jerryb Posted February 4, 2006 Posted February 4, 2006 'The serpent said to the woman,"You won't die...but God knows your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God,knowing everything,both good and evil" Gen. 3:4 Whether you believe this really happened,doesn't really matter. Because all of us KNOW that we have the awesome power of choice....and God has absolutely no power over our choices. Do you agree? Looking foward to YOUR thoughts, Jerry Quote
AletheiaRivers Posted February 4, 2006 Posted February 4, 2006 I believe in free will. However, I don't think it's possible for me to KNOW I have free will. I could be an automaton, programmed to believe I have free will, while all along my choices have been mapped out for me with sufficient randomness to fool me. We certainly could be living in the matrix. Quote
flowperson Posted February 4, 2006 Posted February 4, 2006 AR & JB Agreed. I've always wondered why the serpent picked on Eve and not Adam. Any thoughts on why she was more susceptible to the hisssser's deceptions than the man? By the way, Paul Gaugin did a wonderful series of panels on the garden scenes. He seems to have been obsessed by the drama of this particular literary metaphor involving the first humans. He depicts the serpent as a smallish, flying, red dragon and not as a snake in the tree. I don't know why I am moved to do certain things as I do. All I know is that my feelings tell me when the choices I make are right for my future and the futures of those I care for. And likewise, if I lie to myself about the choices I make in the moment, I always end up regretting those turns in my life. It is a never-ending process of self-reflection, memory, and evaluation that collectively educates us about how to live life beneficially for ourselves and others. If that's life in the "matrix", and if that's how G-d set-up our holographic and fractalized realities, then so be it. It is real. BTW, I really like the way sh/he set-up our senses to multitask. Listening to Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingston makes this writing stuff much more natural for me. flow.... Quote
jerryb Posted February 5, 2006 Author Posted February 5, 2006 I believe in free will. However, I don't think it's possible for me to KNOW I have free will. I could be an automaton, programmed to believe I have free will, while all along my choices have been mapped out for me with sufficient randomness to fool me. We certainly could be living in the matrix. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Good thoughts Aletheia, I especially like what you said about randomness. Driving down the expressway just yesterday, in a driving rain, it suddenly occured to me that just one person, having a heart attack on THAT road at THAT time,could have changed the lives of myself and others on that road. Was it 'mapped out' as you said, that we all were allowed to safely arrive at our destinations? Maybe....chance and randomness do in fact rule and order our lives. Thanks for your succinct thoughts,as always, you are a breath of fresh air on this board. Jerry Quote
jerryb Posted February 5, 2006 Author Posted February 5, 2006 AR & JB Agreed. I've always wondered why the serpent picked on Eve and not Adam. Any thoughts on why she was more susceptible to the hisssser's deceptions than the man? By the way, Paul Gaugin did a wonderful series of panels on the garden scenes. He seems to have been obsessed by the drama of this particular literary metaphor involving the first humans. He depicts the serpent as a smallish, flying, red dragon and not as a snake in the tree. I don't know why I am moved to do certain things as I do. All I know is that my feelings tell me when the choices I make are right for my future and the futures of those I care for. And likewise, if I lie to myself about the choices I make in the moment, I always end up regretting those turns in my life. It is a never-ending process of self-reflection, memory, and evaluation that collectively educates us about how to live life beneficially for ourselves and others. If that's life in the "matrix", and if that's how G-d set-up our holographic and fractalized realities, then so be it. It is real. BTW, I really like the way sh/he set-up our senses to multitask. Listening to Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingston makes this writing stuff much more natural for me. flow.... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Greetings Flow....some super thoughts in your post today. When you have time,could you share with me,as the new kid on the block, more of what you mean by 'living in the matrix? I'd like to pursue some additional thoughts on that. I find it very intriguing. Blessings fellow traveler Jerry Quote
October's Autumn Posted February 5, 2006 Posted February 5, 2006 RE: Serpent picking Eve We can also look at the question in reverse. Why did the tellers of the myth choose Eve over Adam to be the one who the serpent approaches? Is it simply to explain why women suffer when giving birth -- a need to make a "spiritual" explanation instead of simply a physiological one? Quote
minsocal Posted February 5, 2006 Posted February 5, 2006 AR & JB Agreed. I've always wondered why the serpent picked on Eve and not Adam. Any thoughts on why she was more susceptible to the hisssser's deceptions than the man? By the way, Paul Gaugin did a wonderful series of panels on the garden scenes. He seems to have been obsessed by the drama of this particular literary metaphor involving the first humans. He depicts the serpent as a smallish, flying, red dragon and not as a snake in the tree. flow.... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> One interpretation holds that Adam and Eve, being unaware of their physical differences were, psychologically speaking, one and the same being. The selection of Eve as the culprit is the imposition of later (male) translators who distorted the original meaning. To become conscious is to "fall" into the field of opposites and (then) become self-responsible individuals. minsocal Quote
flowperson Posted February 6, 2006 Posted February 6, 2006 JB It would take so much time and space to comment upon your question that I would shy away from a more complete description at this time. However, you can grab the gist of it by renting the "Matrix" films, and by reading the book that I suggested elsewhere on the board, The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. When it came out in the late eighties or early nineties it was so novel in its concepts that it seemed akin to UFO books in some ways. But it attracted excessively arcane and vehement criticism from conservative scientists which indicated to me that it probably contained some valid concepts, and when I read it I felt that it did. I have re-acquired a copy and plan to re-read it soon to examine anew what may be there in light of recent discoveries in physics and optics. As you watch the movies and hopefully read the book (if you google the author's name I believe there's a shorter version of the concepts by the author on the web) keep in mind that everything on the face of the earth, including us, can be digitized and rendered on displays in the form of topographic mapping routines. That means that everything is locatable, addressable and observable under certain technical circumstances. The Matrix films are about this. A hologram is a two dimensional rendering that is transformed into a three dimensional entity through novel illlumination and rendering techniques using laser generated light. Thus any reality on earth or near it at any scale could theoretically be simulated and made to appear to move in time just as the world around us does. As an example of such powerful technologies, it is now possible to simulate the electromagnetic and particle activity of the explosion of nuclear devices in femtosecond (trillionths of seconds) segments on masssively parallel supercomputer processors. This is how our nuclear arsenal is kept up to date these days since real world testing of the devices was ceased years ago. Living in a matrix would mean, I guess, that we should be aware of the fact that we and the things around us may be observable by others as virtual simulations which would probably distort reality for us at times in some important ways. These distortions might take the form of the more sensitive of us sensing "virtual presences" around us from time to time. I know that I have experienced such episodes. That's about the best that I am able to do for now. MinS and AR Yes , I agree with you both on some levels, but as I have commented before, the earliest folk beliefs among the earth's cultures was that the earliest and greatest G-d was an androgyne possessing both female and male characteristics. In fact there are some arcane sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that approach this subject. Also, the early depiction of demonic beings is highly variable. Aside from Gaugin's vision of the flying, red, serpent tempter, early Etruscan art rendered on the walls of tombs from about 1,000bc depict the demonic as blue-faced beings with warty noses and medusa-like hair. Different artists, different visions. flow.... Quote
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