The Land of Exile

[TrueTomHarley]

9 hours ago, Pudgy said:

My considerations take into account the hard, hard evidence that human civilization is in various areas verifiabily 100,000 years and more old.

Maybe they’ll change it.

Or maybe we’ll learn to deal with the whole thing as a metaphor. (though I don’t see how)

Meanwhile, if someone starts giving me a hard time over this in the ministry, I tell them its okay to treat it as a metaphor, and on that basis, see what can they draw from it. A certain type of person almost takes that as a compliment—that you are not rubbing their nose in ‘Adam & Eve’ but you are deeming them smart enough that they can figure out a metaphor. I even briefly won over my return visit Bernard Strawman, whom everyone but me thinks is a waste of time, on this point.

I used to call people like this ones who suffer from “We are wise and learned adults, far too clever to be sold Adam and Eve. What’s next—Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck?” syndrome. But now I drop the derisiveness, which does little good anyhow, and just invite them to treat it as a metaphor. After all, science is pretty universal that Adam & Eve is for dumbbells, and we are all taught that science is the be-all and end-all. Training like that doesn’t turn around on a dime.

Sometimes when they see how well the metaphor works out they forget all about “science” and they put their “cognitive dissonance” on the shelf as something to work out later. You don’t have to know everything. It’s the antithesis of humility to think that you do—or can.

I’’m convinced the phrase “cognitive dissonance” is an appeal to our pride and overall dumbs us down. It is an idea worthy of a pamphlet, but not the volumes dedicated to it. People can’t simultaneously hold two conflicting ideas as true at the same time? Of course they can. A little humility solves the problem, a willingness to put this or that on the shelf pending more information, which may or may not come, but in the meantime, you can’t rush it. You can’t just check yourself at the door because of a few facts that don’t line up. I note how often in mathematics, proofs will commence with assuming this or that point is true, and then seeing where that assumption leads. They don’t just stop dead in their tracks because they don’t know up front whether something is true or not

When I first came across Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was astounded that here were people who actually believed in Adam and Eve. They didn’t look stupid, or if so in no greater proportion than anyone else, yet all my life I had heard that only the reddest of the rednecks believed in Adam and Eve.  I couldn’t figure it out. I decided to shelve it for future resolution. I still don’t know how certain things will align. But the answer to the ‘problem of evil,’—why a loving God would permit it, the answer to the reason for and origin of death, the coherent answer to the question of how Christ’s death could benefit us—all these things were so overwhelming, that I decided to give “science” the back seat, not the front seat it usually demands. Without Jesus as the “first Adam,” a perfect man who by holding the course, repurchased us from that first perfect man who sinned and sold us out, the question of ‘Why Jesus died from us’ devolves into a mushy and intellectually unsatisfying “because he loved us.” To be sure, the head is not everything, but neither is it nothing. 

There is some sort of chromosomal evidence that goes back about 6K years. I think @Araunaposted of it not too long ago. I haven’t looked at it closely. Maybe that represents the reconciliation of timelines that otherwise don’t reconcile. It is roundly shouted down by majority scientists today. But we ought to know by now that being shouted down by the majority means nothing. Doesn’t this entire thread establish that? Or what of @JW Insider, who takes a line contrary to almost everyone else (and i think he’s wrong on the point) and declares bad reports of the CCP overblown? Here he is shouted down, but perhaps elsewhere he is paraded around as a visionary. Anything can be spun any way, by people who may or not be disingenuous. 

The majority team gets the ball and then tilts the field so steeply as to tumble the minority team right off it.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

18 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I even briefly won over my return visit Bernard Strawman, whom everyone but me thinks is a waste of time, on this point.

After all, on a recent visit covered in TI&Me, while the whole car group waited hours in the driveway, Mr. Strawman told me that he might someday come to a meeting! See? He is progressing. The circuit overseer was wrong!

He also said something about climate change in hell, but I didn’t understand what he meant by that.

[Thinking]

8 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

 Font size 8 will be better for me to read  

 

8 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

 Font size 8 will be better for me to read  

Sorry don’t know how that happened ???..I cannot get it bigger than this

[Thinking]

9 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

 

Gen 1:29 -  Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

In this verse it would be possible to conclude how all Earth and ground are prepared for and, in fact giving food, not only for humans, but for animals too. Or, if we conclude how only Eden was filled with animals and first humans, then animals outside of Eden was starving and humans also. 

