There’s a bit of discussion going around concerning the ontological status of Adam and Eve — is the story literally true, useful metaphor, not really true but based somehow in reality, or what? For me, it would be hard to think of a less interesting question. But I do have a serious issue with the A&E story, which I rarely see discussed: it’s a terrible lesson on which to found a system of belief.
The story is told in Genesis, chapter two and chapter three. God sets up Adam in the Garden of Eden, and soon takes one of his ribs and makes Eve. For the most part the Garden is a pleasant place, and there doesn’t seem to have been any duties more onerous than coming up with names for the different animals. But for reasons that are not explained, God placed in the Garden something called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and commanded that Adam and Eve not eat from it. (Translational difficulties being what they are, there is a school of thought that argues that “good and evil” should be understood as simply meaning “all things, both good and evil.”) Eventually, of course, they take a bite, with a little urging from a crafty serpent. God gets angry, curses them, and casts them out of the Garden forever — the Fall of Man, as Christians would have it.
The choice given to Adam and Eve was a simple one: (1) obey, or (2) attain knowledge, in particular of good and evil. If those are my two choices, I’m choosing “knowledge” every day. Count me on Team Eve on this one. As far as I’m concerned, this wasn’t the Original Sin, it was the Original Heroic Act.
I want to see a religion founded on exhortations to disobey authority and seek the truth at any cost.
I don’t know if there is an English translation, but this book sheds light on ~1500 creation stories collected world wide, and compares common themes.
Besides knowledge is also interesting to see how many stories eventually blame females for the problems of men. In most stories the ‘Eve’ is responsible for the fall, not the ‘Adam’. Even in non Christian stories it’s most often the woman that creates the final problem (also imagine a woman cutting too much from the sky-god to eat in one meal, forcing the sky-god to retreat from the Earth, and from that time on there is hunger. Congo, Africa)
Mineke Schipper
In het begin was er niemand – hoe het komt dat er mensen zijn
ISBN 978 90 351 3558 1
Among all other attributes, God (for the believers) is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and OMNISCIENT. In other word he/she is what we now would call the ultimate “know-it-all.” God’s omniscience is his/her knowledge of all things including actual and possible, past, present, and future (foreknowledge). Therefore, he/she knew the “punch line” before it even happened in A&E’s time frame, that is to say they were going to choose knowledge over ignorance. So, why did God even bother with this charade?
Sean, I thought you believed we couldn’t derive ought from is, but here you want knowledge of ought.
Among all other attributes, God (for the believers) is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and OMNISCIENT.
Be careful. You are offering the definition of the omni-god of Western philosophy. This should not be confused with Yahweh, the tribal god of the Jews, or the mysterious Elohim who also appears in Genesis.
@50, Reginald:
“We call Yahweh a liar because he lied. You are instead making up a different argument and pretending that we said it because you prefer to argue against that instead.”
I did nothing of the sort. I am well aware of what your argument is. You say God lied. I’m sure that an alternative interpretation – that God was merciful – didn’t cross your mind, and that’s fair enough.
Of course, there is a more straightforward interpretation that one could invoke beyond the one I did. That more straightforward interpretation is to simply read what it says.
Gen. 2:17: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Gen. 3: 3-4: but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die;
God was absolutely correct here: on the day that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was eaten, death became part of human reality. Before that, it was not. The Serpent was lying, since death did enter human reality. And Eve didn’t know what the Hell she was talking about because she wasn’t even there to begin with: God did not say that no one shall touch the tree. Your interpretation derives from the assumption that “in the day that you eat of it you shall die” means “you’ll die RIGHT NOW”, but that’s not what it says. It says that people who would not die before they ate the fruit will die after they eat it.
