Eve was an afterthought - but did God retrofit Adam?

[William]

We know from Genesis 2: 20 that God did not initially plan to have any woman around.  He tried animals first as companions for Adam but eventually realized Adam needed a woman

Genesis 2: 18-23
18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Now my question is this: When God first made Adam, did Adam come complete with reproductive equipment and sexual urges?  ... for which God first made all the animals as 'company'? 

Or when God (what a nong) realized Adam needed to get properly laid once in a while, did He retrofit Adam with the necessary equipment.  The bible says nothing about this, but the opportunity was there while Adam was under anesthetic and God was fiddling with Adams ribs (i.e. taking one rib without causing one to be missing.)

So, was Adam retrofitted?  :shrug

[CutePuppy]

A site you'll like: http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/eden.html

Okay, so God created Adam in his own image. Physically or spiritually, whatever.

Did Adam have the standard male genitals? (most of you are probably familiar with them, one way or another). Now, I could understand God giving Adam a penis; after all, when you urinate it's handy to be able to aim somewhere convenient. But did he have testicles? Unless I've missed something, the sole purpose of testes is reproduction.

My point? Well, God created Eve so that Adam would not be lonely. Why did he give Adam testes at the start unless he already knew that he would have to create Eve also? Why not just create the two of them (Adam and Eve, that is) at the same time? What use are male reproductive organs without the complimentary female ones?

Perhaps when God made Eve, he did a little extra surgery on Adam whilst he slept, and furnished him with the appropriate equipment. Imagine his surprise when he woke up!

[plethora]

^^ Adam waking up ... "whoa... that's new."

[William]

Hahaha, thanks for the link Cutepuppy.  Nice to see someone has been down this avenue of enquiry before.  Not surprising with a book thousands of years old written for obsequious minds belonging to a very primitive era  

Interesting how they excused the design of the penis (as a wee directing instrument) but homed in on the purpose of the testes.  There's a joke about "complete bollocks" lurking in that but lets not go there.

[plethora]

God is omnimax hence...

He knew Adam was going to need testies later on so he equipped him from the start.

He knew Adam didn't wanna shag the chicken, the sheep or the monkey but least Adam named them all while looking for a shagmate.

He knew you would be asking this question and he knows you're going yo hell for giving Adam's testicles too much thought

[William]

He knew you would be asking this question and he knows you're going yo hell for giving Adam's testicles too much thought

Mmmm ... maybe they were just hanging there for the joy of scratching an itch  ... but seriously, are the animals really out of bounds    They were, in biblical fact, God's first option for Adam 

[RaymondKHessel]

If I may be so bold as to piggy back another question onto the original...

Did all the animals orignally only come in "dude" flavor as well? If so, it would seem the original intention was an all-homo bestial orgy. Eden would have been knee-deep in spunk!!!

Things "Veggie Tales" never really covers, eh?




The A&E story is just really, really bad. Not only is it like retard-level bad storytelling, but the whole "God created MEN, women are made out of leftovers" thing is just embarassingly chauvinistic. I can imagine some filthy priests sitting around a fire, picking lice out of each other's napified beards and congratulating each other over what a great job they did keeping their women in their place. What a bunch of shitheads.

[William]

... but the whole "God created MEN, women are made out of leftovers" thing is just embarassingly chauvinistic.

Massive round of applause coming from here 

When I was religious this issue always rang a claxton alarm sound in my brain followed by: "This does not compute ... This does not compute ... This does not compute ..."

[plethora]

God's thoughts... (in ominous voice):

- Hmm... I think I'll create a man

- Got some elbow skin left over... I know, I'll use that to make a testicle sack.

- There... perfect... D'oh! Now this dude wants company... oh alright...

- Tough to please... He's not going for the all-male animals I so perfectly created... maybe that was a bad idea. From now on I declare homosexuality and bestiality a sin! That should cover up that blunder.

- He' sleeping, now's the time. Since I'm such an intelligent designer, I'll use one of those redundant ribs he doesn't really need.

- There... a woman... perfect!

- This is getting boring... let's add a twist with some forbidden fruit...

[Nick]

Yes, Adam was retrofitted.  It was in one of those alternative bibles.  Adam asked God if he could be hung like a horse.  Eve would then do anything for Adam...even take that damn apple.  The end or was it the beginning.

[Agamemnon]

Well, I think God created man with all the equipment, fully functional, but that he designed man's HAND to fit around the "banana." The idea being that man would just spend all of his time beating his meat until God had a chance to make Eve.