Some controversy or dilemma came from Genesis 2

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Here, report said how there is no shrub and plant. What, then, did the animals that were created thousands of years before humans eat at all? Reason for not existed shrub and plant was - missing of rain and no work from human hands. 

After, verses speaking about God who worked and planted ground of Eden, but rain was not needed as in first picture, because of streams and rivers which gave enough water for plants of all kind. Does this mean how streams and rivers inside Eden was sufficient for plants but not outside of Eden? Again, if so what have eaten all animals before Adam and Eve and before Eden? 

One thing is need to be take in consideration. After every creative day God said how every thing was "good". In this terminology, today we explain this as "perfect", without something that would missing. Animals were perfect, earth were perfect, the natural cycles were perfect. If God planted Eden and made it better and more beautiful than the rest of the planet Earth, does that mean that everything outside of Eden was “hell”? Why, when God says that all creation was "good" aka "perfect"?

You can live in the most beautiful of places that are still a hell hole because of the people that live there…the hell hole was what he would have made that place into  a emotional hell hole…full of fear and anxiety.

Jehovah made eden exquisite for Adam and Eve…they were then to go out and make the rest of the world such as he had given them…..they had to subdue it Gen 1:28….be fruitful and fill the earth and subdue it…..so there was work involved to make it such a paradise as Jehovah had given them,,,

we know he planted a special garden TOWARD THE EAST…that’s where he put the man whom he had formed Gen 2:8.

It is interesting about the east bit…Gen 3:23 says he was expelled from that garden…where all the blessings were…and into the land of sweat and hardwork and thistles…..they no longer had the blessings of favored rain and growth of plants etc….they were expelled out of the Eastern part of Eden…..they had rejected that gift from Jehovah.

we know they were expelled to a harsher land because of what Gen 3:17 says

and to Adam he said because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree concerning which I gave you this command YOU MUST NOT EAT FROM IT….CURSED is the ground on your account in Pain you will eat from its produce all the days of your life . It will grow thistles for you and you may eat the vegetation of the field and In The sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground …..

so yes Jehovah did make it lovely but even before they were put out of eden their job was to subdue the earth….great work to do because Jehovah’s blessings were with them…rain..good fruit trees and abundance of sweet water etc…but they lost his help….when exiled into a land without his blessings….

So Adam and eve along with Cain now lived in a harsher place….so up comes pudges question …Gen 4 :11..because Abels blood cried out from the earth….he banished Cain from that ground ( and now you are cursed in BANISHMENT FROM THE GROUND that has opened its mouth to receive your brothers blood from your hand,

The scriptures go on to say he had to leave the land he grew up in..and wander…and a FUGITIVE IN THE EARTH.

FUGITIVE…CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 

A person who is running away or hiding from the police or a dangerous situation….

This is why he was fearful…and worried about his future …..when it would become known by others…so he went to the land of Exile to the east of eden…Cain lived for over 700 years…lots of time to produce….some of those may have felt vindicated if they had killed him….imagining they would get some sort of blessing from Jehovah for it….who really knows..

King David’s son aspired to kill him and take over control of the kingship…why not one of cains descendants try the same thing and make out it was because of what he did to Abel…justifying his action?….who really knows….but there is no evidence in the Bible that others lived in that land he was exiled to…but if you find any I’d be interested..

But this story has a lot more meaning than any of us really understand…but then we get into types and anti types….

where ever Cain went…his personality and those of his descendants would have made that place into a hell hole to live….I certainly would not want them as my neighbors….

[Arauna]

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

There is some sort of chromosomal evidence that goes back about 6K years. I think @

. There is mitochondrial DNA and the number of generations can be counted. It is from this they determine that all people on earth are related through one woman. 