And as another amusing aside, the very first things that Sean’s Original Heroic Act accomplish are shame and the irresponsible assignation of blame on others. Furthermore, God’s “punishment” for eating the fruit has far more of the character of natural consequences of one’s actions (there are two main schools of thought on sin: that one is punished for them and that one is punished by them): the man-over-woman/humanity-over-nature heirarchy is actually a consequence of the knowledge of good and evil. This is part of the Hebraic critique of master morality implicit to the story: knowledge of good and evil does not mean that people will choose good.
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@52, Tintin:
To an extent Reginald is actually right this. The conception of God with which the story was written is not necessarily the same as our post-Christian one. However, if you are going to back-interpret, there are some things to consider.
The first is that, in reality, the story didn’t happen. There was no charade to consider unless you’re a Biblical literalist (which, granted, many atheists are).
The second is that, despite all the railing here about how oppressive God is supposedly being in this story, He is providing a choice. God, in all His omniasticalness, did not necessarily have to provide a choice. But He did, for reasons that I think are intrinsic both to Himself and to what He wants us to be. There is a world of difference between God saying “It’s probably best for you if you don’t eat that… (even though I know you’re going to anyways, you stupid hairless apes)” and God just not giving us the option.
So I guess it’s now a question to throw back at you: why do you think God would give us a choice?
Reginald,
I’m sorry, it’s just not a good argument. There are good arguments. This is not one of them. Make a good one, if you wish to argue and tell me to $*#% myself. If you want to call my calling you out on this “arrogant condescension”, feel free – I’m just sick and tired of seeing mediocre arguments made against issues of faith on this blog, puppeted as if they’re good arguments. (Though some are good, I will rightfully admit!)
To respond to your statement: competent theologians aren’t ones who agree with me, just as competent art scholars aren’t necessarily ones who agree with me. Competent theologians are ones who are competent. There are standards in most fields (including theology) by which one can be designated “competent,” and it usually involves knowing a good deal of background information in the field and in related fields and studying some subject in depth. Then it involves making decisions, statements, and judgement calls (and ultimately publishing research) based on the thorough background obtained on the subject, as well as the in depth detailed study. Within a given subfield, people competent on the relevant issues generically reach some sort of consensus, though details may vary.
The point is this: the consensus reached by competent practitioners in the field is that it is not a literal death, period. From what I gather, you don’t have a serious enough background in this field to challenge a consensus. (If you yourself are a professional theologian, feel free to correct me, and I’ll listen to a more in depth argument that spells out in better detail what you mean!)
It’s like crackpot physicists who propose something that upset all the laws of nature, casually ignoring everything that has been learned (theoretically and experimentally) in the last 50 years. It’s not necessarily their fault – they’re often honest and interested. They’re just ignorant and don’t know the necessary background.
Also, regarding selective literalism. Though many practicing Jews and Christians will tell you their book is to be taken 100% literally, the books clearly aren’t. There are a vast array of stories / poems / recorded historical events / supposed miracles written for all different audiences and sometimes no audience at all. When, in the often poetic prophets, scripture says things to the effect of “and then God lifted Israel up with his right hand”, are you arguing that I’m employing selective literalism in saying that it doesn’t mean “God took his human hand, which he has, first off, and then used it to fight gravity and lift up towards the sky the entire nation of people known as Israel”. No, that’s absolutely ludicrous! I’m not taking it literally because the context of the rest of scripture (and also some degree of obviousness) implies that it’s a metaphor. In fact, it gains more significant and consistent meaning when taken as a metaphor. (Also true of the spiritual vs. literal)
Context, context, context. And context (as expounded by competent theologians) given by the rest of scripture clearly implies it’s not a literal death that God is talking about in Genesis 1.
I’m not arguing against the side you’re taking – I have no problem with you on this. I’m arguing against your bad argument. Which it is 😉
J
Adam and Eve is a great story in as much as it gives Artists a nice chance to paint apples and nudes ! (…albeit with fig leaves )
I have thought the story of Abraham and Isaac is about ending human sacrifice – where God finally says – Stop – enough – “It is your life I want not your death.”
