= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
gjm comments on Is Spirituality Irrational? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (429)
Nah. If you head up those rivers and don't find Eden, the obvious conclusion is just that God removed it some time after Adam and Eve left because it was surplus to requirements. It doesn't (at least not obviously, so far as I can see) refute the Genesis story.
Genesis says it was protected by an angel with a flaming sword. I think it might be reasonable not to expect to find the Garden... but one could expect to find the angel with the flaming sword. After all, if something's there as security, it's generally put where unauthorised people can find it.
It's not an obvious refutation, but it's more likely the result of a non-literal than a literal Garden of Eden.
If Eden was removed as surplus to requirements, so presumably was the angel. And this all seems like such an obvious thing for an Eden-literalist to say after trekking up the river and finding nothing that I really don't see how the (then) present-day absence of the GoE and angel could possibly have been much evidence against a literal Eden.
...I take your point. If there had been Eden literalists back then, then that evidence alone would have been insufficient to convince them otherwise.