Was Adam a Slave?

[Borachio]

But hang on - that would mean that "human beings" (however defined) arose in more than one place and on more than one occasion, doesn't it?

Is that a reasonable hypothesis?

 

[Gucumatz]

I don't think anyone thinks that all humans are descendant from 1 pair of ancestor homo sapiens. Well, except maybe for some creationists.

Or West Virginians. Same thing actually...

 

[otaman1]

Does this mean we came from China first rather than Africa?

 

[Borachio]

No. I'd go with the Ocean. Not China.

 

[Narz]

I think we're all slaves. We're born into a world where you are given moral obligations, you have a moral duty to perform these actions. You can choose to forgo them, but then you're not a good person. Additionally, due to the nature of reality, there is no amount of work that you can do that will release you from your obligations; the best you can do is to be dissonant regarding your obligations and ignore them.

This is curious coming from you ElMach, IIRC you're not religious. What are our moral "duties"? If you're just talking about basic human decency ("be excellent to each other") I don't think it's much of a duty & certainly doesn't make me feel enslaved.

I feel far more enslaved by the necessity to regulate things like food, sleep, work, socialization than by any moral standards. I find being good fairly easy (except monogamy, which makes me miserable, especially because women seem to be mostly hypocrites about it).

I just skimmed this thread out of curiosity. The whole "God" issue (especially a personal Judeo-Christian God) is so far fetched as to be as silly as arguing with my daughter that mermaids don't really exist. I don't really understand why intelligent people bother to debate it seriously in a back & forth.

 

[IglooDame]

So, to be a complex and sentient creature, you gotta be clothed and miserable?

If you see a bunch of sad morose dolphins trying on swim trunks, then that theory might have some legs (so to speak).

 

[Roller123]

Roller123, are you claiming that God does not exist within Judaism?

Exactly how does Adam rule God?

How was his screwup not half emancipation from fully being God's property?

How exactly did you come to the conclusion that Adam ruled over God, and that God does not exist after reading the definition of a slave and God's welcoming speech. This is a real mystery.

The idea that Adam is a slave to God is quite pathetic tbh. First of all, God doesnt need slaves as he is already omnipotent. Secondly the theory about God "forcing" Adam to do his will ( ie to eat and procreate) shatters to pieces when you consider that after a little incident God didnt force Adam back to his oh so enduring "work". He instead let him go.

Adam and God have a what appears to be a strictly work-related relation. Should i quote the definition of what an employee is? How difficult is it to follow the rule "dont eat the freaking apple". And much like anyone who doesn't do his job properly, he got fired, and put into job market, "free" of oppression of the employer. Mystery solved.

 

[Hygro]

How exactly did you come to the conclusion that Adam ruled over God, and that God does not exist after reading the definition of a slave and God's welcoming speech. This is a real mystery.

The idea that Adam is a slave to God is quite pathetic tbh. First of all, God doesnt need slaves as he is already omnipotent. Secondly the theory about God "forcing" Adam to do his will ( ie to eat and procreate) shatters to pieces when you consider that after a little incident God didnt force Adam back to his oh so enduring "work". He instead let him go.

Adam and God have a what appears to be a strictly work-related relation. Should i quote the definition of what an employee is? How difficult is it to follow the rule "dont eat the freaking apple". And much like anyone who doesn't do his job properly, he got fired, and put into job market, "free" of oppression of the employer. Mystery solved.

Another person conflates Genesis, the modern American interpretation of the Christian God, and the free market.

 

[Roller123]

Another person conflates Genesis, the modern American interpretation of the Christian God, and the free market.

Well okay, what are the signs of slavery and abuse we can see while he was in Eden. Im baffled.

 

[Tahuti]

Another person conflates Genesis, the modern American interpretation of the Christian God, and the free market.

Free market solves everything!

 

[El_Machinae]

This is curious coming from you ElMach, IIRC you're not religious. What are our moral "duties"? If you're just talking about basic human decency ("be excellent to each other") I don't think it's much of a duty & certainly doesn't make me feel enslaved.

It's mostly "be excellent to each other". And no, we don't feel enslaved by it, but my point is that we ignore it. We don't do what's the right thing to do, and then we redefine our morality to make it okay. No, I'm not the least bit religious, but I do stand by the existence of objective morality, and part of that morality is to 'be excellent'.
You can pursue that duty, and fail or you can ignore that duty. But the duty is there.

