Rational Compassionate Living

Part 3: Back to Basics.

Featuring: Anthony Norris III and Steven Lot

Lot: Hey, Tony, I’ve got something on my mind.

Norris: [Under his breath] How unusual.

Lot: I think we should pay one more call on Mr. Socrates.

Norris: No; he’s a goat. We’ve wasted enough time on him. He’ll never “listen and obey,” like our sheep do.

Lot: But my conscience is bothering me. I don’t think we gave him a thorough enough witness.

Norris: What do you mean? We spent hours —

Lot: That’s just it. In our first two visits we went into the deep things of God: 1914 and 1919. I think there are maybe one in a hundred baptized Witnesses who clearly understand how we arrive at those dates.

Norris: More like one in a million for the 1919 date.

Lot: Yeah. But here we were boring an interested person with all those details! We should’ve just started with the basics: go back to the beginning: Adam’s sin, and Jehovah’s loving provision for forgiving mankind: the ransom sacrifice. For lots of Witnesses that’s really all they know and believe in; the rest they either ignore or put up with while waiting for new light.

Norris: Very well, let’s go see him. At least we can count our time. I’m a little short on hours this month.

---

Socrates: Gentlemen! So happy to see you again. I shan’t offer you anything to drink this time, knowing your penchant for refusing while “on duty.”

Norris: Quite right.

Lot: We wanted to get back to you because we got somewhat sidetracked in our previous visits. You seemed to confuse us with the Catholics. Let me assure you, we are nothing like them! They have all these mysteries that their followers must accept on their say-so. But our religion uses clear-cut logic, and is built on the backbone of common-sense.

Norris: We don’t ask anyone to ever believe anything that doesn’t make sense.

Lot: That’s right. And we want to prove this to you today by sharing the good news of God’s Kingdom with you.

Socrates: You mean heaven?

Lot: Not just heaven; that’s only one part of God’s Kingdom.

Norris: Christendom is too wrapped up in heaven. Only 144,000 people are going to heaven.

Socrates: What happens to the other billions of people? Do they go to hell?

Norris: Yes and no. You see, hell is just the common grave of mankind. Death is, for most, an unconscious state where one waits for the resurrection: a resurrection to life on earth.

Lot: You see, Mr. Socrates, Jehovah God is perfect. He is all-powerful, all-good, all-just, all-knowing, and loving.

Jehovah lovingly made the earth as a paradise for man to live on forever. That was his original plan. But our first parents, Adam and Eve, committed the sin of disobedience. They chose Satan — in the form of a talking serpent fruit-vendor — over God.

Socrates: I see. And your god Jehovah, being “all powerful,” is supposed to be the most powerful being that exists. Correct?

Lot: Absolutely! Nothing comes close to the power of Jehovah!

Socrates: So, anything he wanted he would be sure to get; nothing could prevent it.

Lot: Why do you say that?

Socrates: Because if someone or something could prevent Jehovah from getting what he wanted, then that someone or something would be more powerful than Jehovah: being able to put obstacles in his path that he wasn’t powerful enough to overcome.

Lot: Yes, that makes sense. And nothing is more powerful than Jehovah.

Socrates: Then if this god wanted humans to live forever on a paradise earth, that is what would be happening right now at this very moment. But, sadly, I fear this earth is less than a paradise, and we all die. So, either this god does not want what you say he wants, or he is not all-powerful.

Norris: No, it’s because of the sin of Adam and Eve. They chose not to obey Jehovah, and chose to follow the evil Satan instead. You see, Jehovah won’t interfere with our freewill.

Socrates: So this circumstance subverted Jehovah’s “original plan”; it prevented him from getting what he wanted.

Lot: Yes, it did.

Socrates: But we just agreed that this is impossible; what God wants, God gets.

Norris: Yes, but Jehovah wanted us to freely obey him. Our first parents didn’t do that; they chose a different path with their freewill.

Socrates: They chose the evil over the good?

Lot: Yes.

Socrates: But doesn’t your Bible say that they didn’t know good from evil until after they ate the forbidden fruit?

