Learning Genesis

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Also I want to say as being in God's image that our minds are a lot more powerful than what most of us think. Someone who only believes God to be a certain way (like you are seeing Him) can by their own minds block out everything that they don't believe God to be even if God is showing them something like love.

It is the same with the heart. The Pharisees had such hard hearts that no matter what Jesus did, including performing miracles continuously in front of them, they were not going to believe.

God made people with a capacity for high intelligence and for deep love so that he could have real communication with them. However when the capacities are used for evil then the mind can block seeing the love and the heart can block feeling the love.

"Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14"In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, 'YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE" (Matthew 13:13-14).

This is not God's fault. He gave the ability for all to see and hear (that is seeing and hearing spiritually), but even though many heard and saw Jesus speak and act with love and do miracles, many did not believe because they closed themselves up spiritually causing them to harden their hearts and silence thoughts of love in their minds.

God gave to Adam and Eve freewill to believe God or to believe evil. They chose how to think. Just as each of us chooses what we will believe and can choose what dwells in our minds and hearts. If someone is closed to letting loving options in then they will not be able to see God's love even when He tries to show them.

A parable in Luke 16 speaks of someone who didn't believe pleading with Abraham (of Genesis) to let a dead person (that his family knew) to go to show himself to his family so that they won't end up where he is.

The rich man said, "But he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!'

Abraham's response however was, "But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'"(Luke 16:30-31).

This shows us that in creating us in God's image, God gave us so powerful a mind that we could actually tune him out to the extent that even if a dead person were to rise many still would not believe.
 
TubbyTubby said:
Hardly, I was questioning why anyone would take a moral viewpoint that makes it acceptable for a baby to be born with HIV. I wasn't blaming God, as I don't believe in God.
<<SNIP>>
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Yet, from post # 196 in the 'at long long last closed thread' by an atheist, you posted ::
If I ever felt moved to believe in God I could never accept this thought. An unborn child that has never formed one single thought in its mind is made to suffer because of a parents sin. Many of these children die before having a proper chance in life and I could never allow a thought to enter my head that says they deserve that fate because of their parents 'sins'. It's a disgusting thought, whichever way you want to dress it up.. An unborn child that has never formed one single thought in its mind is made to suffer because of a parents sin. Many of these children die before having a proper chance in life and I could never allow a thought to enter my head that says they deserve that fate because of their parents 'sins'. It's a disgusting thought, whichever way you want to dress it up.
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I believe the context does show that you blame God for all the woes in this life. OK, OK, OK, I get it you don't believe in God (you say), so you can't blame Him; OK, OK, I get it.
However, I understand your words as quoted above to show that the way things are prevent you from accepting God's reality.
Most thinking people would understand from your posted words then that if God exists He must take the blame for everything that goes wrong in the world. As for "questioning why anyone would take....." That appears to be shifting from your stated attitude, "If I ever felt moved to believe in God I could never accept this thought." So, are you saying that God's acceptance or not, hinges on the moral judgment of His creations?? No, well I do see in your words a moral judgment you are making against God, or if you prefer, against the idea of God.
Rom 3:3. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?
Rom 3:4. By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, "That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged."
When God created, He set in place all the physical laws that govern the material universe, these we can easily study; these we can mostly understand.
He also set in place spiritual laws, these we can study too, but not as easily as the physical.
Just as someone jumping off a 50 story building will end up as an ugly red stain on the pavement below, so, breaking spiritual laws will have inevitable consequences as well.
So, do you consider the inevitable consequences of breaking physical laws an impediment to believing in God?
No, then why would the inevitable consequences of breaking spiritual laws be an impediment to belief in God??? that is not logical.....that does not compute.
 
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Lets wrap this section up, this is easy to understand although does this mean that every living thing was vegetarian when they were created?
 
1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Ok, the origin of the 7 day week. Was this somehow loosely based on lunar cycles or not?

I also wonder why someone with the power of God needs to rest?
 
4 This is the history[a] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

I will assume here that we have gone back to the 6th day in Gen 1 26-27 as man had already been created?
 
TubbyTubby said:
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Lets wrap this section up, this is easy to understand although does this mean that every living thing was vegetarian when they were created?
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Yes, as I so stated in my earlier response you ignored obviously...
 
TubbyTubby said:
1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Ok, the origin of the 7 day week. Was this somehow loosely based on lunar cycles or not?

I also wonder why someone with the power of God needs to rest?
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Yes and the yearly cycle around the sun used to be 360 days.

God didn't need "rest" but rested from His work as an example for us. But the word rested (shabbat) also means just to cease. Which He did: He stopped creating things.
 
Abdicate said:
Yes, as I so stated in my earlier response you ignored obviously...
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Not ignored, you should remember I am not as familiar with the bible as you and things you take for granted don't sink in for me so easily. Now you point it out though I do remember this being mentioned before.
 
TubbyTubby said:
Not ignored, you should remember I am not as familiar with the bible as you and things you take for granted don't sink in for me so easily. Now you point it out though I do remember this being mentioned before.
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Understood and my apologies for the assumption.
 
gonefishing said:
The word used for rest also translates to mean ceased.
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I need to make a correction. Some manuscripts contain a word that means ceased.
And on Yom HaShevi'i Elohim finished His work which He had made; and He rested on the Yom HaShevi'i from all His work which He had made. Vayevarech Elohim et Yom HaShevi'i, and set it apart as kadosh: because that in it shavat (He had rested) from all His work which bara Elohim (G-d created) and made. (Bereshis 2:2, 3 OJB)
Shavat, or Shabbat is the sabbath.
 
8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Eastward from where? This tells me that there is some place to the West of Eden where he first created the man and then moved him?

I know about the second tree but what is the significance of the tree of life? Or will this come in later scripture?
 
TubbyTubby said:
8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Eastward from where? This tells me that there is some place to the West of Eden where he first created the man and then moved him?

I know about the second tree but what is the significance of the tree of life? Or will this come in later scripture?
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Man was made not to die. Adam ate of the tree of life, giving those that ate it sustenance to live forever. When man sinned, access to the tree was forbidden and they still lived to be almost 1000 years old. However, God said if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day you shall surely die - a day is like a 1000 years (2 Pe 3:8) and so the oldest man ever to live was Methuselah and he lived to be 969 years old and his name means "when he dies it will come" and what came? The flood, which is what happened. Adam died at 930 years old. All "within a day". After the flood the average lifespan became 120 years and by the time of David 70 years, where we have remained.
 
TubbyTubby said:
8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Eastward from where? This tells me that there is some place to the West of Eden where he first created the man and then moved him?

I know about the second tree but what is the significance of the tree of life? Or will this come in later scripture?
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P.S. Moses received all this information in Egypt so Eastward was east of Egypt. In fact, 3 of the 4 rivers are known today which surrounded the garden of Eden. If you continue in Genesis, you'll get there.
 
Abdicate said:
Man was made not to die. Adam ate of the tree of life, giving those that ate it sustenance to live forever. When man sinned, access to the tree was forbidden and they still lived to be almost 1000 years old. However, God said if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day you shall surely die - a day is like a 1000 years (2 Pe 3:8) and so the oldest man ever to live was Methuselah and he lived to be 969 years old and his name means "when he dies it will come" and what came? The flood, which is what happened. Adam died at 930 years old. All "within a day". After the flood the average lifespan became 120 years and by the time of David 70 years, where we have remained.
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This confuses me, at what point did time change from when a day was a thousand years to what we have now? Adam was 930 years old but that was a day in our perception, the average lifespan changed to 120 years which is 120 years as we understand it? And that shift in time perception happened after the flood?
 
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