 

[Hygro]

Well okay, what are the signs of slavery and abuse we can see while he was in Eden. Im baffled.

Your argument is that God doesn't need slaves yet he does seem to need employees which serve the same function of being labor so it's a strange argument saying he can't be a slave because God doesn't need labor but he can be an employee.

 

[IglooDame]

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Saying that It needs labor/work, or love, or worship, or belief strikes me as anthropomorphizing God.

Aside from anything else, thinking He will be merciful or sadistic based on whether one works for Him, loves Him, worships Him, or believes in Him does not appear to be borne out by mortal human experience, either individually or in big groups.

 

[classical_hero]

It seems like people are saying that simply working is slavery. So are we meant to doing nothing all day? I can tell you from personal experience due to health issues that for the most part I do nothing all day and yet I am constantly tired. I can tell you I would be rather working since it gives you a sense of accomplishment and rather than worthlessness that doing nothing constructive all day does, but as of right now I don't have the energy to work and it is really frustrating when you know that once you get better you will be able to work.

 

[warpus]

But hang on - that would mean that "human beings" (however defined) arose in more than one place and on more than one occasion, doesn't it?

Is that a reasonable hypothesis?

It's just that the world wasn't populated solely by pre-homo sapiens and then suddenly a pair of homo sapiens came into existence, from where we all originated. That's not how it works.

 

[Hygro]

It seems like people are saying that simply working is slavery. So are we meant to doing nothing all day? I can tell you from personal experience due to health issues that for the most part I do nothing all day and yet I am constantly tired. I can tell you I would be rather working since it gives you a sense of accomplishment and rather than worthlessness that doing nothing constructive all day does, but as of right now I don't have the energy to work and it is really frustrating when you know that once you get better you will be able to work.

We use our leisure for the betterment of ourselves, our society, and humanity. Unfortunately there's not much leisure in being sick :/

 

[Farm Boy]

We use our leisure for the betterment of ourselves, our society, and humanity. Unfortunately there's not much leisure in being sick :/

I enjoy leisure. I gravitate towards leisure. I self-select leisure as an option almost always when given the chance. I can, however, definitively point to the times in my life when I have been happiest - and while those times do not contain an absence of leisure, they are generally a time when I was working hard, not leisurely. I think there is often more meaning in labor than this particular society rates. Which, I think, is symptomatic of feeling like you are "working for somebody else." When you feel like you are working for you, your friends, your family, and your God/divine/spirituality/place in the world, it's very much a different equation.

 

[Hygro]

I enjoy leisure. I gravitate towards leisure. I self-select leisure as an option almost always when given the chance. I can, however, definitively point to the times in my life when I have been happiest - and while those times do not contain an absence of leisure, they are generally a time when I was working hard, not leisurely. I think there is often more meaning in labor than this particular society rates. Which, I think, is symptomatic of feeling like you are "working for somebody else." When you feel like you are working for you, your friends, your family, and your God/divine/spirituality/place in the world, it's very much a different equation.

It is often the most existentially rewarding to have to do something. But no one said leisure has to be lazy, it just has to be non-coercive.

 

[Farm Boy]

Coercive is a loaded concept here though. Some types of coercion are fairly offensive. Some are probably worth responding to with violent adversarial death. But not all of them. Not most of them, really. Not by a long shot. The weather is coercive. Mechanical breakdowns can be coercive. Unpredicted health problems and injuries in your primary holder of expertise can be coercive. And I would suggest that much of the subsequent work is coerced by circumstance and situation.

 

[Berzerker]

The idea that Adam is a slave to God is quite pathetic tbh. First of all, God doesnt need slaves as he is already omnipotent.

Do omnipotent beings need us lowly humans to tend their gardens? In the Mesopotamian version the lower gods rebelled because of their workload and thats what inspired the creation of "lulu" - primitive workers.

Secondly the theory about God "forcing" Adam to do his will ( ie to eat and procreate) shatters to pieces when you consider that after a little incident God didnt force Adam back to his oh so enduring "work". He instead let him go.

God didn't let him go, God kicked him out... The slave had become too smart for his own good...Or God's own good.

Adam and God have a what appears to be a strictly work-related relation. Should i quote the definition of what an employee is? How difficult is it to follow the rule "dont eat the freaking apple". And much like anyone who doesn't do his job properly, he got fired, and put into job market, "free" of oppression of the employer. Mystery solved.

God took the man he made and put him in the Garden to work, he didn't hire him.