, as opposed to more appalling pedophilia, he fact you tried to twist that fact is quite messed up.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]pabergin wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
How about we just get better at the technique. I mean we’ll end up full on Huxley, but shit… We’ve got 1984, why not?
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Here is a chilling fact, if you consider an embryo equivalent to a fully-developed infant. The way we have recently got better at the technique is not to reduce the number of embryos produced, but to increase them, and select only the genetically strongest candidates for implantation, based on the amount of mitochondrial DNA in the embryonic nuclei.
Yes, this is eugenics. The only difference between doing this and doing what the Spartans did is that we don’t have to wait a full forty weeks before chucking the weaklings off the cliff.[/quote]
Would you consider eugenics to be “intelligent design”? [/quote]
Nope. Unnatural selection.
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Since humans are a part of nature anything we do is natural.
and swimming with their little arms.lol
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Well, I’m not sure about the historicity of the bible but I have commented previously about the similar themes and stories of different people’s founding myths. This is perennialists see much significance in. The deluge story for example appears in Sumerian and even Chinese mythology in very similar form.
[/quote]
Speaking of the deluge, as an Australian Christian, just how do you think all of the postdiluvian marsupials managed to find their way back home from Ararat?[/quote]
Dunno. Homing signal like pigeons and salmon?[/quote]
Oh dear. And here I was expecting a reasonable response such as “the deluge was a local event, not a global one, so there were no marsupials aboard the ark”.
Ah well.
Animals kill their young if they know they won’t be able to feed them or if the little one won’t survive. I like to think we are a bit above the animals tho,so…?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Well, I’m not sure about the historicity of the bible but I have commented previously about the similar themes and stories of different people’s founding myths. This is perennialists see much significance in. The deluge story for example appears in Sumerian and even Chinese mythology in very similar form.
[/quote]
Speaking of the deluge, as an Australian Christian, just how do you think all of the postdiluvian marsupials managed to find their way back home from Ararat?[/quote]
I’m not an Australian Christian but can I answer that?[/quote]
Sure, if you like.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Well, I’m not sure about the historicity of the bible but I have commented previously about the similar themes and stories of different people’s founding myths. This is perennialists see much significance in. The deluge story for example appears in Sumerian and even Chinese mythology in very similar form.
[/quote]
Speaking of the deluge, as an Australian Christian, just how do you think all of the postdiluvian marsupials managed to find their way back home from Ararat?[/quote]
Dunno. Homing signal like pigeons and salmon?[/quote]
Oh dear. And here I was expecting a reasonable response such as “the deluge was a local event, not a global one, so there were no marsupials aboard the ark”.
Ah well. [/quote]
I’m not convinced there was an ark filled with animal pairs. I don’t know for certain but I would imagine that particular bible narrative may not be an exact, historical description of what occurred.