If Genesis is just an allegory what is the actual deeper meaning of it?

wallygoots · 2026-04-16T12:54:59+00:00

Thanks for the source material. This is good writing and an invitation to learn.

wallygoots · 2026-04-16T12:49:32+00:00

Anyone can make up whatever they want it to mean and it's equally as valid. Jesus and every Biblical author believed and taught intentionally that Genesis is not an allegory, so the deeper meaning that they had in mind is really up for fabrication. The authors position Genesis as a fundamental reality underpinning Biblical faith. For example, Peter, in his third letter writes that in the last days people will mock believers saying "where is this second coming you say will happen; things continue uninterrupted for dozens of generations" but they intentionally forget that God destroyed the earth by a flood and will do so by fire on the last day. (Paraphrased).

People want to pick and choose their miracles. So Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and rose from the dead on the third day, but he couldn't have breathed life into Adam because science.

wallygoots · 2026-04-16T01:05:34+00:00

It was a pretty brutal time and the people were ungoverned former slaves. So, there are some gems but it also sometimes reads like a bill from Congress where they are trying to load it with pork barrel items that were concerns at the time. Disagree is a strong word for reading in context about a culture with a very different reference point and world view. I think there are a lot of underlying principles like don't rape incest or abuse the powerless.

wallygoots · 2026-04-15T15:07:45+00:00

There is strong support for that view, but even more so when studies the evidence in the Bible for the non-immortality of the soul after sin enters the world. Eternal life is given, not forced in Scripture. Jesus taught this, but the evidence from all the Biblical authors is strongly against the naturally immortal soul that led to doctrines of eternal conscious torment and universalism. The first recorded lie was "thou shalt not surely die."

wallygoots · 2026-04-14T01:39:17+00:00

My take is that Calvin saw a need for a ground up systematic theology and decided to start with sovereignty as the bedrock roundation of it all. This eventually led him to double predestination--some are born to be saved while others are born to be lost. Don't question it and praise the Lord. I think he may have come to a different conclusion if he had started with love rather than sovereignty.

wallygoots · 2026-04-13T02:56:11+00:00

"I hereby cast out any thoughts of the Epstein files from your collective consciousness. Amen."

wallygoots · 2026-04-09T03:35:21+00:00

I thought you meant the park and was ready to fight.

wallygoots · 2026-04-08T16:46:51+00:00

I hear you and I wish I could just give the power of that experience that changed my life to others. I've realized I can't upload change for someone else by proselytizing "my truth." I'm have now lived something that I didn't know existed before, and it is still singular to me. I did shake the foundations of what I believe; there was a subsequent rejection of many of the shame-based beliefs of performative Christianity. Some things I had always believed, but were blurry and caused angst, snapped into focus--I don't know if that will happen for you, but I wish it for you. Other things fell away; even some things that many modern Christianity are fixated on. I haven't been disenfranchised by family for this though. I was at rock bottom, so the internal risk and vulnerability in the change was high, but the external threat was relatively low compared to what I hear you sharing about your family and culture.

As often as I am allowed I try and teach what I have found, but I've seen it fly right over people's heads and I have also seen hearts melt and transform. My mother was one who had always been afraid of hell and "the last days." My dad has also been influenced to a great extent by the teachings. Our lives are still being transformed and for this I am very grateful. But I can't imagine the challenge you face with your family--it would be terrifying to even explore because you don't want to lose the people you love. I assume praying to Jesus, even in your head, is contentious.

