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120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

prt 1

Atheos said:
Correction: You and practically everyone you have ever known have always been taught that the serpent ... was Satan.

I'm not saying it was or that it wasn't. I'm only saying that the story as written tells of a talking snake, magical trees and ends with a cherubim with a flaming sword keeping people out of the garden. What later people did with this story in assimilating it into their culture(s) and religious beliefs is a different matter altogether.
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Your correction is true however outside the discussion in ordinary everyday life ,satan is associated to the serpent in conversations whether it is actually believed or not ,or imagined by directors that make movies or comedians that make jokes of the very thing. It is in our daily vocabulary rightly or wrongly by erroneous deeds ( Jeromes Latin Vulgate perhaps)


I offer to you (and Lion IRC) the opportunity to consider an entire sect of Jewish people who did not share your interpretation: the Sadducees.
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We know of the sudducees and would hope that they accept Jesus .

Acts 23:8

For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.
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Worth noting.
Lion IRC has made the unwarranted claim that atheists have some obsession with the Torah, which I find laughable. Talk about not knowing ones adversary. But I digress. The Sadducees were known for their rejection of everything except the Torah when it came to religious matters.
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I think Lion was highlighting that using in debates the older Jewish text ..Torah... is not expected of a Christian to know in comparison to a Jew the ins and outs. As you know many Christians are concerned with the NT. Having said that , I do think it is important to know as much because Jesus for example references them. Many of us are still learning.

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[h=1]Genesis 3[/h] 3 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
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13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.


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No divine being here, merely a serpent. Taking it out on snakes like this doesn't make sense if the serpent is not an animal, a serpent, but a divine being. A son of God (Job 1 and 2).

And in the Torah, God does not warn the Israelites about Satan, his devils and the evil they do. Or mention heaven and hell. This idea the serpent was Satan is an idea that came about centuries later. And rather, why did not God banish Satan from Earth to prevent Satan from corrupting men? I guess them bad ol' snakes were on the ark, too.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
No divine being here, merely a serpent. Taking it out on snakes like this doesn't make sense if the serpent is not an animal, a serpent, but a divine being. A son of God (Job 1 and 2).
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I would read the desciptive intention would mean not just an ordinary serpent. A serpent that speaks is similar to an entity that shapeshifts perhaps like in startrek, after all.. angels have some divine talents.
And in the Torah, God does not warn the Israelites about Satan, his devils and the evil they do. Or mention heaven and hell. This idea the serpent was Satan is an idea that came about centuries later. And rather, why did not God banish Satan from Earth to prevent Satan from corrupting men? I guess them bad ol' snakes were on the ark, too.
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My perspective on this is Jesus saw the dragon falling much later with the 3rd of angels. The first group of angels that interacted with humans had offspring during Noahs time. It is these hybrids and those corrupt humans that went with them that God destroyed by the flood.These were not his creation (nephilim) the abominations.
 
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Learner said:
I and practically everyone (believer or non believer) has always known the serpent in the garden of Eden to be known and referred to as Satan.
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I understand that from the POV of most Christians, that there is a theological linkage between the Genesis snake and the NT Satan. However, as DBT later alluded to within a post, I would expect that for the vast majority of Jews, their theology most certainly does not have that linkage. As a former Christian, I used to believe in that linkage. However, as I deconverted my understanding of many past Christian theological constructs gave way to other interpretations. There are also people like retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, who doesn't believe in hell, so I would expect that his theological views probably wouldn't have such linkage either.

FWIW, the below would be a decent description of my current understanding of the Genesis snake:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/...-interpretation/how-the-serpent-became-satan/
Introduced as “the most clever of all of the beasts of the field that YHWH God had made,” the serpent in the Garden of Eden is portrayed as just that: a serpent. Satan does not make an appearance in Genesis 2–3, for the simple reason that when the story was written, the concept of the devil had not yet been invented. Explaining the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan would have been as foreign a concept to the ancient authors of the text as referring to Ezekiel’s vision as a UFO (but Google “Ezekiel’s vision” now, and you’ll see that plenty of people today have made that connection!). In fact, while the word satan appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, it is never a proper name; since there is no devil in ancient Israel’s worldview, there can’t yet have been a proper name for such a creature.
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funinspace said:
I understand that from the POV of most Christians, that there is a theological linkage between the Genesis snake and the NT Satan. However, as DBT later alluded to within a post, I would expect that for the vast majority of Jews, their theology most certainly does not have that linkage. As a former Christian, I used to believe in that linkage. However, as I deconverted my understanding of many past Christian theological constructs gave way to other interpretations. There are also people like retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, who doesn't believe in hell, so I would expect that his theological views probably wouldn't have such linkage either.

