Actually, that was my omission, since it's not a matter of interpretation.
Apparently, it’s your biblical opinion (interpretation) that sin is contingent on a talking snake
Contingent? Are you lost? First, if I said that the talking snake is responsible for sin that was ushered into the world, I don't think I was saying it was "contingent"! You better look that one up as well.
Second, it's not an interpretation but basic reading comprehension of what the Bible says actually happened. If the snake did not bear any guilt (i.e. if it was not complicit and responsible for man's fall from grace) why would God punish exact his punishment on the snake as well as Adam and Eve?
Had there been no snake saying, “let there be sin,” there would have been no sin
I never said that. You are making that up as well. Why do you feel that you have to distort what I have written, when you know (or should know) that your straw man will be easily debunked? Are you a glutton for punishment? So quit making things up.
Obviously, according to the Bible, the snake played a role in the generation of sin and bears responsibility for it. Without the talking snake, who would have beguiled Eve?
According to materialist dogma, death is inescapable irrespective of one’s state of grace...
More straw men. We are not talking about materialists, but non-meterialists. Rather than rant and rave hoping to deflect the fact that literalist Bible believers are required to believe in talking animals, perhaps you can just answer what was the talking snake doing in God's garden and who put him there?
Yeah, contingent (dependent on or existing only if certain other circumstances are the case - conditional on, subject to, determined by, hinging on, resting on). Your complaint has been that I contest the idea a talking snake is central to Biblical Instruction (“you refuse to acknowledge the fact that without the talking snake sin would not have entered the world”). Are you now denying that sin is dependent on a talking snake?
I’m not lost. Maybe you are. You claim that without a talking snake there would be no sin. That sure sounds like sin is contingent on a talking snake. No snake . . . no sin.
“Second, it's not an interpretation but basic reading comprehension of what the Bible says actually happened.”
It is a matter of interpretation. You claim that sin is contingent on a talking snake (that it would not exist without the snake -“is responsible for sin that was ushered into the world”). I claim that sin is contingent on Man’s willfulness (that sin would not exist absent Man’s willfulness).
“I never said that. (a snake saying, “let there be sin”) You are making that up as well. Why do you feel that you have to distort what I have written, when you know (or should know) that your straw man will be easily debunked?”
Well then, debunk. Are you claiming that sin is a material object? That the snake went out somewhere beyond the Oort cloud and found sin, like the he might find a rock floating around in space, and brought it back to earth? Clearly you are “influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts,” and are not at all objective in your judgment. Accept the consequences of your advocacy. Obviously, it is your desire to have your cake and eat it too that distorts what you think and write.
“We are not talking about materialists, but non-meterialists.”
Yet, it is your materialist dogma that blinds you to the simple understanding that sin stems directly from Mankind’s willfulness. Materialists don’t think sin exists. Therefore, talking snakes sound no less fantastic to Materialists than the willfulness of Man.