A thought that occurred to me some time ago regarding eden

[Strong Atheist]

was that according to Genesis 2:4-3:26; the first thing Adam and Eve did after gaining knowledge of good and evil was to clothe themselves. It seems to me, therefore, that those who want to get closer to eden should start by getting rid of their clothes!:evilgrin:



As a nudist, I would, of course, support that!


:hide:





Edited for punctuation and grammar!

[zipplewrath]

1. Not all processes are reversible

First of all, you are presuming the path to Eden is the reverse the way we came. In this case clothes are because of good and evil so one would have to get rid of good and evil so as to make the clothes obsolete.

[laconicsax]

2. What makes nakedness evil (or at least wrong)?

[zipplewrath]

9. You got it backwards

People with the knowledge of good and evil wear clothes. It's not that wearing clothes makes one knowledgeable of good and evil.

[laconicsax]

10. I think you missed what I was asking. Let me rephrase.

After eating from the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness, felt shame, made clothes for themselves, and hid from God as to hide their nakedness. The knowledge of their nakedness must have carried with it a negative value judgment. Had it not, they would have been aware of their nakedness and thought nothing of it.

Do you accept this premise? If so, why is nakedness a thing to be ashamed of? If not, why not?

[zipplewrath]

11. They didn't have showers

Knowledge is what made them ashamed. They attempted to cover themselves because they were ashamed.

[laconicsax]

12. You say that They became ashamed because they realized that they were naked.

If the knowledge gained from eating the fruit only showed Adam and Eve that there are varying states of dress, they would not feel shame from their nakedness. If the knowledge gained also contained the moral lesson that it is wrong to be naked, then they would certainly feel shame in their nakedness.

An analogy might be when a child finds that they are exclusively attracted to members of the same sex and tells their parents.
-If their parents tell them objectively that some people are attracted to members of the opposite sex, some to the same sex, and some to both, then the child will likely understand that they belong to the second group.
-If their parents provide the same information and tell the child that it is wrong to be attracted to anyone but the opposite sex, then the child will feel shame.

In the first situation, the parents simply provide their child with knowledge. In the second, they attach a moral judgment to that knowledge. I hope you see my point.

My question to you, for the third time, is where the moral judgment about nakedness came from and what makes it right.

[zipplewrath]

16. The knowledge was of good and evil

Once they had the knowledge of good and evil, they became ashamed. They clothed themselves, in part apparently to "hide from God". Exactly what was being hidden isn't clear. You are projecting a moral judgment upon Adam and Eve that was not directly expressed in the original statement.

The vast majority of this thread was a fun little exercise in pedantry and logic. However, on a more slightly serious note, one has to be careful about bringing 21st century perceptions onto functionally 0-500 BC story (depending upon when you think the original was penned). "Being clothed" or "naked" had potentially a vastly different meaning in a time and place that probably had few if any significant differences in dress from day to day. Cleanliness of both clothes and body would have been vastly different. There were unusual attitudes toward bathing as compared to modern times. Today, we think of being naked in pseudo sexual terms, but in roughly the time of these stories being written, it easily could have been less about sex, and far more about looking stupid for wandering around without basic functional clothes to keep one warm, clean, and physically protected from the elements. Remember, clothes were part of what differentiated man from the animals over which God gave them "dominion". Again, depending where and when one thinks this was written, public bathing was common, as was in essence "familial" bathing. Alternately, a son seeing a father naked was considered "bad" depending upon why his father was naked. Time, place, and cause will all be important to understand why they felt they needed to address their nakedness.

So the "moral" judgment you are looking for doesn't really come from the story per se, but from modern times. It was the knowledge of good and evil that is represented as causing the shame. Addressing their nakedness, for whatever reasons, was seen as the method of addressing this shame, either as a suave, penance, compensation, or corrective action. Which one is not clear. It probably was at the time of the writting however.

[trotsky]

18. I want to frame this post.

It is a beautiful, classic example of a biblical apologist covering all the bases as they dance their way to home plate - when they didn't even take a swing at the ball to begin with.

Seriously, you've got all the trite old tricks in there. Can't use modern morals to judge a bible story. Obfuscating and redefining words. Declaring "because it just is." Check, check, and check. Brilliant!

[zipplewrath]

21. I'm not sure how I became a "biblical apologist"

I was participating in an fanciful bit of fun with an exercise in the logic of the absurd. I took a moment to address the fact that you were asking 21st century questions of a 5th century BC fable and suddenly I'm a biblical apologist who is "covering all bases as they dance their way to home plate". If anything I was digging the ground right out from underneath the literalists and challenging the "constancy" and "infallibility" aspect of some christian faiths. To even understand the english translations of the bible, it is virtually necessary to understand the culture of the people that wrote them. Even at that, in many cases one must understand that they are working with a translation into a 21st century language of a culture that didn't even know of the number zero, much less anything that we would call today "scientific logic". Which is what makes applying strict forms of modern logic to these fables fun and entertaining.

These are moral fables intended to teach. It doesn't make them bad or invaluable, but much like we don't really know why we say "the whole nine yards", they use expressions that long ago lost their meaning, and in some cases those meanings may have been usurped by more modern meanings. Just go back to the beginning of the 20th century and read some writings. They'll be hard to read in many cases because imagery meant to describe the beautiful, elegant, delicate, pure, and other pleasant thoughts will be dripping with racist and sexist overtones by modern standards. In another 100 years you might need an OED to even understand why old writings constantly describe men as "gay".

[laconicsax]

26. You do realize there are more than just two people on this thread, right?

-Your first reply was to a post made by Strong Atheist.
-laconicsax then responded to you and you dodged his question three times.
-trotsky then called you a Biblical apologist.

