we're nothing special

I'm starting to think after a little bit of reasoning that if we were banished from the Garden of Eden. Wouldn't you think he would have started on bigger and better 'projects' than us? What makes human kind so special..

I'm starting to get this pessimistic view of people that we were just a failed experiment. That's why we have no idea what God's plan is. that's why we had to start from scratch and suffered through everything to get where we are now.

we have such a primitive and negative nature that we're only affirming we don't deserve to live perfect lives forever.

with the current actions of humanity right now, I think we're earning exactly what we're getting. average life spans of under 100 years, depressions,disease, death, etc..

Is any of this that I'm saying unfair to say?

Well, I'm not a Christian.
And I don't believe in God quite as Christians do, but I understand what you are saying.
About us as a failed experiment, that is.
And about us being nothing special.
I honestly don't think that humans are anything special. Our brains are very limited, and we can't really perceive anything beyond our five senses.
But on your topic, I don't think it is fair or unfair to say.
We live in a primitive and negative way because it makes us happy. It helps us live.
If we had unlimited life, no disease or depression, no war, no sadness, we'd be perfect.
And we'd be pretty darn bored.
What I think is that contentment breeds discontentment. We couldn't be happy in the Garden of Eden (which I see as a metaphor for primitive, insentient existence) and still think.
Monkeys would be happy int he Garden of Eden, we wouldn't be.
Our sadness and despair is contrasted with our happiness.
I believe that is why well-off people get sad because we missed a job promotion or lost our favourite book. These things would not distress anybody who is starving or in war because they have other things to worry about.
I think that I said that in the least eloquent way possible...
Oh well.
We are sad so we can know when we are happy.
Our lives are short so we can live them without boredom.
We can't be perfect. We wouldn't want to be perfect, I don't think. Our trials make our successes even more amazing. We earned them.

If any of that makes sense.

I can agree with that view point it also affirms part of what I believe which is that we can become perfect but not physically our souls can become perfect and transcend our earthly bodies.

For some reason everything points to sethian Gnosticism for me lately check it out let me know what you think.

Read Carl Sagen's pale blue dot... well i didnt read it.. i listened to the audio book.. he talks about this.. well he doesnt believe that we are a failed experiment... but he does discuss how we arent very special.. how religion was designed to make people feel special.. you know god's best creation.. like in the quran god it says that he made mankind in the best form.. and that humans are the best creation.. and even some can be better than angels.. the believers who do good deeds... in chapter barooj i believe.. well.. it was intresting.. so.. perhaps if you want to read it.. it was nice.. i think its a few years old.. we humans are quite complex... but probably not the most significant.. complex intresting thing in the entire universe.. and i cannot even allow myself to believe that it was all made for us.. us..mere specs.. on this pale blue dot we call home...

to MugenNoKarayami - In Genesis and other scriptures not included in the bible, a story is told how God made us and than became sorry for making us. While Genesis only makes a mention of this, the other scriptures go into greater detail. God was going to destroy his creation, for mankind would only bring evil upon the earth (so true that is) but the spirit of God prevented him explaining that we would grow in wisdom and and in the the end truth could be harvested. I find it a real shame that this scripture was not included with the rest of the bible, because it at least describes two different parts of God and helps us understand what Jesus was talking about concerning the harvest.

Coming from a Catholic perspective, what makes us so special to God is that he created us in His image and likeness. We are His children and therefore he has the unconditional love of a father for his child.

You see, just because Adam and Eve sinned, and disobeyed Him doesn't mean that He believed He had failed. Just as your parents would do if you disobeyed them He punished His children for their wrongdoing and denied us any further access to the paradise He gave us until our sins were forgiven.

He sent His only son Jesus to join us as a human and to sacrifice Himself for us so that we could be saved and re-enter that paradise of Eden that we now call heaven. The idea of heaven being the garden of Eden is mostly personal speculation; however after meditation on the teaching of the Catholic Church it makes sense.

We were not a failed experiment, we weren't an experiment at all. If someone's child does something wrong they don't shrug their shoulders and say, "Eh, we screwed up on that one, guess we'll abandon it and try again."

God hasn't forsaken humankind, He hasn't left us, and He isn't just some kid with a magnifying glass killing the ants He created and making them miserable. If you're looking for God and can't find Him perhaps you're looking in the wrong places.

I read this amazing book that talked about people blaming God for the bad things that happen in their lives, and how people wonder why and how someone who is supposed to love them so much could let something so terrible happen. The author's answer was we must always remember that we live in a world at war. A battle that has raged on since that fateful day in the Garden between the forces of good and evil, Heaven and Hell.