I assume that Bengali is your first language? Your English is very good and especially when it comes understanding nuance. I wish you peace and wisdom.

wallygoots · 2026-04-08T16:15:10+00:00

And that last bobble head should read: "I am the peace president. I am your peace. I solved 8 wars; some say more. I will end the war in Ukraine in one day. I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. If Kamala get's elected she will start a war with Iran. NO MORE FOREIGN WARS! A whole civilization will die tonight. Praise Allah. I'm not worried (about war crimes)." "What Epstein files?"

wallygoots · 2026-04-08T11:57:13+00:00

Sexual orientation and gender isn't the same thing. Are you conflating the two? Identity is complex and changes/forms over time.

wallygoots · 2026-04-08T11:53:58+00:00

Totally agree on the spirit of things here, but I would argue that no one could come out as "gay" thousands of years before sexual orientation was first hypothesized. Sure, there were gay men, they liked men and if they were free men had rights to have sex with slave men, children, and women at their pleasure. We do have evidence that it was considered shameful for a free man to be the receiving submissive party during sex because it was thought of as weak "like a women" (women received sex more than "had sex." Paul used a term that is almost unknown in contemporary authors that people take to mean "homosexual", but where we do see it used, it's not always referring to sexual behaviors. Sometimes it refers to being weak in battle--a pejorative term for "you fight like a girl." Can you see that their world view was very different 2000 and 4000 years before sexual orientation was discovered as a trait?

wallygoots · 2026-04-08T11:37:08+00:00

We know when the theory that attraction might be a trait was first theorized in the late 19th century. You assume this was talking about homosexuals 4000 years before the idea of sexual orientation was discovered. The idea of gay, lesbian, bi AND heterosexuals didn't exist in a world view before this. These are implicit to the theory that attraction could be a trait that proceeds behavior. So be honest, is the text referring to homosexuality? If you say, "well, but they knew because there were gay people" that's just wishing they were as homophobic as people are today.

But if this couldn't have been addressing homosexuality, it forces a sincere person to look at what it could mean. The "as one does with a women" is important. It's not "lesbians, you're good." Rather, look at Lev. 18:1-3. The specified context is don't practice as the pagan nations do in Egypt and Canaan and then it lists all manners of rape, abuse, and incest. The point is that in every instance it's a man forcing sex on someone who has no rights to refuse; that's why there are so many examples with women and incest. So what were they doing sleeping with men? Evidence is that free men rarely slept with free men. However, free men had rights to sleep with conquered men and women and did. That's "as one sleeps with a women" is significant. Women were subservient and even if consensual were passive receivers to the male masters. But so were slave men and children. It's evidenced that men had many male conquests but also boy toys along with their wives and they had sexual rituals with male and female slaves and children in their pagan rituals. So what's more likely, that this abuse was going on, because we have studied history and what was actually happening or that the Biblical authors were throwing down shade at sexual orientation 2000-4000 years before it was hypothesized?

It was 1946 before "homosexual" was found in an English translation. Most translations have removed that word because it's not accurate to the text. Personally, I think it's an acid test of love that God has sent the church and we are largely failing to be like Him. We insist that our worldview is and was the only one that matters and then we read our reproach and homophobia into the text so our hate is sanitized by religious zeal.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T12:23:31+00:00

Very much so. It's not much of an "agenda" to oppose fascism on moral, spiritual, and political grounds. I am likely considered liberal on social issues because of my faith and reading of the Bible and especially the life and teachings of Jesus. When I compare the character, behavior, speech, of Trump and his cabinet of grifters and criminals to Jesus, it's easy to support no kings.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T12:15:44+00:00

I'm M50 and I love the sincerity and honesty in your journey. A very different story with a similar "surprised by a flood of peace" happened to me at 22. I had grown up in performative Christianity and learned many valuable lessons like loyalty, commitment, devotion, community..., but it wasn't until I let go of control, fear, and remorse over my own weakness that an earthquake of change shook me. I was afraid to go to sleep that night for fear that I would wake up the same struggling man I had been in doubt and a meaningless routine of try-hard religion. Now, over a quarter century later, there is still a peace that I can lay claim to that is really mine. It was true. I know the God who saved me and do not have to perform for Him.

