"Free will was given to man by god."

[Immanuel Can]

What are poetics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics

[Nick_A]

Speculations on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a good reason why kids turn away from modern Christendom. It becomes associated with morality and void of understanding. Is it any wonder why Simone Weil is becoming more known as the Patron Saint of Outsiders. These people feel the value and depth of Christianity but remain free of corruption within institutions. They are capable of reason and annoying questions.

Anyone reading Genesis 1 becomes aware how often remarks on the good are made during the steps of creation. It begins with the good and ends with the good.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=NIV

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

What is moral about the light?

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Was creation very good because it was moral? Yet kids are made to think that the ToK means morality and suffer righteous indignation for their questions. Thank God for those like the Patron Saint of Outsiders who understand there is far more to Christianity than superficiality.

[Immanuel Can]

What is moral about the light?

Nothing. There are different types of "good."

There's moral good, then being good for a purpose (like a hammer being good for hitting nails), or being good for food (i.e. edible), or being good for you (i.e. healthy), and so on.

Is that answer good with you?

[Nick_A]

What is moral about the light?

Nothing. There are different types of "good."

There's moral good, then being good for a purpose (like a hammer being good for hitting nails), or being good for food (i.e. edible), or being good for you (i.e. healthy), and so on.

Is that answer good with you?

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

God called the light good. Why? How was night and day created without the sun? How would you answer a kid who asked what light is and what day and night are without the sun?

When we admit that we don't know it is easy to accept that we really don't know what free will is. Perhaps Christianity is far deeper than we know.

[Dontaskme]

When we admit that we don't know it is easy to accept that we really don't know what free will is. Perhaps Christianity is far deeper than we know.

No thing knows any thing...what is ''knowing'' for a 'human being'...but what knowledge informs anyway?
No thing can ever know itself, things are KNOWN as knowledge dictates...and knowledge is sourced only in not-knowing source which is YOU the human...aka the not-knowing nameless formless source of your self as created in form and name.

Moving away from human knowledge which is basically made up of 'thought' and 'language' ie: artificially created.

Other living organisms automatically know what feels and sounds good and right...right? .. An animal listens to it's own senses in order to know how to survive....there is no other animal telling the other animal how to be and act in life, the creature just does what is innate to it's own survival that is already inbuilt into it's programming by nature, it's responses and reaction are automatic and instinctive, life never came with an instruction manual for them.

No thing knows why or how or what life is ...but there is an automatic instinctive and intuitive feeling and knowing of what feels good and right...as opposed to what feels wrong and evil.

There is NO demand to know why or how what feels good and right...these sensations are just AUTOMATIC spontaneous, and innate within the living sentient human organism.

An animals feeling of a 'hunger satisfied' feels right and good...and is why it's instinct is to kill another creature for food...the animal has no concept / knowledge of it's action being wrong or right, evil or bad...it's only purpose is to survive, and survival feels good, it feels better than dying..otherwise why would an animal bother to procreate with another animal? it's because it feels good to be alive, that's what life is all about surely, else why would it even bother to live in the first place? ..that's what real true Goodness and Love is...That's God. That's free will. The will to be.

God is always good God because there is always an automatic recoil of what doesn't feel good or right, and that is the wisdom of God in that God knows the difference between good and evil because God created both, as free will dictates...the freedom of knowing differences and opposites...and having the freedom to discern what action is best for life's basic requirement to work the way it does.

Life is always free...because no thing is living life, and no thing is dying, it's all just being itself, being God. No thing and everything is happening simultaneously / instantaneously all at once NOW in real space-time duality. Non-duality IS duality...infinitely for eternity.

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[Belinda]

What are poetics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics

Ta for the useful reference.

I quote from it:

Poetics is distinguished from hermeneutics by its focus not on the meaning of a text, but rather its understanding of how a text's different elements come together and produce certain effects on the reader.[4] Most literary criticism combines poetics and hermeneutics in a single analysis; however, one or the other may predominate given the text and the aims of the one doing the reading.


This pretty well sums up how you and I differ in our approaches to religion. Hermeneutics matter to me. Poetry would be sound and fury signifying nothing if I could not interpret it.

And I fear The Bible is largely sound and fury to most modern people who don't feel free to interpret it and who have not even learned The Bible's poetics.

[Immanuel Can]

God called the light good. Why?

Well, because it was good. It did what it was made to do, and produced the effects for which He created it, and was to be a benefit to the earth. Why look for a meaning of "good" beyond those? There's no possibility of an inanimate object being morally good, because moral good requires consciousness. "Light" isn't itself conscious.

How was night and day created without the sun? How would you answer a kid who asked what light is and what day and night are without the sun?

I would show to him the passage in Revelation that speaks of exactly the same phenomenon. God Himself creates light. (Rev. 22:5)

When we admit that we don't know...

That was not necessary in the above case. As you see, the answer to the particular question raised by Genesis 1 was already in the Bible. Why should someone pretend not to know, when he does know?

[Immanuel Can]

Hermeneutics matter to me.

And to me. But you and I seem to follow different hermeneutical basics.

And I fear The Bible is largely sound and fury to most modern people who don't feel free to interpret it and who have not even learned The Bible's poetics.

