Many people think that Eve was made as a “helpmeet” for Adam, a word often interpreted as helpmate. If we look at the Hebrew Bible, however, we see that the words used in Genesis 2:18 are “ezer k’negdo”, a counterpart helping Adam. The word ezer does not imply hierarchy.
My interpretation is that Eve was made to prevent Adam from being lonely, complement Adam (like Yin and Yang) and make Adam fully human, for only in relationship to others can we find our true humanity.
The idea of a “helpmate” seems to be a mistranslation or misunderstanding.
June 25th, 2007
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An often used argument against the existence of God is the unlikelihood of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Wikipedia describes this creature as:
- An invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, including a mountain, trees and a midget.
- All evidence for evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM tests Pastafarians’ faith by making things look older than they are (q.v. Omphalos).
- The Pastafarian belief of heaven stresses two points. “A) It has beer volcanos as far as the eye can see & B) It has a stripper factory.”
This argument has always troubled me. I just found out why: The Flying Spaghetti Monster is an invention of the human mind, God could possibly be not. In the same way a chimp could never conceive of a symphony, or appreciate it, the human mind could never come up with something like God. God (if he/she/it exists) is in a different domain. The probability distributions between the earthly and heavenly domains need not be similar. We know that an earthly beast with acid for blood is most unlikely. We cannot be so certain about an alien one.
Simply put: God is transcendent, the Easter Bunny is not.
December 4th, 2006
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