@55, Cory Gross
Very nice answer. However, wouldn’t it have been much clearer for God then to have said, “In that day your flesh will cease to be immortal”? Should not one ethically be as clear as possible when presenting a choice? Of course, as Reginald points out, Yahweh was not the most ethical of gods.
In any case, it still seems an heroic act to me to give up physical immortality for the option of obtaining knowledge – speaking mythically. As we all know, if death did not exist, evolution would have invented it since it is a requirement for improvements in the adaptation of a population.
@58, JimV:
I think it’s also worth considering that the original was written in Hebrew (which, amongst other things, includes no punctation or spaces) and our current translations (I used the NRSV) are weighted under past translations of Latin and King James English. If for absolutely no other reason, I would still read “in the day you eat of it you shall die” as “as of the day you eat of it you shall die” simply for the fact that, over 2,600 years, I’m sure someone would have said “waitasecond” if it meant otherwise. I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that atheist critics are just SO super bright that they’re pointing out things in the Bible to us that just no one happened to notice for millennia.
Mythically, I think we might want to be particular about what we’re talking about as well. Adam and Eve didn’t give up immortality for knowledge, period. They gave it up for knowledge of good and evil, which is a more specific form of knowledge. Within the narrative world of the story, there would have been nothing expressly stopping the two from accumulating scientific knowledge (in fact, they already were, if one looks at the systematizing of animal life by naming them in that manner). Even within the context of the story, having the capacity to make moral judgements is not in-itself a bad thing. It’s described as God-like. The problem is that humans, not being God, have the capacity for using that moral judgement to commit immoral actions. As I noted, the very first things that happened were that Adam and Eve felt shame and proceded to blame each other and the snake for their actions instead of taking personal responsibility.
I also think that “life” in the context of the story means more than just immortality. It also means “the things which make for abundant life”, to use the terminology from the New Testament. That is, an intimate relationship with God and a harmonious relationship amongst the Creation and humanity (again, it’s significant to look at what happens immediately after they eat: they hide from God for fear of punishment, they clothe themselves out of shame before one another, they blame each other, enmity is put between humanity and nature, toil and labour os prescribed for survival, and a man-over-woman social heirarchy is created). If one wants to give an overarching theme of the 66 books and 40+ authors whose work comprised the Protestant canon, I think one of them would be the struggle to use our “morality” to find our way back towards “life”.
I should probably have put “back” in quotes as well, since part of the whole subtext of the Creation stories is not trying to explain an event in the past but articulate the problems being faced in the present. Hense the critique of master morality. As I said, Original Sin isn’t the event of the Fall, but the “nature of humanity” gained through what we are and how we evolved. Because of this inescapability of the human condition, Scripture’s big answer to this dilemma is that we can’t really find our way to life through morals, because you can’t fix the problem with the same thinking that “created” the problem (which is the irony of conservative Evangelicals trying to legislate morality… no, that is the PROBLEM). It’s only God, as the principle of life itself, who can do that.
For me the tree represents a singularity. In a typical space-time there will be singularities, so it is more likely that in this specific one, called heaven, there will be a singularity. The massage is very clear ‘stay away from it or you world line will end in finite proper time’. Apparently it was a wormhole that took them to this universe.
@55, Corry Gross
I really don’t know where you are going. First, what is “post-Christian” like in “our post-Christian one (conception)?” As far as I know, we are still in the Christian era. Second, I had to look up “omniasticalness,” but it does not appear in any of the dictionaries I have consulted.
Anyway, to your final question. God (you seem pretty sure it is a “he”) did not have to provide a choice, because he/she knew beforehand the results. He/she did it anyway because maybe when he/she was a kid, he/she enjoyed pulling wings off flies. As God “grew-up.” he/she thought of better things to do with his/her time: torture people, his/her own creation. If these Adam and Eve were his/her prototypes, and found to be weak in the flesh, why didn’t God go back to drawing board and fix the problem? Even GM would do a recall to fix any problem in any of its defective products. So, the answer to your question is: because God wanted us to be miserable, which is what sadists do.