Lot: Yes. It was only after they had sinned that they learned what good and evil were:

Jehovah God then said: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad.
— Genesis 3:22

Socrates: Well, then they couldn’t have made a moral choice prior to this. They could not meaningfully choose the evil over the good without knowing what good and evil were. Nor would it be justice to judge them and sentence them to a punishment when they did not know right from wrong. Our own human courts are at least that just: suspending a sentence in the case of someone incompetent to stand trial.

Norris: No, I must correct brother Lot here; Adam and Eve knew the difference between good and evil, but they hadn’t experienced making a moral decision between the two. So, in that sense they didn’t really know it.

It’s just like the Bible saying, “And Adam knew his wife, and she bore him a son.” Not that he didn’t know who she was before that; he just hadn’t known her intimately.

Socrates: So the Bible is wrong: the tree must’ve been named “the tree of the experience of choosing good or evil,” not “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Norris: Good point. I’ll mention that to our Bible translators for our next version of the New World Translation.

Socrates: And if they “became like God” in knowing good and evil by experiencing the choosing of evil, then your god must’ve experienced the choosing of evil at some point. But, if he ever chose evil, then he couldn’t be the “all-good” god that you claim him to be.

So, either Adam and Eve really didn’t know good from evil, or Jehovah is not all good.

Norris: Jehovah is all-knowing, so he didn’t need to experience choosing evil in order to know evil.

Socrates: Well, I’m not all-knowing, but even I know evil without ever having chosen it. So, I think brother Lot was correct: they didn’t know good from evil.

Lot: [Having looked something up on his phone] Oh, wait! I have to correct brother Norris! [With a victorious smile at putting Norris in his place for once.] The Insight book makes the same point as Mr. Socrates:

God’s words at Genesis 3:22 could not pertain to their now knowing what was bad by experience, for Jehovah said that they had become like him and he has not learned what is bad by doing it. (Ps 92:14, 15)

It goes on to explain exactly what it means for them to know good and bad:

Evidently, Adam and Eve got to know what was good and what was bad in the special sense of now judging for themselves what was good and what was bad. They were idolatrously placing their judgment above God’s, disobediently becoming a law to themselves, as it were, instead of obeying Jehovah, who has both the right and the wisdom necessary to determine good and bad.
— Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2 p. 181

Socrates: So, according to the Watchtower, the Bible is wrong yet again! The Bible clearly tells us that Adam and Eve came to “know good and bad”. But the Watchtower insists that they didn’t; all that really happened is that they tried to exercise their freewill. They tried to determine for themselves which course of action was good and which was bad.

Lot: That’s right. They were never supposed to determine good and bad for themselves.  They were just supposed to obey Jehovah.

Socrates: How were they to know that obeying Jehovah was good, and disobeying Jehovah was bad, when they weren’t supposed to know good from bad?

Norris: They weren’t supposed to use their own human wisdom to determine what was good and bad. They were supposed to trust that Jehovah knew best, and obey him.

Socrates: Obeying Jehovah was good behavior, and disobeying him was bad?

Lot: Absolutely!

Socrates: How could they know that, without knowing good from bad?

Lot: Well — uh.

Socrates: Since that rightfully seems to stump you, let me ask you this: Do you gentlemen know good from bad? Or do you just obey Jehovah?

Norris: They are one and the same thing. When we obey Jehovah we are good.

Socrates: Previously you told me that Jehovah was “all-good.” How did you make that determination? Didn’t you have to use your own human wisdom?

You see, at some point it has to come down to that. An individual has to exercise their own judgment in determining what is good and what is evil. There is no way around it. Even judging Jehovah to be good, and obedience to be good: these are judgments that we make.

So your “insight” book is wrong. It’s saying that the sin was not that Adam and the woman used their freewill to disobey Jehovah. It’s saying that the sin was that they used their freewill!

Yet, you say that freewill was a precious gift that this god gave humankind. So precious, in fact, that you say he would never interfere with our freewill in any way!

So how could it possibly be that this god would sentence all humankind to die for the first couple’s having made use of the gift he had given them? (Especially when we realize that he expected them to make use of their freewill in deciding that obeying him was a good thing to do in the first place!)

