Was the real Jewish Garden of Eden located in Jerusalem?

[Greatest I am]

Said like a true gnostic, if there is such a thing But you're simply wrong about the traditional Jewish notion of Eden: The disobedience to God (eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil), despite the clear hazard that God presents the mortals with, and despite many other mitigating factors, is still considered a sin. The story still answers questions like "why do we have to die?", "why do it hurt to give birth?" and "why I gotta work all the time?"

However, Christians use this and every other story in the Hebrew bible as a bulwark for the principle of salvation through belief in the man-god.

For a Jew hearing the story in David's time, it would be like "ohhhhhhh that makes sense, if you don't ask too many questions. Well, guess I'll go back to some more brow-sweaty work."

For a Christian using the story thousands of years later, it's like "This one thing right here done at the dawn of mankind makes you guilty from birth, so surprise - you need Jesus!" I mean, right there, from the get-go, before you even do anything, if you don't agree with these guys about your salvation, boom, hell.

I don't know how purveyors of "rugged individualism" also purvey the notion that a long-dead man-god has forgiven them their sins. Seems a bit off to me. I mean, I could see people who say "We're all in this together, let's help the poorest among us, etc." saying such a thing... they'd be admitting (really admitting) that they're as bad as the next guy and acting accordingly.

I just can't understand someone pointing at the "evil illegals," or "evil Muslims," or "evil anybody," if they in fact believe that they're bad from birth themselves.

I don't think many people really believe this, unless it is asked in a theological context - and even then, I think most take it as an opportunity to shout how saved they are and how you need to be saved too.

I'm interested to read up on some of the Jewish commentary on the expulsion from the garden. It seems like pretty fertile ground, no pun intended. That's another nice thing about Judaism: despite the names of the branches, there is no official orthodoxy. Even within the "Orthodox" they argue day and night about such things.

I wonder if there's an interpretation that it's more a "test" than a "sin." After all, they were right there with the trees. We have to assume that God hid himself from his own knowledge of the outcome, as in any theological cliff-hanger. Having done so, is he considering what is the best way for Man to be, by determining how vulnerable we are to temptation?

Is it as simple as "If you do it, meh, you should live this kind of life; if you don't do it, I'll be your "provider" forever"?

I wonder which if any of the commentators took this position.

I do not have much on the Jewish view of Eden but do see this as representative.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/20/comparative-theodicy/

Seems, orthodox or not, Jews think much better than Christians on this issue.

Not surprising that they chose to educate themselves instead of obeying a stupid command that says stay stupid and blind.

We all do as much as we can in seeking knowledge. The problem for unfortunate Christians is the perception of the terms knowledge and truth.

The idea of Jesus dying for us was created to produce a sense of indebtedness that the population is supposed to feel. Manipulation of the sheeple.

The idea of the fall was created to have people interpret the scripture in a way that makes them think that seeking knowledge is a sin. Manipulation of the sheeple.

This makes it easier for Christians to be pushed to become unthinking sheeple that can be easily manipulated, --- just as the re-writers of the bible and interpretation biased preachers want.

Christianity can thus profit from fear and indebtedness in this manner.

In the end, knowledge and truth are for our own enlightenment. Seeking untruth is a form of transgression and that is what priests and imams try to produce. Priests and imams are quite skilled in helping people lie to themselves.

Conditioning that some would call indoctrination or brainwashing when pushed to it's present extreme.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

So thus far I find a lot of very interesting commentary, but none questioning the "setup" angle. It's all about hidden chronologies within the narrative, exegesis from the commandment not to eat of the tree, versus Adam's added "eat of or touch the tree," etc. I did stumble upon one interesting feature (for a comparative ignoramous like myself) of Rambam's (Maimonides') interpretation. He was famous for saying that if it doesn't happen in our world, it's allegory - he states that the whole story must be allegory, because snakes don't talk. Every internet atheist who derisively says "talking snakes!" definitely owes this guy.

To try to understand this myth from a literalists POV is too strange to contemplate and impossible to do yet Christians somehow think their interpretation, which reverses the original Jewish view is somehow correct.