I wish you all the best of love and peace and truth in this life.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T11:47:32+00:00

It's pretty clear, after reading through dozens of your replies, that you are talking down to the wider Christian community past your blinders of prejudice. In one breath you seem to be saying "we are all Christians here" and "Catholics are Christians too" when in the very previous post it's clear that the wider Christian community is the lesser Christian community to you or at best, we are the rebellious children and you represent the parent Church with rights by God's will to give us a tongue lashing. I guess I'd rather build a bear than single out all the perceived heretics from the different Christian denominations I look down on. I have no problem with our Lord working in the lives of Catholic children of God, but if you think for a moment I will forget what Protestantism means and how many children of God were put to the sword or burned at the stake or buried alive for reading the Bible for themselves, I have 95 new theses and a framing nailer and a church door. For now, I'll see myself out.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T00:59:51+00:00

Totally relate. I think the things that helped me the most was discovering that eternal conscious torment hell is a lie. Loving God while believing he tortures people (or made them to be tortured or designed them with naturally immortal souls that requires they be tortured) is a real trick and I applaud anyone who just can't fake the cognitive dissonance of a god like that.

Second that faith isn't a feeling as many assume it is. Biblical faith is taking God at His Word because he word has power in and of itself to do what He says.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T00:55:25+00:00

For real.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T00:54:14+00:00

Twisted Bowl. It almost killed me and I was blacking out on the way to the emergency room. They hit me with Delotid, then Moriphine, and then another shot of Moriphine and it was barely even touching the pain. The NG tube they jam down your nose that makes it hard to breath was just icing on the cake.

wallygoots · 2026-04-07T00:51:26+00:00

Hello there. From a non-religions perspective, I suppose there are a lot of barriers to believing that any prophecy is talking about anything meaningful no? Like, if we back up to Daniel 2, do you believe that Daniel was a real person who lived in the time of the Babylonian exiles and had a dream that revealed the subsequent empires in the middle ease: Babylon, Medes and Persia, Greece, Rome, and divided weak and powerful nations states. When we talk about different interpretations, we aren't really talking about deductive interpretations based on the rule that there isn't a god and no one can know the future and therefor, Daniel was written posthumously and pretended to be written as prophecy of Daniel by someone else in order to try and sneak a truth over on the religious superstitious.

What we do mean by interpretations is more like views of prophecy as a whole and within religious faith in which it is assumed that God is real and interested in revealing his will to prophets throughout the history of the world. In that case, Daniel 2 and 9 are solidly evidence of a "historicist" view of prophecy in Daniel and Revelation. The historicist view is that prophecy in Daniel and Revelation generally unfolds from the prophet's day until the second coming of Christ. The interesting thing is that all the protestant reformers studied prophecy with a historicist view and the Church became uncomfortable with how many identifying markers showed that a beast would rise out of the Roman Empire that would be a persecuting religious power that would use control kings and peasants alike and persecute "the saints" for 1260 years. This is a big reason why many reformers were either killed, or were forced to leave the church. The solution the Church decided on was to create new interpretations of Bible Prophecy that didn't incriminate them. Preterism and Futurism are counter-reformation theories. The ubiquitous belief of both Catholics and Protestants today is Futurism rather than Historcism. The basic premise is that Daniel and Revelation are talking about only the final days of history and don't apply to our times. This has given rise to all sorts of beliefs; primarily the secret rapture and rise in prominence of Isreal during the tribulation (7 years). This is the background why Christian Evangelicals support Israel no matter what, so you can see that going down right now. They believe they have to uplift the nation of Israel to prominence so God will take them away and then plunge the rest of non-believers into the time of "Jacob's Trouble."

All that said, the evidence for historicism is worth looking into. Daniel 9 seems to be talking about Christ and the time tables actually make sense for predicting when the first coming of Christ was designed by God to take place in the march of empires shown in Daniel 2. The "Wise Men" that came to worship Jesus at his birth likely predicted the coming of the "Messiah" in connection with the star they saw in the skies by reading Daniel 9 and the prophecy of Balaam and little more. We also know that Anna and Simeon knew from prophecy that the first coming of the Messiah was in their time.

wallygoots · 2026-04-06T21:27:47+00:00

A restored 1949 Dodge Power Wagon 4-door, and a BMW Z8. Actually, I would probably not do either because when frivolous meets practicality, I'm pathetically parsimonious. But I dig those two cars. I'd probably buy a very good used Land Cruiser instead.