FWIW, the below would be a decent description of my current understanding of the Genesis snake:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/...-interpretation/how-the-serpent-became-satan/
Introduced as “the most clever of all of the beasts of the field that YHWH God had made,” the serpent in the Garden of Eden is portrayed as just that: a serpent. Satan does not make an appearance in Genesis 2–3, for the simple reason that when the story was written, the concept of the devil had not yet been invented. Explaining the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan would have been as foreign a concept to the ancient authors of the text as referring to Ezekiel’s vision as a UFO (but Google “Ezekiel’s vision” now, and you’ll see that plenty of people today have made that connection!). In fact, while the word satan appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, it is never a proper name; since there is no devil in ancient Israel’s worldview, there can’t yet have been a proper name for such a creature.
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That (the bolded part) is my understanding of this question. I think I'd be right in saying that the devil/Satan concept was introduced to Judaism in the time of the Babylonian exile, specifically when the Persians took over. It was then introduced from Zoroastran dualist thought. The Genesis account being current before this idea was introduced, would preclude the author from having any such intention in his story of equating the serpent with Satan as "devil".
 
Yes. It's "clear" from a reading of Genesis that Jehovah considered himself first among a pantheon of deities.

"Let US create Man in our own image."

"Behold, the man has become like one of US."

"Let US go down and confuse their language."

Christians have ret-conned these passages, saying that Jehovah is talking to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but that's "clearly" a Christian idea grafted onto Hebrew writings.
 
Learner said:
I would read the desciptive intention would mean not just an ordinary serpent. A serpent that speaks is similar to an entity that shapeshifts perhaps like in startrek, after all.. angels have some divine talents.
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The animal called the serpent was not the same creature before it suffered the penalty for its role in leading A&E astray, it was not on its belly, it was not at risk of a heel upon its head. The transformation is done by god, according to the story.
 
Atheos said:
...You and practically everyone you have ever known have always been taught that the serpent ... was Satan.
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Yes. It's practically a unanimously held view in biblical theism.
Why do you think that might be?
Because random, plain old snakes, that just so happen to be in the vicinity of the Garden of Eden, don't pop up and start talking to humans about God and which fruit humans are able to eat.
Why does a snake care? How did a snake gain advance knowledge of God and forbidden fruit?


Atheos said:
...I'm not saying it was or that it wasn't.
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Thank you!

Atheos said:
...I offer to you (and Lion IRC) the opportunity to consider an entire sect of Jewish people who did not share your interpretation: the Sadducees.
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The biggest sect of Judaism today is called Christianity - an offshoot which equally reveres the Torah.
Obviously, not everyone agrees the snake is satan. Atheists/Sadducees *shrug*

Atheos said:
...

Acts 23:8
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.
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Now you're quoting from the New Testament. Excellent.
Can I quote from the New Testament to make my case?

Atheos said:
...Lion IRC has made the unwarranted claim that atheists have some obsession with the Torah, which I find laughable.
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I didn't say "atheists have some obsession".
I was addressing atheists in this thread who are unduly fixating solely on the Torah as if canonical exegesis was completely irrelevant and the rest of the Old Testament doesnt exist. Note also that I used parentheses around the word atheist.

Atheos said:
...I also feel compelled to point out that the statement I responded to above involves the fallacy of appeal to popularity - a very compelling argument, but ultimately one that is based on the premise that truth is subject to majority vote.
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Aren't you appealing to numbers yourself?
viz. The number of people who DONT believe Genesis 3:1 refers to satan
 
Lion IRC said:
Yes. It's practically a unanimously held view in biblical theism.
Why do you think that might be?
Because random, plain old snakes, that just so happen to be in the vicinity of the Garden of Eden, don't pop up and start talking to humans about God and which fruit humans are able to eat.
Why does a snake care? How did a snake gain advance knowledge of God and forbidden fruit?
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IIRC, that was due to the Zoroastrian influence on the religion to include a conflict between good and evil as they struggle for control of humanity and the universe. That was inbetween the Old and New Testaments, so Satan was seen as God's adversary by the time the Jesus sequel got green-lit. In the Old Testament, Satan had a different role.

