The Tree of Knowledge

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Bowser, Oct 30, 2005.

  1. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    What is The Tree of Knowledge? I'm not certain. Is it the knowledge of Good and Evil and the Desire to be God?
     
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  3. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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  5. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting, have you any children of your own?

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  7. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    No.
    Sometimes I think can't wait to raise a child (not necessarily procreate).
    Sometimes I think I couldn't possibly be that stupid.
     
  8. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    They are a reflection of our own youth, man.
     
  9. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    I know.
    Scares the shit out of me!
     
  10. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    It's a learning curve for both child and parent. Grandparents drop in for a laugh.
     
  11. Light Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not certain how to take your question.

    If you are talking about the one in the Bible, it gives you the direct answer there. The actual name of it was "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Period. And it simply means the ability to tell right from wrong. Nothing at all is mentioned about the desire to be God.
     
  12. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Granted, the serpent planted the seed of desire...

     
  13. Light Registered Senior Member

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    Precisely! (Sorry I didn't carry your quotations through.)

    Because you can see from that the ONLY part of God's abilities is the single thing about knowing good from evil - that's hardly wanting to "be God" with all of his awsome powers.

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  14. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Light,

    NIV Genesis2:4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

    NIV Genesis2:22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side [e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
     
  15. Light Registered Senior Member

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    Agreed!

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    But once again, the only God-like attribute gained was just the knowledge of good and evil. While important, that hardly made them Gods.
     
  16. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    That, combined with the immortality offered to them by eating of the Tree of Life is what would have made them Gods (which is why there were barred from the Garden).
    With Knowledge of Good and Evil, mankind gained self-determination, so no longer needed God's constant guidance. If you look at the various covenants made by God to the patriarchs, you will see that in each covenant God's control gets a little more loose and he gives a little more power of judgement to mankind.
    With self-determination AND imoortality, man would no longer have a need for God and would be, in effects, Gods in their own domian.
     
  17. Light Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, I'll go alomg with all that. The key words being "in effect."

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    But that still would hardly make them true Gods, as I read the opening question to be asking (could be my error in interpretation, too). They would still be far from all-knowing, all-powerful, all-seeing, and all the rest.
     
  18. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Ah, but don't discount domain.
    "God" is omniscient, omnipotent and "all the rest" in his domain or realm.
    In the strictly physical realm of earth, makind has the capacity to be Gods.
    With the Knowldege of Good and Evil, we have self-determination.
    With science...
    We can control the physical world around us.
    We can create or destroy life.
    We have limitless knowedge at our fingertips.
    We have the ability to do anything that is possible.
    With immortality, we would be Gods on earth.
    There would still be a more powerful being than us, but that is because his domain is above ours.
    The lest powerful being in heaven is about on par with the most powerful on Earth.
    What power, I wonder, does God's God have.

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    Yes, now I am just being silly, but it's fun to think about, isn't it?

    "what if god ain't looking down what if he's looking up instead"
    what if no one's watching -ani difranco
     
  19. Light Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, it IS rather fun.

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    Going back to your list of "with science we can...", I believe you'll have to agree, though, that we are actually quite limited in every bit of that. Creating life (as opposed to procreation) is something that we appear to still be pretty far from. Shucks, with all our "limitless knowledge at our fingertips" we still cannot even create artificial intelligence. And we haven't been able to add 10 years onto the average life-span in the past 50 years. And even with all the excellent gains in medical knowledge, that increase is getting smaller and smaller each decade we go through.

    Hardly gods at all, really. We're more like much smarter monkeys than anything else. (And of course there are exceptions to even that - like Duendy, Rabon, and Buddah1.)

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  20. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    An infant who can not read will get little knowledge from a set of encyclopedias.
    Just because the knoweldge is there and we have the capacity of being Gods of our domain, does not mean that we have attained it.
    Don't forget, that God guy took away the most important ingredient in our diefication, he banned us from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden thereby taking away our capacity for immortality.
    With eternal life, and all the rest of that stuff (and some wisdom and foresight that seems severly lacking in the human race) we can be Gods among monkeys.
     
  21. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    to understand what rthe tree of knowledge was/is yu cant just rely on literalism, but have to look at etymology, pun, word play, transliteration, and look for the ORIGINS of themyth, and compare, etc

    The Tree of Knowledge is referring to psychedelic mushroom.....!

    The warning is that thepower from such revealing experience canbe used for goo or bad--as in sorcery. Ie., one could for example start believng themselves to be 'gods'

    This is whats happened to the Luciferians who translate the myth to mean this: that the Serpent is the liberator/Lucifer/'Light Bringer'.....and that 'God' who gave wrning to A&E NOT to eat that fruit is the baddie, and they cal him 'Adonay'......sso they interpret myth to mean that the Judaic God was trying to suppress inyellectual knowledge--which they include in that occult knowledge

    Just digressing. the ones pullin the strings in world culture are the Illuminati an they follow the Luciferian philosophy!

    But i feel tat both te Judaic Christian and Luciferian interpretations are wrong

    for te former they believe in the authority of a patriarchal 'God'....a Big Nobodaddy who wants us not to explore. so you can see that story as one of the first drug busts....or the beginnings of the war on drugs/psychedelic experience. And it has to be vewry noted that tis war is still going on to this day!

    Wit the Luciferian interpretation, they emphasize occult knoledge which is STILL patriarchal, in thatit seeks to control Nature, people, their own feelings. so can you not see that in teir condemnation of an authoratative 'God', their becomeing 'gods' implies the same control-freakery of what they su;posedly rebel against...!

    So whats the deeper story then? FIRST understand that the whole Genesis myth is patriarcal. and seeks to bind you to te authority of the patriarchy/'God'.........
    So the deeper meaningof eating the Tree of KNowedge is the opening up of our deep deep interelation with Nature....Not to control it as though we are better yhan it, but to understand its intelligence and how we not only grow OUT of Nature, but we ARE Nature
     
  22. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    not again.

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  23. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    one_raven.........you can roll yer eyes till they roll outta yer heaed.....if you knew how many times i have to pick MY eyes up everytime i hear the same old same tired old cobwebby dead literalist mumbo jumbo dialogue agoin on about 'religion.....jeeez! but i dont particularly tell the people off for talking from their comfort zone. though i WIL challenge it by speaking my truth

    I am not saying what i say just from no back up--which i attempt to explain. and i have as much right to explore the REAL origins and meaning of myth/religion/experience as you have to want to keep it all safe and literalist and comfy and roll eyes.....ok?
     

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