If Christians are just going to swallow lies and then call themselves believers, then they are lost to Satan and ignore their own bible's good advice.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

Christians do not question and hold fast to garbage.

Regards
DL

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Be all that as it may, the term "sheeple" (to denote everybody who has a different belief from one's own) bothers me. It's always been a favorite of various sorts of "truthers," who typically have no more claim to the truth than the "sheeple" they deride.

I like my religion, others like theirs, and we all suffer one another's ridiculous biases (whereas we ourselves only seek truth).

I'm always glad to discuss the features of different religions, and what I know or can find out about various religions' scriptures. But it's a joke to say that one or another of them is full of bad people, or that one or another of them is the most enlightened. Or it would be a joke, were it not so deadly.

Had one or another gnostic branch of Christianity won over Constantine et seq., we'd be talking about the blood-stained hands of the Roman Gnostic Church, etc. History is what it is.

 

[Greatest I am]

Be all that as it may, the term "sheeple" (to denote everybody who has a different belief from one's own) bothers me. It's always been a favorite of various sorts of "truthers," who typically have no more claim to the truth than the "sheeple" they deride.

I like my religion, others like theirs, and we all suffer one another's ridiculous biases (whereas we ourselves only seek truth).

I'm always glad to discuss the features of different religions, and what I know or can find out about various religions' scriptures. But it's a joke to say that one or another of them is full of bad people, or that one or another of them is the most enlightened. Or it would be a joke, were it not so deadly.

Had one or another gnostic branch of Christianity won over Constantine et seq., we'd be talking about the blood-stained hands of the Roman Gnostic Church, etc. History is what it is.

That or the equality that women have been denied all of these years, thanks to Christianity, would have been bypassed for a more moral; Gnostic Christian system.

Constantine wanted the sheeple to follow him as they are prone to do. He did not want free thinkers telling people the truth about the Churches lies.

The West wanted sheepish people and that is what we now have.

That is why the economy is what it is with the rich wanting more and the rest of us being too much like mental slugs to fight them.

This situation is quite immoral and none of us care.

http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2

Regards
DL

 

[PatsFanInVa]

It's comforting to think that "if only" a given religion had never taken hold, everything would be different, DL. But the assertion is unproven.

By the way, sweet data visualization - I just shared it on FB.

And indeed, the 380:1 ratio between the CEO and the average worker is obscene (if slightly false, since the numbers are wealth not income - this only matters because a guy who does NO work can make the 380 side of the distribution).

However, (1) this state of affairs has not been shown in your comment to be the result of Christianity, (2) While these data show what's going on in one wealthy country, the visualization might be even more shocking among adherents of other religions in any given country - on the small end, think of the average Bruneian's income vs. the Sultan and the rest of that country's 1%; On the large end, think about the distribution of wealth in the PRC, where the GDP is the same as the U.S., spread over 1.3 billion people rather than a quarter of that number, but with a "little America" in Shanghai, and rural areas with GDP per capita similar to Ghana's. If Christianity is the religion identified with the U.S., you could make a claim that China is "caused" by Buddhism, and Brunei by Islam. Additionally, while taking an inequality index in India might or might not shock us as much, the average guy at the "1" end of the "380:1" curve in the U.S., might be at the other end of the graph entirely there - raising the question of whether Hinduism "causes" poverty (in general).

So yes, in a vacuum, it's shocking. But the usual expedient to excusing capitalism's poor performance as a wealth distribution system, is that it seems to excel as a wealth creation system.

This does not establish that we should not distribute wealth better in said system, sacrificing some wealth creation for that goal, if the two goals really must inherently be inverse functions of each other (I doubt it.)

It does call into question the relationship between the link and anything we're talking about here.

(1)We haven't established that Christianity "causes" capitalism, such that it would not arise under another religion;
(2) We haven't established that a gnostic sect would have led to different results for Europe;
(3) We haven't established that any given ethos led to capitalism as it stands.

In fact, it's often been remarked that the weakening of the Church and the rise of secular institutions led to the capitalism we know today. The Church, in this re-thinking, is the force for generally flatter distribution of wealth; the markets, freed of Church strictures against (for example) lending at interest, created the hyperbolic distribution of wealth.

