Porn, the Bible Belt and the Sabbath

[melvin mccarty]

Originally Posted By: melvin mccarty

Usually nothing erotic about nudity until one has been taught or conditioned that way. How much "porn" could you sell in a nudist colony? (grin).....mel

Your question is quite valid. The answer is:

1) On one level, porn is erotic. NOTE: There is another level on which pron is not erotic.

2) Nudity is real life, the real thing.

3) Porn, on some levels, is air-brushed, posed, lighted and otherwise "photoshoped" to the point where it is erotic.

Your question: How much porn could you sell in a nudist colony? The answer is: As much as you could sell outside of a nudist colonly. Many years ago I read an article that addressed this. The author had visited a bath house in Japan. It had a male attendent who let people in and was observant of all that transpired in the bath area. The person who wrote the article noted that he was sitting at his station reading (?) a copy of PLAYBOY while the unclothed people were walking in the background.

Hmmmm maybe your illustration proves MY point. By definition "porn" IS erotic. If it is not erotic it is not porn. Why confuse the issue?....mel

[Robert]

Show an Adventist a discrepancy between EGW and the Bible...whether real or apparent, and no matter how trivial the subject...

...and they will choose Ellen over the Bible, and jump down your throat for daring to question Ellen.

Bingo!

[Dr. Shane]

The 'problem' was not their eyes. Their eyes were just perceiving their nakedness in a new way.

Wow! That is a far out explanation. What about their other senses? Did their ears hear differently? Did their tongues taste differently? Did their noses smell differently? Did their fingers feel differently?

I think the simplest explanation is that they were clothed with some type of supernatural garment that vanished when they sinned. That is why they would naturally want to replace what they had lost. Which explains them making clothing of leaves. God then taught them a lesson in making them coats of skins showing them that blood must be shed in order for them to gain back what they had lost.

[Bravus]

Hang on, Sola Scriptura guy - the Bible explicitly says, in so many words, 'they were naked'.

[Woody]

Yeah. What part of naked don't you understand???

[Parade Orange]

YES SHANE!!!!!!

God made garments to cover their shame thru shedding of blood!

The GOSPEL once again!!!

amen!

[GoLions]

Quote:

I have set my default button on EGW to 'she is a prophet'

You have every right to do so, and it is commendable that you are at least honest enough to state this openly.

Mormons set their default button on Joseph Smith to 'he is a prophet' too, and their reaction when someone compares his writings to the Bible is very similar.

I have spent years trying to re-train myself to set my default button on the Bible to 'this is the word of God.'

Maybe I don't really have what it takes to be a good Adventist...

aldona

Interesting, Are you really comparing Joseph Smith to Ellen White? I have meet many people in the SDA church who have been hurt by quotes from EGW, either out of context or maybe dead on. But I have never heard someone compare her to Joseph Smith. I do admire some traits of the Mormons, one day 3 of them came to my door, and we had a nice chat. They where aware of EGW, and said some nice things about her. I invited them back so that we could further discuss our faiths. In fact I pleaded with them to come back, they said they would, but never did. I had learned what "tricks" they use to get people to come into their faith, and I was using it on them. I had one big advantage over them, and that is the truth. They also could tell that I some knowledge of their beliefs as well. Oh, the point of this little story is that they are the only ones I've ever heard (until here) who compaired the two.

I have been given the wonderful oppertunity at work, to have a Bible study/prayer meeting. We meet at 7AM every Wednesday. I prepare the study. We've had up to 8 people show up. In those meetings I only take the Bible. We are of many different faiths. They know I am a SDA, that I don't work on Sabbath's and they even know I'm a vegitarian. I don't throw the 28 fundamentals down their throat. We have touched on the sanctuary message. I love my Bible more than you know. I study my Bible. I also read EGW. And guess what? I am a happy man! I don't think I could be more happy really. I am a Christian save by GRACE! It is nothing but excepting the gift of grace by faith that I am saved. It is not that I keep the Sabbath, it is not that I refrain from flesh foods, it is nothing that I do. To GOD be the glory!

[GreatLakesGramma]

What about their other senses? Did their ears hear differently? Did their tongues taste differently? Did their noses smell differently? Did their fingers feel differently?

Do you have Biblical evidence that they didn't?

This discussion is getting into an area that God has seen fit not to enlighten us on. It could have been a change in perception. It could have been the light of God's Spirit around them. It could have been something entirely different. The fact is, we do not know. There is no way to prove anything.

What we do know is that they chose to rebel against God, and in so doing chose Satan as their master. They lost their innocence, their peace, their sense of God's love and acceptance, and their love of good and right. Everything changed. Everything that was truly important.

And we suffer the consequences of their choices.

[Bravus]

The point being made was not that their senses changed - they saw the same thing. It was the meaning of what they saw that changed. A woman's breast in the context of feeding her child is a different thing and has a different meaning from what the same breast has in an erotic context. Before the Fall the fact that they were naked had one set of meanings, after the Fall it had a different set of meanings. No change to the sense perception, all the change is in the mind... and I think we all agree that that new sense of guilt and shame was an immediate consquence of sin.