What we are left with is the fact that the account in Genesis makes no sense if we take it your way. It only makes sense if it means that Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and bad prior to eating from the forbidden tree, because they only obtained this knowledge after eating from the tree.

So, prior to that, they didn’t know that obeying Jehovah was good or that disobeying him was bad. Therefore, it was unjust for Jehovah to condemn them.

Norris: Well, no matter their level of knowledge of right and wrong, Jehovah still expected Adam and Eve to be obedient.

Socrates: Then that was a stupid expectation on his part. Jehovah is not stupid, is he?

Lot: Jehovah is the most intelligent being there is!

Socrates: Then your interpretation of the Bible’s account must be wrong.

Who lied? Or was this all just a myth? Don’t miss the continuation of this discussion in Part 4!

Part 4: Back to Basics ii.

Featuring: Anthony Norris III and Steven Lot

Norris: [With an exasperated shake of the head, while looking at Lot. As if to say, “I told you he was a goat.”] The Bible is never wrong, and neither is Jehovah. He said Adam would die if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam ate, and he died. Satan, meanwhile, was proven to be the “father of the lie” by claiming that Adam and Eve could disobey Jehovah and not die.

Socrates: But just a minute; what you just said is not at all what your Bible says.

It says that Jehovah told Adam that “in the day you eat from it you will certainly die.” Yet we read that, after eating from the forbidden tree, Adam did not die that day; he lived for more than another 800 years!

On the other hand, the talking serpent fruit-vendor said that the problem with eating from the tree was not that they would die, but as he told Eve: “your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad.” (Gen. 3:4-5)

And, sure enough, the Bible reports that as soon as they ate from the tree, “the eyes of both of them were opened” (Gen. 3:7)  And Jehovah himself afterwards confirmed the truth of the rest of the serpent’s words, stating: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad.” (Gen. 3:22)

So, it seems that Jehovah was the liar, while the serpent told the truth.

Norris: No, the Bible tells at Titus 1:2 that it is impossible for God to lie.

The answer lies in 2 Peter 3:8, which tells us that a day is as a thousand years to Jehovah. Adam died some 800 years after eating the forbidden fruit; within the thousand-year “day.” So Jehovah was telling the truth.

Socrates: And had Adam read 2 Peter?

Norris: Of course not. That was written thousands of years after Adam had died.

Socrates: Then how would he have a clue as to a day being a thousand years?

Lot: He didn’t. But we do, and that’s what matters.

Socrates: Why did Jehovah tell him, “in the day you eat from it you will certainly die,” if, given the way Adam would understand those words, it was untrue?

If I tell you that I can ascend to heaven by just using my own will-power, would you believe me?

Lot: Of course not.

Socrates: Ah, but you see, what I said is true: using my will-power I can get online and book a flight right now, and within a few hours I would be ascending heavenward.

Lot: Well, you tricked me: using words in a different way then we commonly understand them.

Socrates: Yes, I did. Very godly of me, you might add, because this is exactly what you say Jehovah did to Adam: using the word “day” in a way that Adam would not understand. All the while it was very important that Adam understood the exact consequences of disobedience.

For instance, if I tell you that if you commit a moral crime — let’s say coming back here on another visit after I’ve told you that I never want to see you again — then you will be sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating a no-trespassing order.

Might you visit me again if I phoned you and said that I had a change of heart, and needed to urgently see you?

Lot: Certainly!

Socrates: Without even checking with the authorities first to verify that the restraining order had been canceled?

Lot: I probably wouldn’t bother taking the time for such legalities if my urgently coming to you meant bringing a new brother into the Truth. After all, 30 days in jail is a small price to maybe have to pay in Jehovah’s service.

Socrates: But here’s the thing: when I said “day” — unbeknownst to you — I meant a thousand days.

Now, if you knew that the penalty was 30,000 days (82 years) instead of 30 days, might it have made a difference in your actions?

Lot: Yes: I would probably take the time to double-check the status of the restraining order first, in that case.

Socrates: So, it would’ve been unfair of me not to accurately explain the full consequences up-front, in a way that you would understand. My words led you to a different course of action than if I had spoken to you in a way you would understand.

