Did you think the Episcopal Church was liberal?

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by wolf

Isn't that how Noah and his family (and all the animals) got fruitful and multiplied also?

No wonder so many humans are just plain funny-lookin'.

[OnyxCougar]

Yup! That's how it was at the time... All the YECs think so.

And You Should Too! [tm]

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by alphageek31337

Because in these books, the bush is quick to point out that it is the god of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. Essentially, pointing out that it is the God of the Jews.

And the God of his parents.

"Moses said to God, 'So I will go to the Israelites and say, 'Your fathers' God sent me to you.' They will immediately ask me what His name is. What shall I say to them?'
'I Will Be Who I Will Be,' replied God to Moses."

Exodus 3:13-14, as translated at bible.ort.org

"So, what's your name anyway?"
"Uh.....I'm me!"

Amplified Bible:

13And Moses said to God, Behold, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is His name? What shall I say to them?
14And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM and WHAT I AM, and I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE; and He said, You shall say this to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you!
15God said also to Moses, This shall you say to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your fathers, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you! This is My [3] name forever, and by this name I am to be remembered to all generations.

Moses is not asking God what his name is. Moses is asking God what he should tell the Israelites his name is. Are you aware of how many names God has in Hebrew? It's alot.

"So who do you want me to tell them you are?"
"I yam who I yam and that's all that I yam."

In the text, it does not seem Moses is confused as to who God is, just that he doesn't know what to tell the peeps at home when they ask what he's been smokin.

[alphageek31337]

Also, the only thing I've been able to find in Genesis on Cain reproducing has a pretty abrupt jump:

"Cain went to the land of Nod, East of Eden. And Cain knew his wife."

No mention of other people created by God, no mention of the incestuous relationship that must have developed if these people weren't created by God and, therefore in the mind of biblical literalists, didn't exist. Incest being a sin/abomination against God/a bad idea, where did the rest of us come from? Where does it mention that Enoch's mom is actually Cain's sister? Or were there other people on earth and Yahweh is just the creator-god of the Jews?

Whereas if you take the book as an allegory, a collection of really cool stories that give you a pretty good example of how to live, then it all makes perfect sense.

That being said, there is no more intimidating a phrase, when introducing yourself, than "I am sent by the one who is called 'I Am'." Pure biblical bad-ass, in that Samuel L Jackson Pulp Fiction/Boondock Saints prayer sense.

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by alphageek31337

Incest being a sin/abomination against God/a bad idea, where did the rest of us come from? Where does it mention that Enoch's mom is actually Cain's sister? Or were there other people on earth and Yahweh is just the creator-god of the Jews?

Look here...if you're going to start applying logic to religion, we're all going to get a headache.

I do agree with the notion that Jehovah wasn't saying there weren't other gods...He just meant that He was new, improved, holier-than-them version, and should therefore be The One and Only.

This is not altogether unreminiscient of the New Right...

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by alphageek31337

Also, the only thing I've been able to find in Genesis on Cain reproducing has a pretty abrupt jump:

"Cain went to the land of Nod, East of Eden. And Cain knew his wife."

No mention of other people created by God, no mention of the incestuous relationship that must have developed if these people weren't created by God and, therefore in the mind of biblical literalists, didn't exist. Incest being a sin/abomination against God/a bad idea, where did the rest of us come from? Where does it mention that Enoch's mom is actually Cain's sister? Or were there other people on earth and Yahweh is just the creator-god of the Jews?

This is actually a super frequent question, and I'll let better minds than mine answer. One answer is found at this site,(http://www.answersingenesis.org/home...cains_wife.asp) and I'll quote for the lazy:

We don’t even know her name, yet she was discussed at the Scopes trial, mentioned in the play and movie Inherit the Wind1 and the book and movie Contact2, and has been talked about in countries all over the world. Is she the most-talked-about wife in history?

Skeptics have used Cain’s wife time and again to try to discredit the book of Genesis as a true historical record. Sadly, most Christians have not been able to give an adequate answer to this question. As a result, the world thinks Christians cannot defend the authority of Scripture and, thus, the Christian faith.

{snip}

Thus, there was only one man at the beginning—made from the dust of the Earth (Genesis 2:7).

