Castin

Here's a thought -- the snake is the externalized concept of temptation and the story introduces the idea that man, in his rawest form truly was a tabula rasa and had no particular inclination to break rules -- that this urge had to be introduced from the outside. This absolves man on some level because it lays the blame on some outside agent, at least initially. Then, the urge becomes internalized through the eating so subsequent people have this same desire built in. The moral of the story is "recognize that you now have this wish to break rules, but look at the consequences last time..."

Or, maybe the story is saying that man cannot exist in his pristine state and will, inevitably, fall victim to any environmental temptation. The snake then represents a very natural source for desire, earthly, not divine.

This story is part of the heritage of humanity,

Well maybe 30% of humanity, not impressive really.

Where did such malicious intent come from? 

This is an interesting question, are you talking about the malicious intent of the author, or of the character of the snake? I never could find malice in what the snake was saying, which was basically wouldn't it be nice to know what your boss is thinking, what he thinks is good versus bad? Again not sure why god put this snake in the garden in the first place, or the trees for that matter. If Adam was basically like god's employee, and the garden was basically where he worked, then god did a real bad job of eliminating occupational hazards and interviewing prospective garden residents. 

A bunch of primitive, incredibly inept, superstitious morons with no concept of logic nor reason wrote the book of Genesis. The end.

In the story, this one creature is responsible for the existence of all suffering. It literally ruins everything. And it knowingly and sneakily causes this to happen. Why? What did the authors intend this creature to be?

Temptation, the snake represents our flesh nature.

Where did such malicious intent come from?

It's what man contends with in these physical bodies.

And was this supposed to be a real snake, or a representation of something else? 

Adam and Eve are representative of mankind, and the "serpent" represents the pull of carnality or the opposing forces in this world. (Flesh vs spirit).

I wonder if its intent wasn't about placing "blame" on woman, but about establishing relationships and archetypal behavior patterns.

Voltaire once wrote:

How many times should he have written it?

The bible isn't big on 'aetiological' myths (ie 'just-so' stories, except maybe for tribes and peoples about which it is almost obsessed).  There is one myth snuck in about rainbows and this looks like a just-so story for why snakes have no legs got in there.

I don't think Milton invented the idea Satan was the tempter of Eve, but he did a lot to make it popular.

Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile

Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd

The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride

Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host

Of Rebel Angels,

Well it's safe to say Snakes don't talk. So this never occurred. 

It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or Belzebub, or Devil, in the Pentateuch.

I don't really understand. Evil's not a thing? Are concepts not things? I'm pretty sure I've referred to abstract concepts as things before.

I would take the view that evil is not a thing. Is it a concept? Perhaps, but is it a thing? Is love a thing? Is hate a thing? Hate might be defined as the absence of love. But what is love? Is love an action - and hate simply not doing the loving action? Hate can lead us to kill someone - but is hate the action or the fact that you have stopped loving someone and treating them in love? Some might say that love can lead us to kill someone by euthanasia.  

What is darkness? Is it a concept? Or is it the absence of light? And what about coldness? We all know what it is - but how do we define it? 

I think the verse you described needs to be understood in its context - of the entire chapter.  Indeed within the entire book of Isaiah.  

When did you start behaving like this much of a dick. In the past I've witnessed you studiously refusing to stoop to personal attacks and name-calling

Mo has been like that from the very beginning and he has cast shade much worse than just calling someone a loser. The hilarious thing about it is that he has done so unabated since he's been here, scaring off a great deal of people who actually are interested in discussions. The mod team seems to really like him here since they do nothing to stop his regular stream of vomit and vile comments towards anyone who doesn't agree with him.

Then, to top it all off, he plays the victim card as if everyone is ganging up on him.

Let's say we take for granted that the universe is here as it is not because of any natural reaction or coincidence, but instead that it was created by a thinking agent. There is no real rational reason for granting this, at least none I've ever seen argued convincingly here or elsewhere, but let's skip that part, I'm saying, as an olive branch to the believer. It doesn't matter, then, if you subscribe to a big bang cosmology BUT it was started by a thinking agent, or if you think the world was created 10000 years ago. What I'm curious about is how does one justify going from "creator" to any god with a capital G. How, essentially, can you convince someone else that your version of the creator is correct, and by extension your religion is the right one, and theirs is INcorrect, and therefore the wrong one? 

Evil is something but it is not some thing. It is not a thing so God did not need to make it.

In fact God cannot be responsible for making it because it is not a thing.

No one cares what you think anyway, you're a loser.

You seem upset that thett3 insulted members of the DART community, I presume. Referring to her as a "c*nt* seems to undermine your point though. Is it ok, then, to only target members of DART that have not modded? I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just curious why you feel such ire for this particular story. I don't think you were even mentioned in it.

kewl, you got beaten by RM in a rap battle just fyi

can one of yall make a definitive statement on if this is permitted, i think what im doing brings a lot of entertainment to the community so i just want some confirmation 

• Deleting destroys evidence. There are consequences to banning someone for a crime no one can see.
  
• Even if you find some way to delete the post while still preserving a private record only the mods have access to, you still have the problem of banning someone for a crime no one can see. Transparency is important.
  
• If Mike will create a way to red flag, gray out, or strike through offending posts, it can demonstrate to others what sort of conduct should be avoided. It can also demonstrate that the administration does not condone the offending post even though it has been left up.
  
• Deleting all CoC violating posts will inflame accusations of censorship and inevitably result in a dramatic backlash. I am for limiting censorship of members' words and thoughts as much as possible, and deleting only what constitutes special harm.
  

Adults in your childhood who give you a hard time, like an asshole teacher who gets off on intimidating students, know you won't beat them up. The consequences would be too severe. The power they hold over kids is psychological, not just physical. So yep I'd say a non-aggro tactic would be pretty handy. 

Depends which grade we are talking about. I remember a gym teacher in middle school getting the crap beat out of him bc he was talking shit on some kid saying 'you won't hit me...' Well, the kid hit him pretty damn hard. I mean, i'm exaggerating bc the teacher won... but i bet his face hurt bc he couldn't hit the kid back.  

Oh i didn't need a creepy stare down when i was his age... adults legit feared me considering i could beat up most of them. The creepy stare thing could have come in handy for when i didn't want to go aggro i guess. He did do it pretty well. My half smiles look horrible... i'm envies of that beauty.  

It is because atheists like to pretend they are more intelligent than theists, when in reality, they are simply insecure,and know they are not. 

So PISS OFF and get therapy for your insecurity, you all need it.

This whole saga is probably the most demoralizing thing I’ve seen in a long time. These kids were completely railroaded by an activist who lied about critical parts of the incident, who was then backed up by a willing media apparatus. And predictably the Catholic Church showed a complete lack of moral courage and capitulated immediately and might expel these kids, because they failed to show the proper deference to some crazy Indian who approached them and beat his drum in their face. The main kid literally just stood there 

The auto-capitalization after punctuation marks is gone -- so maybe it's an indicator that Juggle might try to be involved?

The poor kid didn't look creepy, he looked creeped out and awkward as hell. People like the Indian guy are the creeps in my book. Randomly walking up to people and chanting in their face. God, i freaking hate people like him. Antifa, creepy old Indian guy, sjw's... they are the creeps. That kid was actually cool as hell considering. I would have probably grabbed his drum stick and walked away with it.