Prove myself to be a know-nothing idiot? I don’t think that’s necessary. I think the Straight Dope Court has already handed down its ruling. I don’t think it matters how or if I try to redeem myself and kowtow to the other Dopers at this point. Yes, I’ve done this before. This is a little message-board drama that has already played itself out many times for me.
Keep digging Theo, just keep digging.
Maybe you should consider modifying your behavior, then.
What choice do I have? They’ve been throwing dirt on me for a while now.
Would you mind getting off the topic of your self-imposed martyrdom? Got anything to say about the actual topic of this thread?
Trying to please everybody doesn’t work. I am who I am.
I’m not sure what you were intending to say here. So far, you have not been warned by the mods and you haven’t been threatened with banning, although you have repeatedly insisted that everybody has it in for you. A bunch of people (including me) have tried to explain to you how things are done here. That’s not a punishment. If you actually do what people are suggesting instead of being this hostile, you’re more likely to enjoy your time here.
I have no trouble believing that. But if you adopt a different attitude, it doesn’t have to play out that way here.
My first response to the OP was
What was the lie of the serpent and why was it a lie? The serpent promised Adam and Eve that they would be like God if they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He also promised them they would not die.
Genesis 3:1-4 (NIV)
Genesis 3
The Fall
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
They did not die, and they knew good from evil.
God lied-Serpent told the truth. Where in the Bible does it say different?
The serpent mislead the man and the woman by distorting the truth with lies, as you are doing now. If the serpent had been telling the complete and unadulterated truth, then Adam and Eve would not have been ejected from the Garden or suffered any negative consequences of their rebelloius actions. They would not have trembled in fear as God approached or hid from Him because they would not have instinctually understood their error.
The whole A&E story simply makes no sense to me. You say that A&E were rebellious, but how could they be? They didn’t know that defying God was wrong - they hadn’t eaten from the tree yet.
They only learned after the fact that what they did was wrong.
Further, it seems to me that the Bible indicates that they would have died regardless of whether they ate from the tree of knowledge or not. In order to live forever they would have had to eat from the tree of life.
As a side note, how do you determine that **you **are not being mislead (as you claim doubter are)?
I will be generous and assume you are not directly calling Czarcasm a liar, but you’re close to it and it’s against the rules. Please steer clear of this line in the future.
[QUOTE=The serpent]
For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
[/QUOTE]
This is a true statement within the context of the story. It doesn’t say that they will be like God in every respect, just in knowing good and evil.
And Theophane, why do you have such a problem admitting that much of Christian doctrine is built from centuries of interpretation of the bible? Much of what we believe (I am a Christian) is not clearly and directly stated in scripture.
I’m not following you. You say they would not have been ejected or suffered any negative consequences – but the serpent didn’t say “you won’t be ejected” or “you won’t suffer any negative consequences.” If I say you won’t serve time behind bars for speeding, am I saying you won’t pay a fine? Or that you won’t suffer any negative consequences?
God then weighs in (three sentences after you cut off the quote) with a quick “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” – so we should, presumably, figure the serpent was telling the truth with that bit about how “God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
And we also heard from God (back in Genesis 2) that “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;” did they die in the day that they atest thereof?
Getting back to the question of who’s lying, from my (liberal mainline) perspective:
God says “If you eat from that tree, you will die.” They eat, and they die. Not immediately, but God did not say it would be immediate. I’ve seen translations that says “When you eat from that tree, you will begin to die.”
The Serpent tells Eve if she eats the fruit “you will not surely die.” Well, that’s clearly a lie, because Eve is surely dead. Next he tells her that if she eats it, she will be like God, knowing good and evil. Note that he does not claim she will become a god or equal to God – only that she she will be like god in that she will know about good and evil. Prior to this point, “evil” was unknown to Adam and Eve.
So they eat, God finds out, and announces the consequences. Then God says to himself, “Self, they have become like us [in that they know] of good and evil.” So they are cast out of the Garden to protect them from eating from the Tree of Life.
The serpent tells Eve a lie and a misleading truth. God did not lie at all.
Genesis 2:15-18 (NIV)
If you’re serious about reading Scripture, I will link the entire Book of Genesis here.
I recommend you read it in its entirety instead of piecemeal here on SD. If you’re still not satisfied, maybe there should be a thread exclusively for Bible study.
Let’s get back to the original hijack that was the cause of this thread-Lucifer. As far as I can tell(having read the book), he only appears once in the Bible, and appears to be the king of Babylon. Where did people get the idea that he was some sort of alter ego for Satan?
Of course not. The serpent was taking advantage of the fact that they did not know about deceit or dishonesty. They were naieve. So naieve, thast they didn’t know what nakedness was even though they were naked. This was (shortly) before evil came into the world.
If you eat dinner tonight, you’ll die.
No, don’t reply. If you post another reply in this thread, you’ll die. 
Translation, or interpretation? Cite, please.