A god of “all justice” would not behave this way, would he?

Lot: Of course not.

Socrates: And, knowing that you would understand a “day” to refer to a literal 24-hour day, I really lied to you when I said the penalty would be 30 days, didn’t I?

Lot: You certainly did.

Socrates: Yes, because when we know that someone will take the meaning of our words in a way that renders them false, then we are deliberately lying to them.

So, either Jehovah never said “in the day you eat from it you will certainly die,” or Jehovah lied. And you already told me that it’s impossible for him to lie.

It seems we’ve arrived at an impasse: either the Bible is wrong, or Jehovah lied. Yet you tell me that neither is possible.

[Long pause, with looks of perplexity exchanged between Lot and Norris.]

Norris: You reached this dilemma because you are using human reasoning: worldly philosophy, instead of relying on faith in Jehovah.

Socrates: But Jehovah has not spoken to me directly. All I have to go by is the Bible, and your interpretation of it. I’m trying to follow the path you are leading me along. But, I’m sorry, maybe I’m dense, but the path seems to dead-end. I hope you can help me understand, because I really like the idea of a paradise earth.

Lot: Look, it’s really simple. Satan tempted the woman (she hadn’t even been given a name as yet), and she tempted Adam into the sin of disobedience. Jehovah had given them freewill, and so let them live with their choice of having Satan as the ruler of this old world. They brought sin and death into the world, which in turn brought about all the troubles in our world today.

But Jehovah rescued us via the Ransom Sacrifice —

Socrates: Excuse me for interrupting, but I have questions about what you just said, and I need to ask them before I forget.

Norris: [With a big sigh] Go ahead.

Lot: [With a big smile] We welcome questions.

Socrates: You keep bringing in this “Satan,” yet I don’t see him mentioned anywhere in Genesis — or in any of the first five books of the Bible for that matter. This account only mentions a serpent. And this serpent was “the craftiest of all the wild animals of the field that Jehovah God had made.”

Yet you tell us that animals at that time were all herbivores. So, how was the serpent “crafty”? Did he sneak up on the plants he ate, or what?

Norris: No. Revelation 12:9 shows that this was all referring to Satan the devil. He was just using the serpent for his mouthpiece. Satan was a fallen angel: an opposer who had rebelled against Jehovah.

Socrates: It’s odd that the writers of Genesis never mentioned Satan, nor do the first five books of the Bible (which you say Moses wrote.) Seems like the authors didn’t know Satan existed.

But, according to you, someone writing the book of Revelation, centuries later, makes the claim that the serpent was a front-man for Satan. And, for some reason, you believe him.

If your conjecture is true, then it’s even more odd that Jehovah hadn’t banned Satan from the garden for his sin of rebellion. Then he wouldn’t have had to later banish Adam and the woman for having listened to Satan.

Lot: I never thought of that.

Norris: We can’t second-guess God.

Socrates: Maybe. But we can certainly examine this ancient account to see if it makes sense and follows the “clear-cut logic” you spoke of.

You say it was referring to Satan, not the serpent, as “the craftiest of all the wild animals.” So, Satan was a wild animal?

Lot: No, the serpent was the wild animal. But Satan was the crafty one. He used a creature that is not endowed with the power of speech, by what might be called ventriloquism, to make it appear that the serpent was talking.

Socrates: Well, then the account is very poorly written: to refer to two different individuals in the same phrase with no indication of having changed subjects.

If Satan was so crafty, it occurs to me that he might’ve used a disembodied voice to deceive the woman, instead of dragging the serpent into the picture as a ventriloquist’s dummy. The Bible tells us that the couple “heard the voice of God as he was walking in the garden.” So, if I’m Satan, wanting to trick the woman, why not imitate God’s disembodied voice? That would be more likely to accomplish the goal of getting them to eat the forbidden fruit (since they had already been obeying God’s voice up till that moment.)

Norris: Now you’re second-guessing Satan.

Socrates: I’m just putting us in his situation, and seeing what would be the “craftiest” thing to do. If the Bible tells us he did something less crafty, then it calls the veracity of the account into question yet again.

