Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jmgreen@pilot.njin.net (Jim Green) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Shame Message-ID: Date: 14 Apr 91 02:09:51 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: NJ InterCampus Network, New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 90 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu It gets worse.....our moderator can't restrain himself from commenting as follows: |The guidelines for the group explain the grounds on which I make |comments. I try to avoid being controversial......... In as much as the moderator DEFINES the 'guidelines', he, per force adheres to them. But that doesn't make it SEEMLY to add his post scripted personal beliefs to our postings as if he were the one to pass preferential judgement on them. He should REDEFINE the 'guidelines' and his opinions should appear as his own post. He goes on to |"... confess I'm surprised by this one. As you'll see from |another posting, [see Re: Adam and Eve have become as Gods?] |Jim is not the only one who regarded my comment as controversial. Surprised??? Good grief, we have gone over the issue of sex-as-the-Garden-of-Eden sin several times. Controversial??? This issue isn't as much controversial as it is unscholarly. There just isn't meaningful biblical evidence to support it. He continues... |I thought the change from being unashamed of nakedness |(Gen 2:25) to covering themselves with fig leaves and hiding from God |because they were naked (Gen 3:7ff) was pretty obviously a reference |to sexual relations. Obvious??? It was a *Dark Ages* INVENTION. Ok Ok Ok It wasn't the protege of Thomas Aquinas as I claimed previously, it blossomed in the perverted mind of Augustine c 400 ad. (And, yes, I really mean perverted; he struggled his entire life with the sexual, perverted promiscuity of his youth. It was he who promoted the biblically unsubstantiated idea that not only did Mary remain celibate but also that SHE was conceived 'immaculately'....all because of his distorted view of sex.) Still more... |.................................. It seems to me that hiding |from God and being afraid of him because they were naked (3:10) |suggests that they were ashamed of their nakedness. Nakedness??? They were ashamed because they had DISOBEYED...because they had EATEN of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil...because there APPEARANCE had so testified...because the Tree's FOOD had strangely changed there biological metabolism and now they LOOKED different. He continues: |.......................................... I'm not sure when |you consider the dark ages to have begun, but my comments are |consistent with Augustine's in chap 14 of the City of God. I consider that the Dark Ages began with Augustine and continued through Tom Aquinas until Galeleo Galilei, who had the courage to challenge all the accumulated Aristotelian drivel with the idea that humans should return to rational thought. Now our moderator's comment to Robert O'Barr (whose article should be read by all): |I didn't mean to say that the first sin was sexual, but rather |that derangement of relations between the sexes was a consequence |of it. --clh] Derangement??? What 'derangement between the sexes'? What is he talking about??? Any derangement here is belief that the so called sin of the Garden of Eden had anything to do with sex. THERE IS NOT ONE WORD ABOUT SEX IN THE ENTIRE EPISODE except that God COMMANDED Adam and Eve to MULTIPLY and replentish the Earth, which I am sure was accomplished with some good wholesome sex. And there is no evidence that they should feel any shame or that they were not to enjoy it while they were at it. I renew my challenge to support a contrary view with biblical references...opinions of post 4th century authors won't do; they had no more reliable sources regarding this issue than we do. Ok, Chuck, I'm sure that you will have something to say: =================================================================== [I doubt that anything more I would say is going to have any effect. --clh]