I'm sure the people that take the bible literally wouldn't like the idea of the bible promoting masturbation, though.

[DVZ3]

Seriously, every time I hear this genisis story and then read seemingly simple modern day rationalizations such as these, I just can't believe that people beleive this stuff!  And then go as far as to base their lives and thinking around it.  AND THEN condem others for not thinking this way as well.

It's truly sad times we live in now if think about it.  The fact that we know it's all bs, but even with all the science and technology, we still cannot travel through time back to these so-called events.  Hence, these stupid myths are perpetuated.

[HAL]

Now my question is this: When God first made Adam, did Adam come complete with reproductive equipment and sexual urges?  ... for which God first made all the animals as 'company'? 

Retrofit? Probably not. Don't the theists claim that their are male and female angels? Well, they probably have sex in heaven then. Also, it's best to first try to get along without a woman around, god probably was smart enough to realize that.

Besides, just because there isn't a woman around doesn't mean you can't have fun with the equipment. 

[ParkingPlaces]

You're missing one other piece of the puzzle.  An Adam only world would presumably make it hard to create little Adamettes. So what did this god guy have in mind for humans in the long run. Just the one guy, dancing with wolves and stuff, forever? Or was he going to go back to the dirt pile and whip out a few more fellows for kicks?  That is, did he intend to populate the planet with more humans at all? And if so, was it with same sex(less?) beings, or did he plan just Adam, forced forever to sing the song "One Is The Loneliest Number"?

If it was just guys, their sin would have been inventing bowling. And beer. But that would have saved god from having to deal with the forbidden tree. Because bowling would have accomplished the same thing, and made for a more believable story.

Anyway, it sounds like procreation was an afterthought. That sex is messy and awkward and involves dissimilar participants (if done biblically correct), means that there was probably no way to make it appealing to anybody. Certain sensual pleasures were probably added even later, once god noticed that just having genitals didn't float A&E's boat, if you know what I mean.

All this because he was in such a great big hurry to get things going. I don't know about you, but anytime I rush while making a universe, I always forget something. Last time I forgot the WD-40 and the damn thing squeaked all the time squeaked all the time. Especially the sex.

So if god didn't simultaneously produce both sexes, methinks his retrofitting explains a lot of things. Since  men were not made with women in mind, it pretty much explains the overall attitude of all my ex's. I can no longer blame them for noticing all of my shortcomings. Too, I now realize that "Not tonight honey" turns out to be code for "It was valentines day and all you got me was this lousy rib!"

Whoever wrote that part of the story had probably just had a fight with his shepardess and wanted revenge. At least it is consistent with everything else in genesis. None of it actually explains anything.

Great question. All answers will have to be made up. But then, so was the original story. We can expect no more.

By the way, we haven't addressed "Why children?" here. God makes full-grown adults with presumably incredible maturity (imagine the patience it took to name all the animals). But then he does the Eve thing, sex follows, and out pops these little people unable to care for themselves or understand god's important messages right away. If being obeyed was so frickin' important, you'd think he would have designed some big door so that when birth was about to occur, you just opened it and out would walk a full grown, fully developed, english speaking, semi-competent adult. (Adam and Eve did speak english. They were true Americans and everything. That's a fact.  )

As a bonus, women wouldn't have to excuse their weight gain.

So kids are a bit confusing too. Why mess up the planet by making little critters that are only cute about half the time? There is no way lions would lay with lambs with a bunch of little brats around.

The more I look at it, the less "intelligent design" appears to be a factor.

[William]

Well, I think God created man with all the equipment, fully functional, but that he designed man's HAND to fit around the "banana."

I see now, so that's where Ray Comfort got his inspiration

[William]

And then go as far as to base their lives and thinking around it.  AND THEN condem others for not thinking this way as well.

Too true.  A lot of Christians conveniently think that the New Covenant makes the OT somehow vaguely irrelevant or at best tolerable as outdated metaphorical poetry about the beauty, power and wisdom of their Creator.

But I think atheists need to hold Christians accountable for not making full use of the Holy Ghost to update their book.  Somebody somewhere, maybe the Pope, should be able to get this stuff right.

Where is the truth?  Where is the courage in Christians to seek the truth?

[Positiveaob]

Adam's first words to Eve: "Stand back, I'm not sure how big this thing is gonna get."