The snake was just a snake. Turning it into Satan is nothing more than fanfic retconning, like when the Batman movie had the Joker be the guy who killed Batman's parents in order add a history of conflict to the storyline.
 
James Brown said:
Yes. It's "clear" from a reading of Genesis that Jehovah considered himself first among a pantheon of deities.

"Let US create Man in our own image."

"Behold, the man has become like one of US."

"Let US go down and confuse their language."

Christians have ret-conned these passages, saying that Jehovah is talking to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but that's "clearly" a Christian idea grafted onto Hebrew writings.
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Sons of God. See Job 1 and 2 for that. These are described in a number of OT verses as "The hosts of heaven".

Very early versions of Egyptian religion have a war between good gods, Osiris and Isis and Horus, and an evil god, Seth. Plus an after life, a heaven and a hell. Utter lack of such concepts in the Torah seem to rule out an idea that the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt and adopted Egyptian religion, (Joshua 10).
 
Keith&Co. said:
But that's just it. You can't read the 'intentions' of the author. Unless you have his journal describing what he meant when he wrote it.
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One of the points I was trying to make was ;this was not an ordinary snake. If it is by this concept, then all snakes should be talking.
 
funinspace said:
I understand that from the POV of most Christians, that there is a theological linkage between the Genesis snake and the NT Satan. However, as DBT later alluded to within a post, I would expect that for the vast majority of Jews, their theology most certainly does not have that linkage. As a former Christian, I used to believe in that linkage. However, as I deconverted my understanding of many past Christian theological constructs gave way to other interpretations. There are also people like retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, who doesn't believe in hell, so I would expect that his theological views probably wouldn't have such linkage either.
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For Christians by the understanding of the NT. Portrayals of evil is easily associated with serpents and demons. Obviously to us this all the latter part of the biblical addition because these things were yet to come from the view of the OT or Torah. Yes there are quite a few bishops and preachers that have different ideas to the scriptures. What I can not understand is why John Shelby does not believe in what Jesus says regarding hell. Christians should follow the words of Christ.


FWIW, the below would be a decent description of my current understanding of the Genesis snake:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/...-interpretation/how-the-serpent-became-satan/

]Introduced as “the most clever of all of the beasts of the field that YHWH God had made,” the serpent in the Garden of Eden is portrayed as just that: a serpent. Satan does not make an appearance in Genesis 2–3, for the simple reason that when the story was written, the concept of the devil had not yet been invented. Explaining the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan would have been as foreign a concept to the ancient authors of the text as referring to Ezekiel’s vision as a UFO (but Google “Ezekiel’s vision” now, and you’ll see that plenty of people today have made that connection!). In fact, while the word satan appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, it is never a proper name; since there is no devil in ancient Israel’s worldview, there can’t yet have been a proper name for such a creature.
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I could agree to some point like my mention above, about additions to the Biblical scriptures and yet to come. Scriptures does not stop just where the Torah ends. Regarding the snake I use the above.
 
Learner said:
Keith&Co. said:
But that's just it. You can't read the 'intentions' of the author. Unless you have his journal describing what he meant when he wrote it.
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One of the points I was trying to make was ;this was not an ordinary snake. If it is by this concept, then all snakes should be talking.
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Which fallacy are you imploring?
 
James Brown said:
Christians have ret-conned these passages, saying that Jehovah is talking to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but that's "clearly" a Christian idea grafted onto Hebrew writings.
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It is a Hebrew idea adding to the previous Hebrew writings. The Christians were formerly of the Jewish faith.

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Schrodinger's Outlaw said:
Learner said:
The fallacy of a different logical interpretation ...
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what is logical about a talking serpent
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It is not ordinary. If it is talking it is something else.
 
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