Seraphita, I could see that the serpent could also be a symbol of kundalini, an
essential concept from another religion. It's not that God wants to enslave us.
It's that people with certain ideas about God want to enslave us. They want us
to believe their ideas rather than the ideas of other religions. To give them
their due, they probably think their ideas are right and that they're doing
unbelievers a favor.
On Saturday, October 19, 2013 9:54 PM, "s3raph...@yahoo.com"
<s3raph...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Re "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat; But 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" (Genesis 2:16-17). ":
Precisely! Man didn't die so God was telling porkies! (Spare me the bollocks of
saying man dying "spiritually".)
The early Gnostics were right in seeing the Serpent as the true friend of
mankind. The Serpent wanted us to see that we are immortal (we're *really* the
One Self - "Christ Consciousness") but "God" wants us to remain slaves. Of
course, we're using mythological language here, but the God of present-day
Christians still doesn't want people to become seers - ie, those who see
clearly.
---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote:
The Fall of Man myth is a universal story that teaches by means of a
confidence trick.
And the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to
know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take
also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever... therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden ..." (Genesis
3:22-3).
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the
garden thou mayest freely eat; But 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" (Genesis 2:16-17).
Clearly, humankind did not die on that day of the Fall, but
instead became mortal.
We can see how the creation of man from clay, as related in the
Jehovistic account of Genesis, belonged to one branch of the
world's universal clay-man myths springing from Southeast Asia.
According to Oppenhiemer: "In these stories a malign creature,
originally either a devil or snake, interfered with the attempted
animation of the clay models by the creator. A a clear reference
to human creation is in the Austronesian cultures of Southeast
Asia as totemic props for mythic drama" (Oppenheimer 356).
Work Cited:
"Eden in the East"
The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia.
By Stephen Oppenheimer, M.D.
Phoenix 1998
p. 355-382
On 10/19/2013 2:14 PM, Share Long wrote:
>
>Richard, do other cultures have a myth about the fall of humanity that centers
>around acquiring some forbidden knowledge? And in other cultures is the fall
>blamed on the women?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Saturday, October 19, 2013 2:04 PM, Richard J. Williams <punditster@...>
>wrote:
>
>
>It seems obvious that the stories and myths gathered in the Bible were
>assembled from immortality and fertility myths which were in common
>circulation at that time, that is, about 3000 years ago. Stephen Oppenheimer,
>writing in "Eden in the East" notes that many of these same mythic elements
>are still to be found in lands stretching from Egypt to India, Southwest Asia,
>Melanesia, and America.
>
>This Levantine creation myth is
closely allied to other older myths
concerning creation, and as Harris
points out, every known culture
expresses social values and religious
views through myth (Harris 101). A
clear reference to human creation is
in the Austronesian cultures of
Southeast Asia where the idea of
creation from clay or red earth is
also used "as totemic prop for mythic
drama" (Oppenheimer 356).
>
>Work Cited:
>
>Oppenhiemer, Stephen, M.D., "Eden in
the East." London: Phoenix, 1998
>
>On 10/19/2013 11:56 AM, emptybill@... wrote:
>
>
>>According to the Orthodox, "Ancestral Sin" caused the reversal of
>>paradisaical deathlessness by creating the consequential mortality that we
>>all inherited. Obviously a mythologized explanation but this is how they
>>explain why humans are prone to concupiscence and deviance of will.
>>
>>
>>
>>Better yet is this explanation of the Orthodox view of "original" sin.
>>
>>
>>http://oca.org/questions/teaching/st.-augustine-original-sin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Thanks, this is great. For the moment, one question: "The expulsion from the
>>Garden and from the Tree of Life was an act of love and not vengeance so that
>>humanity would not 'become immortal in sin.'" What does "immortal in sin"
>>mean, and how would that happen?
>>
>>
>>emptybill wrote:
>>
>>Read this and then see if you have questions.
>>
>>
>>http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/ancestral_versus_original_sin
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