This also means that Cain’s wife was a descendant of Adam. She could not have come from another ‘race’ of people and must be one of Adam’s descendants.

{snip}

All this makes it obvious that there was only one woman, Adam’s wife, at the beginning. There were never any other women around who were not Eve’s descendants.

{snip}

During their lives, Adam and Eve had a number of male and female children. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that, ‘The number of Adam’s children, as says the old tradition, was thirty-three sons and twenty-three daughters.’11

The Bible does not tell us how many children were born to Adam and Eve. However, considering their long life spans (Adam lived for 930 years—Genesis 5:5), it would seem reasonable to suggest there were many! Remember, they were commanded to ‘Be fruitful, and multiply’ (Genesis 1:28).

{snip}

Some claim that the passage in Genesis 4:16–17 means that Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. Thus, they can conclude there must have been another race of people on the Earth, who were not descendants of Adam, who produced Cain’s wife.

‘And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch: and he built a city, and he called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.’

From what has been stated previously, it is clear that all humans, Cain’s wife included, are descendants of Adam. However, this passage does not say that Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. John Calvin, commenting on these verses, states:

‘From the context we may gather that Cain, before he slew his brother, had married a wife; otherwise Moses would now have related something respecting his marriage.’13

Cain was married before he went to the land of Nod. He didn’t find a wife there, but ‘knew’ (had sexual relations with) his wife.14

Others have argued that because Cain built a ‘city’ in the land of Nod, there must have been a lot of people there. However, the Hebrew word translated as ‘city’ need not mean what we might imagine from the connotations of ‘city’ today. The word meant a ‘walled town’ or a protected encampment.15 Even a hundred people would be plenty for such a ‘city.’ Nevertheless, there could have been many descendants of Adam on the Earth by the time of Abel’s death (see below).

{snip}

Hope that clears that up.

Whereas if you take the book as an allegory, a collection of really cool stories that give you a pretty good example of how to live, then it all makes perfect sense.

But if it's only allegory, then it's not the infallible word of God.

[OnyxCougar]

Also wanted to add this since it's been brought up

Many people immediately reject the conclusion that Adam and Eve’s sons and daughters married each other by appealing to the law against brother-sister intermarriage. Some say that you cannot marry your relation. Actually, if you don’t marry your relation, you don’t marry a human! A wife is related to her husband even before they marry because all people are descendants of Adam and Eve—all are of ‘one blood.’ The law forbidding marriage between close relatives was not given until the time of Moses (Leviticus 18–20). Provided marriage was one man to one woman for life (based on Genesis 1 and 2), there was no disobedience to God’s law originally when close relatives (even brothers and sisters) married each other.

Remember that Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 20:12). God blessed this union to produce the Hebrew people through Isaac and Jacob. It was not until some 400 years later that God gave Moses laws that forbade such marriages.

[Elspode]

So...I guess this explains Original Sin. If we schtup anyone at all, we're committing incest!

[xoxoxoBruce]

But if it's only allegory, then it's not the infallible word of God.

The infallible allegory of God, then.

[wolf]

Follow up on the Druids.

Who are currently denying actually being Druish.

It's research or something ...

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

But if it's only allegory, then it's not the infallible word of God.

Well considering all we have to go on is the writings and ramblings of completely fallible humans writing what their fallible brains remember or want to remember, then there's the issue of many many many years of seperation/evolution of cultures between then and now, also considering some things happened/were written before the Tower of Babel and we know how translating from one tongue to another tends causes some loss of meaning, intent or inflection...

[alphageek31337]

Infallegory....ten dollar word.

Cain went out from before God's presence. He settled in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden. Cain knew his wife. She conceived and gave birth to Enoch. [Cain] was building a city, and he named the city Enoch, after his son.

Genesis 4:16-17

He either left with one of A&E's daughters, who would have been incredibly young at the time, or he picked someone up at a dive bar in Nod.

Edit: Wolf makes an interesting point. If you regard an English translation of the Bible as infallible, even as an infallegory, then you're already messed up because a lot of the Word of God is lost in translation. Even something as simple as "though shalt not kill" gets screwed up. The original word in Hebrew actually translates to 'assassinate', or 'murder from a hidden place'. Which goes far to justifying all the killing, later on, in God's name.