But when someone commits a sin, I’m sure it’s similar to committing a crime: there must be means, motive, and opportunity.

Jehovah had given Satan the means by creating him as the craftiest one, with the ability to “throw” his voice. And Jehovah had given him the opportunity by not protecting his guileless latest creation from Satan’s wiles. But what was Satan’s motive? What did he stand to gain by getting the couple to disobey Jehovah? That’s what is missing here.

If he was so shrewd, he must’ve known that all he would get out of the deal was a curse. So, it doesn’t make any sense that Satan would’ve done this.

What does make sense of all of this is when we take the account as a corruption of a still  older myth: one that gave the serpent a comprehensible motive.

In Sir James Frazer’s Folklore in the Old Testament, chapter 2 delves into the ancient sources of this myth, which commonly relate that a snake was charged by God to deliver a message to the human couple: to eat from the tree of life in order to gain immortality. But the devious snake tells them to eat from a different tree, while the snake surreptitiously eats from the tree of life himself and so gains immortality (which snakes were believed to have due to the shedding of their skin, supposedly renewing their life.)

Sir Frazer concludes:

The story of the Fall of Man in the third chapter of Genesis appears to be an abridged version of this savage myth. Little is wanted to complete its resemblance to the similar myths still told by savages in many parts of the world. The principal, almost the only, omission is the silence of the narrator as to the eating of the fruit of the tree of life by the serpent, and the consequent attainment of immortality by the reptile. (p. 76)

This explanation fits the account, as written in Genesis, much better than taking the story your way. It explains why a serpent is involved in the story in the first place, and why the Bible calls the animal crafty. It also explains why such a minor infraction of a rule about fruit would garner the death penalty (which otherwise would suffer egregiously from the punishment not fitting the crime.)

And, if what you claim is true regarding authorship, then Moses also wrote about a talking donkey. You don’t claim that the donkey was another ventriloquist’s dummy of Satan’s, do you?

Lot: No, Satan wasn’t involved that time. Jehovah granted the donkey the ability to speak, and evidently it spoke its own mind.

Socrates: But, don’t you see what’s plainly before you? The author or authors of these books were so naive that they actually believed that animals could speak!

In the end, the talking serpent story is just a tale meant to explain to the primitive mind why snakes seemingly live forever, while people do not.

Norris: Well, we’re not concerned with primitive myths. We only go by what the Bible says.

What about the other tree? And can sin be inherited? Don’t miss the continuation of this discussion in Part 5!

Part 5: Back to Basics iii.

Featuring: Anthony Norris III and Steven Lot

Norris: So, if we can continue the story, what happened next is that Jehovah banished Adam and the woman from the garden —

Socrates: So that they couldn’t eat from the tree of life and live forever, right?

Lot: That’s correct. Their actions had condemned them to death, so Jehovah enforced that sentence by banishing them, cursing Satan and the earth.

Norris: Certainly you can understand this part, at least?

Socrates: No, I’m sorry, but this part makes the least sense of all.

Lot: [Astonished] How is that?

Socrates: Remember Jehovah’s “original plan”?

Lot: For mankind to live forever on a paradise earth.

Socrates: Yes. And now, due to his own negligence, humankind had become sinful and lost out on immortality.

Norris: They brought it on themselves.

Socrates: Partially. But, in any case, Jehovah had a simple, efficient, immediate way to restore everything and accomplish his purpose!

Norris: And what, pray-tell, might that have been?

Socrates: Why, to let them eat from the tree of life, of course!

Norris: I need that drink, after all.

Lot: Me too!

[Socrates pours them their drinks.]

Norris: Look, let’s finish the story so you can at last understand Jehovah’s love for mankind in giving the life of his son to ransom us. Then we’ll have discharged our duty.

Socrates: Please, enlighten me.

Lot: Well, now that they were sinners, they had lost their perfection. They were subject to death. And we all know that an imperfect parent can’t produce perfect offspring. So, Adam and Eve passed on sinfulness and death to all their descendants: including you and me. That’s why we die.