Of course, during the middle ages, there were some very rich people, by the standards of the time, generally in the Church and among feudal lords. Most others lived very short lives and very poor ones. And even the very rich of the time had lives you couldn't pay an average American to live. Sure there was hot and cold running poontang at the top, and that changes very little from era to era; but they would all be astounded by the contents of your fridge, not to mention the fridge itself.

So even self-evident absurdities such as the present distribution of wealth become much more gray than black or white when we take into account global and historical perspectives.

And whether you think the present U.S. state of affairs is a good thing or a bad thing, what linkage you can draw to Pauline Christianity is questionable.

 

[Greatest I am]

It's comforting to think that "if only" a given religion had never taken hold, everything would be different, DL. But the assertion is unproven.

By the way, sweet data visualization - I just shared it on FB.

And indeed, the 380:1 ratio between the CEO and the average worker is obscene (if slightly false, since the numbers are wealth not income - this only matters because a guy who does NO work can make the 380 side of the distribution).

However, (1) this state of affairs has not been shown in your comment to be the result of Christianity, (2) While these data show what's going on in one wealthy country, the visualization might be even more shocking among adherents of other religions in any given country - on the small end, think of the average Bruneian's income vs. the Sultan and the rest of that country's 1%; On the large end, think about the distribution of wealth in the PRC, where the GDP is the same as the U.S., spread over 1.3 billion people rather than a quarter of that number, but with a "little America" in Shanghai, and rural areas with GDP per capita similar to Ghana's. If Christianity is the religion identified with the U.S., you could make a claim that China is "caused" by Buddhism, and Brunei by Islam. Additionally, while taking an inequality index in India might or might not shock us as much, the average guy at the "1" end of the "380:1" curve in the U.S., might be at the other end of the graph entirely there - raising the question of whether Hinduism "causes" poverty (in general).

So yes, in a vacuum, it's shocking. But the usual expedient to excusing capitalism's poor performance as a wealth distribution system, is that it seems to excel as a wealth creation system.

This does not establish that we should not distribute wealth better in said system, sacrificing some wealth creation for that goal, if the two goals really must inherently be inverse functions of each other (I doubt it.)

It does call into question the relationship between the link and anything we're talking about here.

(1)We haven't established that Christianity "causes" capitalism, such that it would not arise under another religion;
(2) We haven't established that a gnostic sect would have led to different results for Europe;
(3) We haven't established that any given ethos led to capitalism as it stands.

In fact, it's often been remarked that the weakening of the Church and the rise of secular institutions led to the capitalism we know today. The Church, in this re-thinking, is the force for generally flatter distribution of wealth; the markets, freed of Church strictures against (for example) lending at interest, created the hyperbolic distribution of wealth.

Of course, during the middle ages, there were some very rich people, by the standards of the time, generally in the Church and among feudal lords. Most others lived very short lives and very poor ones. And even the very rich of the time had lives you couldn't pay an average American to live. Sure there was hot and cold running poontang at the top, and that changes very little from era to era; but they would all be astounded by the contents of your fridge, not to mention the fridge itself.

So even self-evident absurdities such as the present distribution of wealth become much more gray than black or white when we take into account global and historical perspectives.

And whether you think the present U.S. state of affairs is a good thing or a bad thing, what linkage you can draw to Pauline Christianity is questionable.

(1)We haven't established that Christianity "causes" capitalism, such that it would not arise under another religion;
(2) We haven't established that a gnostic sect would have led to different results for Europe;
(3) We haven't established that any given ethos led to capitalism as it stands.

(1) Christianity has been the majority in the West forever so capitalism had to be a Christian and political invention because, quite often, there was no real separation of church and state. There may have been other political and religious influences but Christianity definitely bears a huge part of the responsibility for capitalism.

(2) True and impossible to do from this far up the time line.
We never had power, but since we are Universalists, you can know as a fact that women and gays would have had a much easier time than what Christian homophobia and misogyny gave them.

(2) See my (1).

Regards
DL