God doesn't cause the bad things, He doesn't allow them, He doesn't condone them, but in every war there are casualties and this one is no different. The hard times you must go through are part of a bigger picture, and they are unfortunate, but those times are simply times where what counts is how you react. If you succumb to the evil intentions behind that event you will turn away from God. But that is why its a test.

The war is for your soul, for all or our souls, and the deciding factor in who wins the war is how you react, and how you cope with the trials and tribulations that are thrown at you.

As I have been taught and have come to believe myself, God loves us all. With arms wide open He waits for us to realize what we've done wrong, and how far we've distanced ourselves from Him so that He can embrace us if and when we decide to run back to Him.

There isn't a day that goes by that doesn't have some difficult hurdle for me, and sometimes I lose sight of who I am, but that is not because I'm a failed experiment that has been tossed aside and abandoned.

I don't believe that a war is the appropriate way to describe this.

For instance, the one God of the Judeo-Christian faiths is omnipotent. There is nothing he does not know and there is nothing he cannot do. This therefore means that he cannot be attacked by anything, or suffer anything that goes against his will.

Given all of this, then evil, however you want to describe it is a piece of God, and exists because he chooses to allow it to continue. If that is true, than evil is just a tool God uses to fulfill his will.

So where does that leave humanity?

According to Christian theology, God created everything specifically for his own benefit. We exist, the angels exist, and everything else exists, to glorify God. Such glory, if it is forced to be given, is cheap. Thus, God gave us, and presumably the angels as well, free will so that we could choose to love and glorify him.

So if he has the angels, why does he need humans?

Well now I'm going to get a little less canonic. This is a very rough outline and in no way is quoting anything that's actually written. In some of the scriptures not included in the Bible, there are detailed accounts of Fallen Angels being banished to Hell. After the angels were banished, God created new beings (humans) to fill the gap. Humans were granted the same free will that God had granted the angels, even though God knew they would fall, tempted by the fallen.

With all of that information taken into account, according to Christianity, we fell from the Garden of Eden simply so that we could have the choice to glorify God or not. In this case, we are not the battlefields in a war, or involved in a spiritual war at all. The war is in fact a pawn in God's plan of glorification.

Call God self-centered, sadistic, or what-have-you but when you're the ultimate ruler of the universe and all existence, you get some perks.

Now coming away from Christianity... I don't think it's out of line to say that humanity is getting what it deserves. We kill each other, we destroy everything we come across, we expand without cause or reason, etc. Add any negative aspect of humanity to the list you want.

You're looking at it wrong, MugenNoKarayami. Religion isn't meant to be interpreted literally, but rather a guideline on how to live your life and a place to turn for hope or advice. If you truly believe that the current state of things is some sort of divine punishment, then you need to gain some perspective. The amount of disease related deaths is lower now than any point in recorded history and crime statistics show that, in many areas of the world, society is becoming less violent. What everyone here seems to be overlooking is that even in the most developed parts of the world, easily curable diseases like lyme disease, cholera, mumps, diptheria, etc... were a death sentence for nearly anyone who contracted them.
However, you should give credit where credit is due. The current state of the world is not due to divine providence or punishment, but rather the burning desire of man to be more than he is.
As for your claim that we are a "failed experiment". This is a bit hypocritical, you're human, as human as anyone reading this, as human as I. If you're going to condemn humanity, condemn yourself first, since you're just as much a part of the "failed experiment" as anyone else. However, instead of highlighting the failings of mankind and acting the helpless victim, why don't you try to change it? Anyone can point out a problem, it's much harder to fix one.

I'm going to take a wild stab at this and say that Mugen wasn't referring to common diseases that we have cures for when he mentioned diseases. I'm guessing he was more thinking of AIDS or the various types of Cancer we see running around.

I would actually argue that Religion, or rather Organized Religion, was indeed meant to be interpreted literally in order to control the masses in the Middle Ages. "Pay the Church a tithe and swear to obey our rules and abide by our judgment and you'll receive eternal salvation." St. Jimmy is right, in that the faiths the organized religions are based on were not meant to be interpreted literally. Might just be a semantics point, but those tend to attract my attention.

I would say that it is a bit harsh to say people who believe in religion need to gain perspective. These people have perspective; just their perspective is filtered by words on a page written by someone around 1700 years ago or more.

I do think you're right that we need to fix the problems as well as identifying them, and that we should start with acknowledging our own failings before seeking someone else to pin them on.

Perhaps this post makes my views on this topic clearer than my first one, which was more of a direct response to fireangel.