Seriously, though, the creation story is even more ridiculous than the Noah's Ark story.  How could anyone possibly read it and believe this is a true story?  And if you do, how could you possibly believe the god in the story is omniscient or omnipotent?

Any theists on this site willing to take a stab at it?  Anyone?

[bgb]

god just sounds totally stupid.  I think the sheep would have filled Adams need.  Anyway since Adam wasn't going to die originally in gods plan which wasn't what god was planning because he new things would be changed in the plan.

[xphobe]

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

I think it's another case of mistranslation.  See, Adam was originally a "hermaphrodite" (Greek for "go f*ck yourself").  So instead of "ribs" they should have translated it as "boobs".  God reduced his cup size.  And "closed up the flesh" is a reference not to his ribcage but to his labia menorah, as they say in Hebrew.

[bahramthered]

The thread may have moved on, but I'm gonna respond to the pissing idea as the origin of the penis:

Removing all sexual attributes from the penis, such as the blood absorbing tissue to attain erection, the huge number of nerve cells, and the head designed for penetrating things would require a remodel as big as making the testes. It just doesn't make sense even as suggetion to explain away some of this.

BTW: Fundies have tried to use this explanation before when I was around. I had to think of these points and hammer the fundies on them. Now this was a long time ago and no one has been this dumb since..

[drunken_scot]

I've read that one explanation is that "rib" should be read as "penile bone".  Men don't have penile bones, unlike most mammals.  In this scenario, the retrofit was minimal and explains why men and women have the same number of ribs.

[Agamemnon]

Well, I think God created man with all the equipment, fully functional, but that he designed man's HAND to fit around the "banana."

I see now, so that's where Ray Comfort got his inspiration

Hey, it makes perfect sense to me! lol

[velkyn]

ROFL what a thread!  The more I read about religion the more insanely primitive it seems and I just wonder about homo sapiens. 

I doubt we'll see any theists here.  They are noticably absent from the nuts and bolts threads started by anyone but themselves.

[Frank]

Well, I think God created man with all the equipment, fully functional, but that he designed man's HAND to fit around the "banana." The idea being that man would just spend all of his time beating his meat until God had a chance to make Eve.

If god didn't want us to actually use our "banana" then why did he give us one at all?

[Narrow Mullen]

If we were made in Gods' image, does God have a penis? If so, why would he need it in the first place?

Additional questions;

1. Does God have a bellybutton?
2. Does God have an anus?
3. Does God have nipples?

[William]

If we were made in Gods' image, does God have a penis? If so, why would he need it in the first place?

Interesting point.  Within the Holy Trinity there are no sort of 'yin yang' complementary devices other than perhaps the "Hand of God"  :shrug  (Well there are others but that would be an "abomination".)

[Bereft_of_Faith]

Although William's original post has to do with what biblegod intended regarding Adam's sexual organs, I'd like to interject that IMO, there's something more insidious that can be attributed to biblegod than f-ing with Adam's junk.  The authors who created the bible show a marked tendency to attribute creative powers to the male rather than the female, as other older cultures had.  That we even speak of Adam and a male creator is part of the problem.  Though we might agree that neither feminine nor masculine creative powers are responsible for creation or the founding of the human race*, the authors seemed to have intended to cut the feminine out of the picture, as a literary spit-in-the-eye to the older cultures they sought to supplant.  That Eve came after Adam, or that even the authors envisioned a lone male god tells much about the lengths these primitive shepherds would go.  It is interesting that the Gnostics saw this as well, and sought to rectify this affront with the notion of Sofia and the Demiurge. 

I'm not trying to thread-jack.  It's just that this sort of thing always irritated me when studying mythologies, and I needed a bit of a rant

*leaving aside that the y chromosome is thought to be a mutation of an x chromosome.

[Frank]

I'd like to know how did god come up with the female form? Adam was supposedly based on himself but he had never seen a female. How did he decide on hair colour, boob size, height, skin colour? Why did he give her a hole the ideal size and position for Adam to insert his up till then redundant (apart from pissing through) penis if he didn't intend for them to have sex?

[anthony_retford]

I personally find it repugnant that xtians perpetuate the Adam and Eve story and continually denigrate women to a lower class of humans. She came second. She is a part of a man. We only have to look around us at our nearest cousins in the animal kingdom and see they copulate in a similar fashion to us. I can't believe that women themselves accept and repeat this nonsense of Adam and Eve. Probably 95% of all animals copulate with penises and vaginas so why wouldn't we? I think when I was young it was the knowledge of this that started my rejection of xtainity.