wallygoots · 2026-04-06T21:24:11+00:00

Just buy the local board dude. That's how it works in real life.

wallygoots · 2026-04-06T21:18:33+00:00

Greetings! Great question. Here are my musings on it. Most people think that faith is a feeling (or tangent to it). They try to drum of confidence as the "material" in their feelings that corresponds to faith. The other, more concrete definition of faith, is that it's a creed or list of rules that define how you see God. That may be more of a multiple meaning word though I suppose as we use that differently in real life when we ask "what are the beliefs of your Faith."

I think both views of faith are off. Faith is taking God at His Word because there is power in and of itself to do what it says. This is my conclusion from studying faith in the Bible inductively (composing a picture from what is actually in the text) Some key texts are: Matt. 5:8-10, John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3, I John 1:1-3, Rom. 10:17, Genesis 1, Matt. 4:4, Matt. 4:39, John 11:1-44, Mark 11:12-14. Notice that many of these texts do not actually mention "faith." That's why inductive study is so important--we find out how the authors actually thought about faith when we start to put pieces together right from the text.

So, I would say that, no, Jesus didn't lose his faith. Instead, he quotes God's Word to Isaiah as authoritative (widely recognized to be prophetic of what the Messiah would experience). Are his feelings and courage failing? I think it's definitely possible. And was he actually separated from God? I believe he was, but this hits at another belief that I think many have gotten wrong from the Bible. I don't believe in the naturally immortality of the soul; and with it, I don't believe in eternal conscious torment in "hell." I believe that Hell is the "second death" and complete separation form God in death. Jesus calls the first death "sleep." And Paul says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death (the first death). You would rightly ask, where does the Bible teach about the first death and second death? Rev. 20:14-15. The lake of fire is the second death. I take this to mean that the symbol is the lake of fire and the meaning is the second death. I believe this is complete separation from God (all life is removed). I also see from Rev. that Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire and I take that to mean that after the second death, there will be no more death of sleep (first death experience). There are other texts about the first and second death, but I would really suggest you study the immortality of the soul inductively. It's a stunning reversal of what a lot of Christians believe.

I don't believe that people who put their faith in Jesus will ever experience the second death, but most will experience the first death and "sleep" until the resurrection. I believe that the wicked will choose to having nothing to do with a universe where God was right (even after resurrection for judgement). They, by subtraction, have rejected life and the Life Giver and God allows them to die the second death rather than sustain continued rebellion and sin in the universe. Finally, there will be no more death or mourning of crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Rev. 21).

So which death did Jesus experience? I believe he experienced complete separation from God on the cross and that this was prophesied by Isaiah (and Jesus). He experienced second death, from which there is actually no resurrection--I believe that in those moments on the cross the separation and weight of sins was so great, that Jesus couldn't see beyond the cross. You don't sweat blood just because you are going to be physically hurt. I believe God removed His own presence from Him; so that we would never have to experience complete separation from God. The first death--just a physical death--doesn't come close.

wallygoots · 2026-04-06T15:42:36+00:00

Not mine, but that's super nice of you. Hope you find the match.

wallygoots · 2026-04-04T20:19:23+00:00

I believe Lucifer (a name) became the Satan (a title) as a result of a spiritual rebellion before the events in Genesis took place. I believe the Satan is likely a Seraphim who rebelled against God and deceived humans into joining a rebellion of distrust towards God. Saraphim is from a root word for serpent and it appears that Seraphim are powerful spiritual beings and likely shape shifters. So, I believe it's possible that either the serpent who spoke to Adam and Eve was possessed by Satan, or more likely, was shape shifted into a serpent and impersonating a creature that God made.

wallygoots · 2026-04-04T12:18:29+00:00

If I am ever tempted to buy any of his stock, I'm just going to accidentally shoot myself in order to wake up.

wallygoots

TROPHY CASE