But Jehovah, in his infinite love and mercy —

Socrates: I hate to interrupt you again —

Norris: [Under his breath] Not really, you don’t.

Socrates: It’s just that we know that acquired characteristics are not inheritable.

Lot: What does that mean?

Socrates: Let’s say that I was raised well, by a loving family. But I turn to a life of crime, and I also learn to play the harmonica while in prison. Will my son be a harmonica-playing criminal?

Norris: Of course not.

Socrates: Correct. And this is because the characteristics I acquire during the course of living my life do not impact my DNA, which was fixed at my birth. I can only pass on to my offspring the DNA I was born with, and I can’t change that DNA no matter what I do.

So too, Adam and Eve could not pass on sinfulness to their offspring. If they were created perfect, as you tell me they were, then perfection is all they could possibly pass on to their offspring.

Norris: That’s just science talking.

Socrates: Well, forget about science for a moment, and think about justice. Does it seem fair to punish us with death for something our ancestors did?

Lot: You’re right—it doesn’t seem fair.

Socrates: And doesn’t your Bible itself say that the son will not be punished for the sin of the father?

Lot: Yes, but Jehovah gave us an out: in his infinite love and mercy, he sent his son to the earth, to be born of a woman and become a perfect man, and die for our sins: ransoming mankind from their sentence of death, and removing the curse upon the earth!

Socrates: Wait a moment. You’re saying that Jehovah had his son killed in order to forgive us for something we didn’t do!?

Lot: [Sheepishly] Well, yes.

Socrates: When he could’ve just let the first humans eat from the tree of life?! He chose to have his son killed instead?

Norris: He couldn’t have chosen to let them eat from the tree of life; his word is law. He was bound by his word to punish them.

Socrates: An all-powerful, all-knowing law-maker, who is powerless to change his own law!?

Norris: Correct.

Socrates: So, although you say freewill got us into this mess, Jehovah himself lacks freewill; he wasn’t free to act in harmony with his plan. He was a slave to his own law.

Norris: Yes, but the important thing is that he lovingly adapted his plan to allow for our freewill.

Socrates: So Jehovah regards interfering with a person’s freewill as a greater evil than the murder of his own son?

Norris: Evidently.

Socrates: Then why do we read in the Bible that Jehovah “hardened Pharaoh’s heart“?

Norris:  Jehovah didn’t interfere with Pharaoh’s freewill; his heart hardened because of the message declared to him by Moses and Aaron from Jehovah.

Socrates: And what about King Saul? The Bible says that Jehovah not only “gave him a new heart” but changed him into a new man!

Norris: Jehovah was just amplifying Saul’s natural tendencies towards good.

Socrates: The same King Saul who later, despite Jehovah’s “amplification of his good tendencies,” tried to murder David? And who proved so corrupt that Jehovah replaced him with David as king?

Or, consider the builders of the tower of Babel. Jehovah violated their freewill when he messed with their minds in order to prevent them from completing their “sinful” construction project!

So, it seems that Jehovah was ready willing and able to interfere with a person’s freewill whenever it suited him. So, why not interfere with the first human couple in order to save them — and us, and his son — from death?

If it was okay in the case of King Saul, why not take Adam and “change him into a new man”? Was the leadership of the nation of Israel of more concern to Jehovah than the plight of every person ever born?

What parent would hesitate to interfere with a young child’s freewill by stopping them from running into a busy street? What loving parent would punish their young child with death the first time they heard the word “NO!” and failed to respond to it?

Finally, let’s say that I were to accept all that you gentlemen say, and joined your organization. Would I not then have to set aside “independent thinking” and do whatever you tell me to do, even if it made no sense to me?

Norris: Yes; Jehovah requires obedience of his subjects.

Socrates: But isn’t that surrendering my freewill?

Lot: In a sense, yes.

Norris: You freely surrender it, though.

Lot: And gladly, in Jehovah’s service.

Socrates: So the end result of all of this is that we give up the freewill that Jehovah regarded as of paramount importance that humans keep! The very thing that he sacrificed his son over!

