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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Upvoted for capital-T Truth.

We can argue about the allegorical meaning of Genesis 2 and how it relates to human sexuality until we are blue in the face, but you should always start with the literal meaning.

The literal meaning of Genesis 2, if you give it its usual context in the Christian story (as, for example, represented by its use as the first lesson in a standard Christmas carol service), is that the original sin was independent moral discernment. Satan's promise is not money, or sex, or power - it is to possess the moral wisdom of God. There are plenty of other scriptural passages reinforcing this. And certainly when I was taught Christian morality, both as child in nominally-Christian schools in the UK and as a potential convert in university, the key message was that the only real sin is rebellion against divine authority, and the drinking and sabbath-breaking flows from that.

All the Abrahamic religions are fundamentally about total submission of human will to God's. Judaism, Islam, and Protestantism all have a tradition of religious scholarship where all moral wisdom that humanity will ever have is already written down in a closed canon of fundamental works (either directly from divinely-inspired authors, or preserved commentary based on lost divinely-inspired sources) and the work of religious scholars is just to interpret it. Catholicism and Orthodoxy both claim that there is a still-living tradition capable of generating new moral wisdom, but that there is no access to God outside it.

This is why "Abrahamic religion bad" comes so easily to non-religious Americans - the great American social experiment is fundamentally about allowing independent moral judgement at the lowest possible level.

‭‭In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

Judges 21:25

The final verse of the book of Judges, the majority of Judges describing the people of Israel committing horrible atrocities.

My long-ago religion lessons were that the sin of our First Parents was disobedience and lack of trust in God; they believed the lies of the serpent because they wanted more than they were being given. And then they ended up losing everything.

Yeah, also see the meaning of Islam, 'Submission [to the will of God]'.

the great American social experiment is fundamentally about allowing independent moral judgement at the lowest possible level.

“Is life so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! “ - Satan

“Is life so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! “ - Satan

Is that from Milton?

It's the quintessential myth of america, the most famous quote from the revolutionary war.

Satan's promise is not money, or sex, or power - it is to possess the moral wisdom of God.

Yes. And what God's worried about is competition.

Genesis 3:22: "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"