I remember Genesis 3:16 all too well. The early chapters of Genesis are mythical and poor even as an allegory. If ignorance is a vice, I shall do satan's bidding, and at any rate I will not take as part of God's Word something that suggests that God is punishing women through childbirth.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)

emnity does not necessarily mean punishment through child birth.

locke I am no theologian but i think man is born with evil and good in their heart. it is consequence for the first sin. before then, humans had no sin. heck we ran around naked with no cares at all. we were the Children of God. but sin or evil, crept into our lives because of the works of a fallen angel and we were accepting to him.

Yet God still considers us His children and He will consider the worst sinner one of His children even until their death.

This to me is the definition of free will.

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And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Genesis 3:16)

I am a man, incidentally, but I find the notion of "ruling over" a woman as offensive as any woman possibly could. Moreover, anyone who tells me that what my mother went through giving birth to me was divine vengeance is not of the same religion I practice. If that makes me "un-Christian", so be it. It made a physical and psychological wreck of my mother and has messed me up pretty darn badly as well (I heard about it later). While I don't think that satan is a literal fallen angel, I could live with the idea that an evil fallen angel was responsible for what happened just about 22 years ago now, but I won't attribute it to a "benevolent" God as Genesis does.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)

Most people have brothers and/or sisters. That should tell you something.

I have no respect for any woman who would put that kind of burden on their child.

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Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. - Theodore Roosevelt

God gave the right of freedom to man,and man had made his choice.He made a bad use of his freedom and had gone away from God.From this time God is trying to take us close to him,when this happen,man will be again perfect.

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O ΚΑΙΡΟC ΓΑΡ ΕΓΓΥC+

I, too, hope he stops listening to you-know-who but Force makes a good point.
It has been a tradition in Christian theology at least since Augustine that childbirth is your god's way of punishing woman for bringing "sin" into the world.

I don't, and my parents have been celibate since my birth. I, in turn, gave up on all relationships with women because of the terrible shame I have in my mind. I'm not a victim in any sense, but at the same time I don't accept the notion that God ordained my mother's suffering as any sort of punishment.

She hasn't mentioned my birth in a very long time, but having inherited hypersensitivity from both sides of the family, it isn't something that I can just forget. Much of her trauma came from the fact that she was made to believe that childbirth was God's punishment and her mother also told her about the insane visions of authors who claimed that God would burn the flesh off the legs of women who exposed said limbs and locked her in her room with writings on hell when she kissed her boyfriend on the lips. My mother's mother is an ultra-traditionalist, hysterical, "more Catholic than the Pope" sort of Catholic, so it's rather obvious where my mother got most of her issues. Add to that a man (not my father) who seduced her at 20 even though no one had ever explained the "facts of life" to her (her mother couldn't bring herself to discuss such things) and it's a wonder she isn't much worse mentally than she is.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)

Locke, I do not profess to be a teacher of the Word of God. This forum is simply not adequate even if I was. These kind of profound questions are better answered by a true Bible scholar who uses the original languages of the Bible.

Only someone who is called upon by God can give a responsible answer to your question. I suggest R.B. Thieme ministries. They teach from Hebrew and Greek and put things together for Christians who wish to learn. There is no charge for publications and recordings. http://rbthieme.org/publicat.htm

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Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. - Theodore Roosevelt

you are leaving out the entire passage for the sake of your arguement.

Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying,Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

who was verse 15 directed towards?

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And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

Towards the devil, but that in no way changes the context of verse 16. "I", supposedly declared God, will punish womankind with the suffering of childbirth. Thus the agony of childbirth is not presented as the work of satan but rather as a punishment from God. I am a Christian and I accept the Nicene Creed, but I am not a Scriptural Fundamentalist and I do not and will not attempt to excuse or condone the obvious human errors in the Bible, the cruelty of Genesis 3:16 being one of them.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)