As we’ve seen, Jehovah had at least five better, more sensible, courses to follow than the one you say he did follow:

1. Ban Satan from the garden in the first place.
2. Interfere with Adam and Eve’s freewill to prevent catastrophe.
3. Change the law he had made.
4. Forgive Adam and Eve on the spot, due to their naïveté and his beneficence.
5. Have Adam and Eve eat from the tree of everlasting life after they’d sinned.

So, either your god isn’t as smart as this mortal man you see before you, who has come up with these five better solutions, or your story is false.

You call your story “The Truth,” but I’m sorry, gentlemen; I just don’t get it. Your road seems to be filled with nothing but dead-ends, or switchbacks that turn 180 degrees back upon themselves so that we end up in circles going nowhere.

Don’t miss the exciting conclusion of this discussion in Part 6!

Part 6: Back to Basics iv.

Featuring: Anthony Norris III and Steven Lot

Norris: Look, we don’t have to go into all this philosophical human “wisdom” about freewill. We just know what God’s Word says on the subject. Jehovah cannot forgive sin without a blood sacrifice. Adam was a perfect man when he sinned, so God needed a perfect man to sacrifice his life in order to balance the scales of justice. None of Adam’s offspring fit the bill, having inherited imperfection and sin. So, Jehovah lovingly provided his own son, Jesus, as a perfect sinless man for the sacrifice.

That’s the Truth. You can accept it or reject it, as you see fit.

Socrates: Oh, but I’ve read in the Bible where Jehovah did forgive sin without the shedding of blood.

Blood was only one of many ways to obtain forgiveness of sins. Other ways included: prayer (Num. 14:17-20), flour (Lev. 5:11-13), jewelry (Num 31:50), and even money (Ex 30:15-16). 

In fact, Jehovah even forgave King Ahab’s sin: cancelling his death sentence, just because the king donned sackcloth! [If only Adam and the woman had sackcloth available instead of just fig-leafs, they might still be alive, and we might be enjoying paradise today!]

Since forgiveness was granted in all of those instances, why not forgive these original innocents: Adam and Eve, without requiring the shedding of Jesus’ blood?

But I see that you’re getting upset at my slowness. I want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to explain it all to me in step-by-step detail so I can have a chance to comprehend it.

So, may I ask you another question?

Lot: Yes, we welcome questions. [With less of a smile this time, and even that disappears when he sees the exasperated look Norris gives him.]

Socrates: Earlier you said that Jehovah’s son was born of a woman. You also said that all of Adam’s descendants inherited sin and imperfection. So, why didn’t Jehovah’s son inherit these things too?

Lot: Jehovah fathered him.

Socrates: Okay, we won’t go into the details of that lurid story!

If an earthly woman gave birth to him, half of Jesus’ DNA would be from his earthly mother: contaminated with sin and imperfection (unless you buy into the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, in which case you’ll still have to explain how someone was born sinless from a descendant of Adam and Eve, only in this case Mary rather than Jesus.)

Norris: We don’t believe in the immaculate conception of Mary; that’s more rubbish from Babylon the Great.

We don’t know the exact details of the virgin birth of Jesus; we accept on faith that he was born as a perfect sinless man.

Socrates: Just like one of the Catholic’s “mysteries” that make no sense, but are required to be believed “on faith.”

Norris: Yes; Satan’s organization imitates God’s organization in order to fool people.

Socrates: I’d say they do a pretty good job; it’s often hard to see the difference between them.

But were Adam and Jesus really balancing that scale?

Jesus knew good from evil; Adam did not when he sinned.

You say that Adam would’ve lived forever if he hadn’t sinned. So, Adam was immortal when he sinned. Jesus obviously was not immortal, or he couldn’t have been killed.

Adam was originally sinless, yet Jesus would’ve inherited sin from his mother, if we believe the “inherited sin” doctrine you’re requiring as the basis for all of this. And, if Jehovah could cause him to be born sinless, then why couldn’t he do the same for each one of us?

And if you claim that sinlessness equals perfection, which equals immortality, then how could a sinless Jesus die?

Norris: Stop with all the questions! These are just nit-picking details! Adam wasn’t immortal; he had the prospect of immortality, to be earned through obedience.