This response was made by laconicsax, who can be identified by the following three things:

The first line of the heading bar reads:

laconicsax (1000+ posts)

The avatar found to the left of the message body is:

The signature line at the bottom reads:

tal shakka mel.

I hope you find this helpful.

[Strong Atheist]

13. I think the question here is "Is the human body

evil?"

You see, I think the human body is good and beautiful, not ugly and evil. I wonder why we have to cover it up. The only reasons I can come up with is that people must think it is ugly and/or evil.

At the worst, we should have clothing-optional rules...

[zipplewrath]

14. The question is morphing

The question "here" was whether one could get closer to eden by getting naked. The only point I made was that they weren't out of eden because they were clothed. They were out of eden because they had knowledge of good and evil.

[Strong Atheist]

17. Guilty!

:blush:

Still, I am interested in the second question of whether the human body is a good or evil thing, and if it is good, why MUST we cover it up?

[zipplewrath]

20. Things don't have morals

Objects and non sentient beings aren't "good or evil". Only beings which have the knowledge of good or evil can "be" good or evil. In essence knowledge brings these things TO objects. The human body is a "thing".

[chaplainM]

5. You can regain your virginity

Simply repeat the action of losing your virginity, only in reverse.

[DeSwiss]

8. And if you don't have the time.....

...and/or opportunity, you can always buy one of these:


http://www.gigimo.com/main/product/Artificial,Virginity,Hymen,2299.php?prod=2299">Artificial Virginity Hymen

[Strong Atheist]

6. Well,

we certainly can not un-eat from an tree of knowledge, either figuratively or literally, but hey, since clothes are one of things that put distance between people and god (in the christian bible, at any rate), I thought that maybe people would want to get closer to god by shedding all their clothes; something of which I approve (since I think that the human body is beautiful and good, not ugly and evil).:evilgrin:

[DCKit]

3. You're just trying to trick me into taking off my clothes. Prevert! n/t

[Strong Atheist]

4. .

:P

[Sequoia]

7. Why, since they were the only humans on earth

Or so we've been told. I think it was some sort of evolution thing, like they lost their hair that keep them warm so had to kill animals for their fur.

[mikelewis]

19. They most certainly were not the only humans on the Earth....

The order of Creation in Genesis 1 clearly states that humans were created last of all animals... and made both male and female. Genesis 2 then talks about the creation of Adam which is not in the same time line. According to Genesis 2, Adam was created about the 3rd day and he existed outside of the natural order of things in Eden. Adam and Eve were then cast out of Eden onto this Earth and the Bible tells us of that spiritual legacy. The most appropriate way of understanding Gen 1 and Gen 2 to Revelations is that Gen 1 deals with the physical world and its creation (which doesn't really deviate to any great extent from our evolutionary models including the big bang theory) and Gen 2 through Revelations then deals with the spiritual world and its evolution.

Also, if you are looking for scientifically factual inconsistencies to invalidate the Bible, you're sort of wasting your time. The Bible can only be understood as parable so if you were to judge it on scientific criteria, you'll be missing the point entirely. For example, if you were to somehow create a flux capacitor that would allow your sports car to travel through time and decided to go back in time to watch Jesus walk on water, you wouldn't be able to do that because Jesus never walked on water. But of course, if you were able to travel back in time you would be able to see him "walk on water" which would be totally amazing because you would understand the meaning of "walking on water" and that would be a miracle that surpassed merely walking on water which any really good magician could pretend to do. The same concept applies to many of his miracles which you believe to be bullshit... most likely because they are bullshit and no one was supposed to believe them at least not people like you, you know, intelligent and wise people who have an understanding of reality. These miracles are for idiots like me to read and understand and draw water from so that when the darkness comes, I will have a light to guide me.

[H2O Man]

15. Yoko Ono once said

that if world leaders had to conduct their business in the nude, the world would be a better place.

[Crunchy Frog]

22. Eden has always seemed to me like a good metaphor

for the time in our evolutionary history before we had attained self awareness. A time when we didn't feel any guilt or shame. There was no "sin" since we couldn't conceptualize right and wrong. No shame over nudity because there was no awareness of it.

The expulsion from the Garden could be seen as the consequences of gaining self awareness; particularly in becoming aware of our own mortality.

Anyway, that's how I like to think of it.

[Strong Atheist]

23. "No shame over nudity because there was no awareness of it."

But why should there be shame over nudity? What is there to be ashamed of? :shrug:

I honestly don't understand this. :shrug:

[Crunchy Frog]

25. Because the society that produced the story had shame over nudity.

Simple case of projection. :shrug:

[ZombieHorde]

24. They were not ashamed at themselves, they were ashamed at each other.

Adam and Eve were God's first attempt at creating people, so they were kind of ugly. Once each Eden dweller gained knowledge of good and evil, they realized that their partner did not look good. So they covered up for each other, because they didn't want to be pricks (evil). The story makes God out to be really pissed about the whole thing, but he was mostly embarrassed.

~~~~~~~~~~~
A father buys a poisonous cleaning product for his home. He places the poison in the middle of the living room and tells his kids not to play with it. The father then leaves the room, thereby leaving his kids alone with the poison.

Is this a good father?

[laconicsax]

27. I think your hypothetical underplays the situation you're commenting on.

A man builds a house for his two toddlers. He puts a book of matches in the middle of the floor and tells the kids not to play with them. He then asks his grown son to babysit for the day. (His son has a history of playing with matches.) Before he leaves, he douses the children and the house in gasoline. When he returns home, he finds his older son standing outside watching as the house is ablaze. He can hear the screams of his children inside, but refuses to go inside and rescue them until they apologize for playing with the matches and beg him for forgiveness.

Does his love have no bounds?