 

Pudgy, evolutionist theorists always give big numbers for hunter gatherer epochs - without much evidence. Then they also put the start of agriculture in a long period - whatever suits their theory.  However, urbanization (meaning cities and civilization)  goes back only 6000 years, some say 8000 at most.  This is much in line with the start of city- states next to large rivers and canals to plant food such as Sumerian culture, Babylon and Harappa cultures. Even Egypt existed next to a large river which gave food to cities and transport.  Close to  cities one found diversity of jobs such as a priest class, scribes, and those who manufactured pottery, textiles and of course animal husbandry.  Cities brought wealth. We see in time of Lot that 5 kings from the east came and carried Lott and his family away..... Abraham took his 300 slaves and went after them in war. To get them back. Cities brought large wars and eventually empires.. . After the flood, in Abraham's time there were many cities but the nomadic lifestyle was still viable with abundant  free open land. Later it became more crowded as isaac experienced some problems with the wells his father had built. Groups of people were encroaching on each other. After abraham left Ur it was destroyed. Early history is filled with war and peoples taken captive as slaves. Pottery and items in trash is still a good way to identify civilizations and how they traded with each other. 

[Srecko Sostar]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

You can live in the most beautiful of places that are still a hell hole because of the people that live there…the hell hole was what he would have made that place into  a emotional hell hole…full of fear and anxiety.

Of course, I agree. I hope you would not mind if say little more about this issue. According to some idea/guess from you or other about land outside of Eden, it looks bad, in my eyes, that God was not satisfied with enormous feelings of guilt, fear, disappointments etc in Adam and Eve, but He put more burden and punishment on them by physically made their life miserable. No one force God to curse the land and animals, nature as whole because of Adam and Eve. 

Have in mind how God explicitly told them they will die, just die .... not that they will suffer emotional and physical and mental pains because of eating from tree, not that land will be cursed, etc for next 8 or 9 centuries of their life !?!

 

 

[Arauna]

33 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

God was not satisfied with enormous feelings of guilt, fear, disappointments etc in Adam and Eve, but He put more burden and punishment on them by physically made their life miserable

They did not have remorse..... the bible does not show this. Neither does Satan have remorse.  ..... so you are working from a misconception and blaming God for putting them out of the paradise where everything was easy.  God does not bring evil over anyone..... but they bring it over themselves by selfishly putting their own desires first - before God! 

God is not unjust James 1: 13-15 

[Srecko Sostar]

2 hours ago, Arauna said:

They did not have remorse..... the bible does not show this.

This is some proof .. for what? Things not written not exist? 

[Pudgy]

7 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Things not written not exist? 

THAT .... is a very good point!

[Arauna]

9 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

This is some proof .. for what?

That your assumptions are wrong because it does not fit in with the rest of the bible.  The perfect angels who sinned did not show remorse and neither did Satan or Adam.  In fact there is good indication that those who were perfect and chose to sin do not show remorse. 

 

1 hour ago, Pudgy said:

THAT .... is a very good point!

It remains a imperfect postulation.  Jehovah has given us everything we need to logically think about the bible. There is no evidence that angels repent in fact it is states several times that they all will be removed forever!  Srecko unfortunately is thinking emotionally.  He would like all the wicked angels to be forgiven........  demonist thoughts.... taking sides of demons.

No doubt unintentionally - but still very bad thinking...

[Srecko Sostar]

16 minutes ago, Arauna said:

In fact there is good indication that those who were perfect and chose to sin do not show remorse. 

Sorry, but i can witness how some IMPERFECT persons also sin and do not remorse. What is final point of your standpoint when evidence show only this: IMPERFECT individuals can act in two ways - to show remorse and to not show remorse. 

If Bible state that people are made in image of God.....that would mean how PERFECT individuals have same quality - to show same feelings, attitudes as IMPERFECT.

Bible stated this:   The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. Gen 6:6

 

Regret vs. Remorse - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stop-caretaking-the-borderline-or-narcissist/201507/regret-vs-remorse

The main difference between Remorse and Regret is that the Remorse is a advanced emotion and Regret is a negative conscious and emotional reaction to personal past acts and behaviours. - https://www.askdifference.com/remorse-vs-regret/

The Difference between Regret and Remorse - https://education.onehowto.com/article/the-difference-between-regret-and-remorse-12141.html

 

[Arauna]

3 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

that would mean how PERFECT individuals have same quality

Perfect people who have rejected God have lost their ability to show remorse because Jehovah does not give his spirit to them any longer.  They are spiritually in darkness. This is why we as Imperfect people must be so careful.  While we have the grace of Christ's ransom to cover us - we can still sin in the likeness of Adam.