Not a problem. People can learn what they don't already know. It's just called "educating themselves." And with a sound hermeneutic, they can then read for themselves, and understand for themselves.

It's not actually complicated. It just takes a good attitude, and some willingness to learn.

[Nick_A]

I C

How was night and day created without the sun? How would you answer a kid who asked what light is and what day and night are without the sun?

I would show to him the passage in Revelation that speaks of exactly the same phenomenon. God Himself creates light. (Rev. 22:5)

Genesis 1:3

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

So what is the light? Can it be explained in a manner science could become open to?

[Nick_A]

I C

How was night and day created without the sun? How would you answer a kid who asked what light is and what day and night are without the sun?

I would show to him the passage in Revelation that speaks of exactly the same phenomenon. God Himself creates light. (Rev. 22:5)

Genesis 1:3

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

So what is the light? Can it be explained in a manner science could become open to?

That was not necessary in the above case. As you see, the answer to the particular question raised by Genesis 1 was already in the Bible. Why should someone pretend not to know, when he does know?

Do you really believe you understand the creation of the light?

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

People can learn what they don't already know. It's just called "educating themselves.

They can learn some of what they don't already know. Most people are trainable in techniques such as playing tennis, or simple joinery. Most people can learn to repeat words. Most people can learn religious rituals, and indeed ritual is often an important part of religion and the rest of art.

Interpretation is creative and can be learned only insofar as creativity can be learned. What is creativity? It's the exercise of imagination ; note well imagination is not superficial fantasy. If there were ever a candidate for man's free will that candidate would be imagination.

[Immanuel Can]

So what is the light? Can it be explained in a manner science could become open to?

On the one hand, one could say it's "photons." Or "energy."

But that doesn't really tell us much about its metaphorical or Biblical significance, which is surely additional to that. There, "light" represents things like "openness to view," "manifestation," "way-finding," and "truth." Which metaphorical significance is in view depends on the particular passage.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

People can learn what they don't already know. It's just called "educating themselves.

They can learn some of what they don't already know.

Yes. Like poetics. It's not hard to learn, if you care to know.

[Nick_A]

So what is the light? Can it be explained in a manner science could become open to?

On the one hand, one could say it's "photons." Or "energy."

But that doesn't really tell us much about its metaphorical or Biblical significance, which is surely additional to that. There, "light" represents things like "openness to view," "manifestation," "way-finding," and "truth." Which metaphorical significance is in view depends on the particular passage.

Why bring the sacred down to the level of the secular? Must Christendom be restricted to "metaphorical significance"? when questions invite contemplation of deeper meaning, why not open the mind?

The book of Genesis opens with the chapter, Beresheet, which tells the story of creation. On the first day, God said, “Let there be light.” Yet the bearers of light—the sun, the moon, and the stars—were not made until the fourth day. Kabbalists believe that the Light created on the first day of creation was not light as we know it; it was consciousness.

A kid with an open mind would appreciate an answer not limited to metaphorical significance. A wise teacher invites the question "what is consciousness." The answer is we don't know but we are invited to experience and contemplate it.

[Dontaskme]

..god didn't want us to have free will, so he forbade us to eat the fruit of wisdom!

What is free will anyway but a choiceless choice? God which is just another word for Formless Consciousness is limitless and infinitely ONE, desiring via limitless choice to experience limitation in the form of the many. So God split into two...Into Adam and Eve...apparently two...but really ONE..because one simply cannot split infinity into parts...so the story goes...a part was being an illusory aspect of the whole but ultimately the same whole / temporally apart from itself.

God shifted away from the sublime Absolute abundance and fulfillment of Oneness to experience the dream of separation aka (mentation) aka free limitless choice and limitation in the same instant aka the many of the ONE ...each of the many endowed with the knowledge of both their wholeness and separateness as being the same ONE CONSCIOUSNESS ..each apparent one being an aspect of the other, a mirror image....aka ALL God.

God already knew the knowledge of opposites of good and evil, wrong and right..etc..the knowledge of opposites being the dream of separation, albeit illusory because there was no such separation in God. So God, aka infinite intelligent already knew it's fruits wouldn't stray far from their birth tree of wisdom and knowledge because a tree and it's fruit are inseparable as one already all Knowing infinite intelligence.

So in essence there was no giving to another the notion of free will...free will is all that ever will BE..aka the desire to be...the desire to be is only possible because there is already BEING in the first place desiring the will to be other..aka the dream of separation...aka the knowledge of opposites.

God already knew there was no such knowledge of separation and in that knowing unconditionally allowed for the illusory freedom of separation to take place releasing any notion of restriction, which gave birth to the notion of temptation...aka free will to BE or not to BE

If there was no temptation ..there would be no notion of free will in the first place. The temptation had to be there for the taking else no separation would have been acknowledged.

No act is forbidden .. because it's quite evident that there are reactions and consequences to every action, and that was the wisdom of God's grace, it was the capacity to be able to discern between what felt right and good as opposed to what felt un-natural and uncomfortable, call it intuition if you like. Let thy conscience be thy guide...that's all infinite intelligence playing itself only...the instant play of karma.

In other words, nothing is free, and nothing wills...paradoxically, everything is free and everything wills...Consciousness intends nothing, and yet intends everything...ultimately there is no free will because there is nothing other than free will...it couldn't have been any other way.

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