[Dr. Shane]

This discussion is getting into an area that God has seen fit not to enlighten us on.

Those of us that believe in Ellen White would disagree. God has enlighten us about this. What Ellen White wrote does not contradict the Bible so we really have no reason to reject it unless we just have something against Ellen White and want to make an issue where no issue exists.

[Dr. Shane]

The point being made was not that their senses changed - they saw the same thing. It was the meaning of what they saw that changed.

That is not what the text says. God asked, "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" (Genesis 3:11) He didn't ask, "Who told you a breast is erotic?" or "Who told you nakedness is shameful?" The question God asked tells us that Adam and Eve did not know they were naked prior to the fall.

[Planey]

If Adam and Eve had been covered with a "robe of glory" or indeed a robe of anything, then it would have been very obvious if said robe had disappeared.

In which case why would God have assumed that someone would have had to have told them they were naked?

You don't need someone to tell you something that is plainly obvious.

Graeme

[Dr. Shane]

If Adam and Eve had been covered with a "robe of glory" or indeed a robe of anything, then it would have been very obvious if said robe had disappeared.

[Planey]

Perhaps. But if I saw a person who was completely covered with a robe, then later I saw them without a robe, trying to improvise some other form of clothing, the obvious question would be "What happened to your robe?"

I can't imagine anyone (even God) in those circumstances more or less saying "How do you know that your robe has gone?" Surely the question would have been "What did you do that caused you to lose your covering?"

Graeme

[GreatLakesGramma]

God told us some things. He didn't tell us everything. The Bible says that their eyes were opened. I have always understood this to mean, not that something happened to their eyes, but that their perception changed, because that is what the English idiom means, and it is often used that same way in the Bible. But sometimes when Jesus healed the blind, the Bible says their eyes were opened. So it's possible Genesis could mean that something changed about their eyes. There is nothing in the Bible that definitely says either way. We can assume one thing or the other, but we can't prove it.

When the Bible says they were naked, in the context of creation, I have always understood this to be a comparison to the animals which also had hair, fur, or wool. Theirs covers their bodies so that most of their skin does not show. Ours does not. The English word is often used in this way in similar context.

I have also understood Sister White's reference to "robes of light" to mean, not that they were covered with some kind of clothing that shone, but as simply her own way to describe the aura of God's presence with them. When Moses talked with God, his face shone. Adam and Eve were totally sinless. They had the fullness of the Holy Spirit in a way that we have never experienced. It's reasonable to believe that their entire bodies shone in the same way that Moses' face shone. And this would not change the fact that they were naked. It might not even have obscured their bodies. And it is not in any way incompatible with what the Bible says in Genesis, not the way I have always understood it. And again, there is no Biblical proof either that it is true or that it is not.

The Bible doesn't tell us why God didn't accept Cain's offering. We (Christians, not just Adventists) believe that the fault lay with Cain, because otherwise it would mean God is vindictive and arbitrary, and we know that is not true. We also accept stories repeated in more than one of the gospels, but differing in major details, without discounting one or the other as being uninspired or invalid. Instead, we attribute the difference to each writer telling what most impressed him about the event. And we put them together to get a more complete story.

God didn't give us every minute detail of the Genesis story. None of us was there to see it. And we won't find all the missing details somewhere else in the Bible, because we don't really need to know. God has made sure we do know everything really important.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Planey, God knew what had happened. He even knew where Adam and Eve were hiding. He asked in order to give them a chance to speak for themselves - the same reason he asked Cain where his brother was.

[Planey]

Planey, God knew what had happened. He even knew where Adam and Eve were hiding. He asked in order to give them a chance to speak for themselves - the same reason he asked Cain where his brother was.

Catherine, I fully agree. That is the way I have always understood it.

I just wondered at His choice of phrase "Who told you?" which seems like "How do you know?" or "How did you work that out?"

If someone is involved in an accident and have to have a leg amputated, you do not say "Who told you that your leg was gone?" or "How did you know that your leg was missing?" It is something obvious, something that the person concerned could be assumed to know implicitly.

So if Adam and Eve had some visible obvious covering it would not make sense to ask them how they knew it was gone. So I agree that it was most likely a perception thing where they now understood that they were naked, and also "naked" in God's eyes, something for which they felt (deserved) shame.

By the way, I really liked your idea regading "garments of light". I hadn't thought of it like that before, it makes good sense.

Graeme

[Robert]

I have always understood this to mean, not that something happened to their eyes, but that their perception changed....

Gen 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

This realization came after the fall when the HS departed from their spirit (inner mind). Yes, something changed. No longer were their natures in the likeness and image of God, but rather the agape they previously had now took a u-turn back towards self. Hence iniquity was born. You can see this self-love in how they immediately started to blame each other and God:

Gen 3:12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

As to - "they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves" - something changed. I don't know if EGW is right or not, but before they didn't need to cover up.