All we need to know is that in every respect that mattered to the divine law, Jesus’ life balanced out Adam’s.

Socrates: So God sentenced both men to death: Adam and Jesus. Not to mention Eve and every human being who has ever lived. Does the punishment really fit the crime?

Does even lowly human justice sentence anyone other than the perpetrator of a crime? No, it is satisfied, in the case of capital punishment with one life. Does it ever even allow a surrogate to serve the sentence? Of course not; where would be the justice in that?
You claim that Adam’s sin is visited upon all of his descendants. Yet your Bible states that the son will not pay for the sin of the father.

Norris: Again, let me remind you that we have presented you with the Truth from God’s Word. Jesus paid the ransom sacrifice for us. You can accept that gift, and benefit from it, or reject it to your detriment.

Socrates: Understood. And I’d love to accept the gift, but I’m afraid I cannot assent to something that I cannot understand, and I cannot understand something that makes no sense.

You say that the price has been paid. So, Jehovah’s plan can now go into effect; the obstacles to its fulfillment having been removed. So, why don’t we now live forever on a paradise earth?

Norris: The Ransom currently benefits only the anointed; everyone else has to wait for the millennium. In the meantime they must associate with the remnant of the anointed still on earth if they have any chance of riding our coattails into the new order.

Socrates: The plot thickens.

Who is this “anointed,” and why do they come into the picture now, at this late date?

Norris: [Proudly] You have two of the anointed sitting in front of you today. Jehovah chose 144,000 of us to serve as kings and priests: co-rulers with Jesus. As part of the Christ, we will assist Jesus in killing all who don’t accept his rulership, and we will rule with Jesus from heaven over the earth during the millennium.

Socrates: I’m having trouble seeing how this fits in with the “original plan” of humans living forever on earth, exercising their freewill. Now you say they will be “ruled over” by murderous people, from heaven. And the ransom sacrifice still isn’t enough to put things right; we need to associate with the anointed now as well!

Norris: It’s another loving provision from Jehovah, which we are privileged to share in.

Socrates: You claim that Jehovah’s son, Jesus, created everything in the universe.

Lot: That’s correct: Jehovah created the universe through Jesus: his first creation.

Socrates: Yet he needs help ruling over the people on one planet out of the billions he created; so much so that the original plan had to be amended to include a new provision for sending some humans to heaven in order to help him out! And, in fact, you say that his sacrifice applies primarily to them.

Norris: These are the deep things of God, of which we don’t presume to know all the answers. We accept them on faith.

Socrates: Ah yes: still more mysteries, and more “faith” required to swallow the nonsense. Where’s the logic that you claimed your religion was based upon?

But I must thank you, gentlemen; the few answers that you were able to give have helped guide me into an informed decision regarding the veracity of your “truth.”

I have learned that Jehovah loves us, so he let an evil being tempt the first humans before they knew right from wrong. I learned that he couldn’t guide us along the right path without interfering with our freewill (which he interfered with later, whenever he wanted.) I learned that instead of banning Satan from the garden in the first place, he drove the first humans out of paradise. He sentenced all of us to death for something our ancestors did (all the while claiming that a son won’t pay the consequences of a father’s sin.)

Then he couldn’t figure a way out of the mess he’d created except by having his son murdered (even though he could’ve just let Adam and Eve eat from the tree of life, and forgiven them without the shedding of blood, as the Bible records him doing many times.)  And even though his son hadn’t needed any help in creating the universe, Jehovah used the benefit of his murder to supply his son with 144,000 people to help him murder the vast majority of humankind, and then help him rule over the survivors who must surrender their freewill and simply obey whatever the “anointed” tell them, without judging for themselves whether it is good or bad!

Norris: Yes, and that’s something you need to start practicing right now: obeying the remnant of the 144,000 still on earth today.

 

Lot: Yup, that’d be us!

 

 

Socrates: So, in the end, if we want to escape a death sentence, we have to give up our freewill because Jehovah couldn’t bring himself to interfere with our freewill in this one particular instance.

Thank you, gentlemen. But please count me out!

I choose freedom!

See also: You Can’t Live Forever in Paradise on Earth.