So here's some things I've been contemplating.
A lot of times, I hear Christians say that the Earth is not their home, or that when they die, they'll go home to heaven. Or their pilgrims in a strange land. To me, that idea would make more sense if, based on the Bible, people had originally been created in heaven. But they were originally created in a certain section on Earth, and then kicked out to another part on Earth. So shouldn't Earth be their home, regardless? Or was it that Earth was the original home, and then when that got messed up by sin, home was relocated to heaven? But if heaven is where God is, and we were created to be in a relationship with God, why weren't humans originally created in heaven?
That, and let's say (taking the story literally) that Adam and Eve did everything right, and we were still living in Eden to this day. If they didn't eat of the fruit, then they didn't disobey God, and then wouldn't have introduced sin into the world. Without sin, you don't have death. So let us say that all the people who have been born over the last 6,000 years were still born in this sinless, deathless world. They'd never die. How would they all fit on the planet?
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"They'd never die. How would they all fit on the planet?"
People were a lot smaller before the fall, and the current size of people is the result of sin?
When I was a youngster, cast among the tetchy but joyful Southern Baptists, there were several hymns which supported this horror of things "of the world".
Poor Wayfairing Stranger...I Am A Pilgrim...I Am A Stranger Here (within a foreign land)... I Can't Feel At Home In This World Anymore...
Plenty more like them out there, and I heard very affluent people singing their hearts out for the distain they felt for their "worldly" life...at least on Sunday... when others were looking.
I also remember being told that one's 'soul' was the oldest part of a person, and there was a very confused and contradictory
ramblings about where this 'entity came from and just why it did what it did.
"Heavenly Homes" were mentioned with earnest, knowing nods, one school of thought even whispered that "we" had left said "Heavenly Home" for reasons which were silly in the extreme.
A person less cautious than I once remarked that this sounded akin to Budhism or even Hinduism, but was informed (quite profanely) that this wasn't true at all!
In the end it tells what people actually think of their life if they go for something like that. Seems truly an 'American' way of looking at things, really.
But if you lived a rural hardscrabble life, it would have its attractions.
LOL! It's a head spinner, really.
The whole idea that we were born on earth to suffer and learn so that we are prepared for heaven is preposterous.
Why is it so horrible to believe that the earth is our home? I don't know.
After 4-to-5 years away from the faith, the ridiculousness of it all has started to stir laugh instead of anger.
The thing is that believers are supposed to accept it all by faith, not try to make sense of it. That's why our heads spin when we try to understand it, because it doesn't make any sense.
Atimetorend,
**People were a lot smaller before the fall, and the current size of people is the result of sin?**
Then I would really feel for Eve, since any children she gave birth too were much bigger than they were supposed to be. :)
Sarge,
Reading all those hymn titles makes me want to retort, "No one's asking you to stay."
**But if you lived a rural hardscrabble life, it would have its attractions.**
Yes. I wonder if Christianity would have the hold it does if life in prior times hadn't been so difficult?
Lorena,
**The thing is that believers are supposed to accept it all by faith, not try to make sense of it. That's why our heads spin when we try to understand it, because it doesn't make any sense.**
And yet, I very often see the same people -- who tell you to just have faith -- also say that faith isn't blind. But then what is faith credibly based on if so much of it doesn't make sense?
The man I trained and rode for long ago was the second atheist I ever knew, and he grew up in the 1920's and 30's on a small farm in southwest Virginia. The back breaking, life leaching continuous labor for uncertain return, insecurity, continual discomfort, was surely a spur to belief that there had to be "something better" this was not the "reality" which should be simply lived. And it wasn't much different if one was a miner, mill hand, or maybe on a fishing boat...anything.
My boss said that of course they cried and screamed in their churches (and in a lot of cases still do in some) because it was what they felt like doing all the time.
Still have never figured out the "old soul" thing, though.
**People were a lot smaller before the fall, and the current size of people is the result of sin?**
Then I would really feel for Eve, since any children she gave birth too were much bigger than they were supposed to be. :)
Exactly, "To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children..."
Sarge,
**he back breaking, life leaching continuous labor for uncertain return, insecurity, continual discomfort, was surely a spur to belief that there had to be "something better"**
And if that faith is something that gets them through their life, I'd never want to remove that from them. Except a lot of times, they don't extend the same consideration to people like me.
Atimetorend,
**In pain you will bring forth children..."**
Because their heads will be so big, as you will have giant children because of sin!
"Because their heads will be so big, as you will have giant children because of sin!"
LOL, thanks
It just goes to show how wise God is, He already knew Adam would fall, thus he did not make earth too big.
And the present overcrowding in some countries is a punishment for the original sin.
See, God is just and wise.
So let us say that all the people who have been born over the last 6,000 years were still born in this sinless, deathless world. They'd never die. How would they all fit on the planet?
I had the same question as a kid. I shrugged it off by figuring that, since people had sinned, then it was just hypothetical anyway. There's no way we could speculate about what would have happened if...
I had a lot of good questions as a kid. Too bad I didn't follow through with them then.
Temaskian,
**He already knew Adam would fall, thus he did not make earth too big.**
It would go further than that -- He also positioned the Earth around the Sun correctly. If you think about all that's involved to produce a planet capable of sustaining life, especially human life ... you could almost argue that, based on the current natural laws, unless Original Sin and Death and Free Will weren't introduced into the world, there was no way God could've created humanity to begin with, as there wasn't a suitable planet for that many people.
The chaplain,
**I had a lot of good questions as a kid. Too bad I didn't follow through with them then.**
You did follow through -- you had faith. :)
"And if that faith is something that gets them through their life, I'd never want to remove that from them. Except a lot of times, they don't extend the same consideration to people like me."
Aye! And there, indeed is the rub, is it not?
One of my rather dooty relatives told me once that her relgion was "good for Paul and Silas, and it's good enough for me. And it's good enough for you, too". with a rather belligerent glare.
One has been informed that even if I do not 'claim' xianity, it claims me whether I like it or not and really have no choice but to knuckle under. Surrender to Jesus!
Or else.
Notice that the whole concept of childbearing didn't come in until after the fruit salad had been eaten. Had the idea of sin not been introduced, I'm guessing that there would have been no reason to make more people -- the world population would have probably stayed at 2.
nfljunkie,
**Had the idea of sin not been introduced, I'm guessing that there would have been no reason to make more people -- the world population would have probably stayed at 2.**
Which is a creepy thought, because now there was a situation where people would suffer, make the wrong choice and go to hell ... and that's when God decides to increase the population?
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