@61, Tintin:
“Post-Christian” as in our conception of religion in the West is still primarily informed by a Christian perspective, whether or not the specific individual talking about it is a Christian. The idea that God is defined as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent is a Christian one that has, in turn, informed most Western people’s conception of what a god should be and is the de facto definition they take for granted.
“Omniasticalness” is a Buffyism I made up in reference to the “omni” qualities of God.
On the gender of God, I use male and female pronouns interchangably. You happened to catch one of the times I didn’t do so equally.
Regarding God scrapping humanity and starting over, you seem to be objecting to the idea that God created intelligent beings with self-directed will and the opportunity for choice. You essentially described our capacity for making reasoned choices as a “defect.” I’m not sure which option you think would be better: to make humans unintelligent and without will, or to give them no opportunity for choice. Considering your argument that God should have made us perpetually infantile or should be more fascistic, I would argue that you’re thinking in far too shallow a manner about what God might want us around for.
So let me ask you again, and this time try to consider the question without so much feet-stamping and posturing as an angry, sarcastic sort of person: why do you think God might WANT intelligent beings capable of making mature and rational choices around? Why do you think God might NOT consider humanity irredemably defective, as you apparently do?
Actually, you can read the whole “tree of knowledge” story in a different way:
Choosing knowledge and disobeying authority is great, but it also leads to suffering, to indecision, to having to find the right answers for yourself and accepting the consequences of being wrong. For some, the life of a slave could be tempting. Disobeying authority and seeking truth is part of who we (most of us) are, but there is a price to pay.
What happened after man made their choice was not punishment, it was simply a consequence which God warned us about. The choice is still correct, in that it is part of what makes us human.
@62, Corry Gross
“[W]hy do you think God might WANT intelligent beings capable of making mature and rational choices around? Why do you think God might NOT consider humanity irredemably defective, as you apparently do?”
Since, in my opinion, God is a figment of the human imagination, it would be hard for me to answer what an imaginary character thinks or wants.
@Cory Gross: Thanks for your reply about the school of thought that says Abraham failed the test. That’s interesting to hear.
In your other comment in that reply, you refer to original sin as causing wars. I’m not a Christian and maybe I’m not up on the terminology, but it seems like you’re lumping *all* sin under “original sin”. My understanding was that original sin was the idea that everyone was already a sinner from the moment of birth. My impression was that it was supposedly due to inherited sin from Adam and Eve (which makes no sense unless everyone is responsible for all the misdeeds of their ancestors, which seems like an awful idea).
But maybe what you’re saying is they’re a sinner because they’re *going* to do something bad eventually. What about the baby with an illness that kills them in the first month of life? How are they a sinner? Are you saying that they’re a sinner because in some counterfactual reality, where circumstances were different, they would have eventually sinned? So people are responsible not just for what they do, but for what they would have done in an alternate world where the course of their life was drastically different?
Sorry if I’m totally misinterpreting you and arguing against something you aren’t even saying. By all means, please clarify it.
Cory Gross #55: God was absolutely correct here: on the day that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was eaten, death became part of human reality.
According to Genesis 2, Yahweh did not say, “On the day you eat it, death shall become part of human reality.” This is your remarkable hubris in action, replacing the words of Yahweh with your own words.
Your interpretation derives from the assumption that “in the day that you eat of it you shall die” means “you’ll die RIGHT NOW”, but that’s not what it says. It says that people who would not die before they ate the fruit will die after they eat it.
Waffle waffle waffle. Now you’re making stuff up and pretending that I said it. Yahweh never said, and I never said, “RIGHT NOW.” That was you, making stuff up. Own it. What Yahweh said, in the original King James English, and which I transcribed accurately, was “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. So we have “in the day, ” said by Yahweh, vs. “RIGHT NOW,” said by Cory Gross.
J #56: Competent theologians are ones who are competent.
I don’t get it yet, please beg the question a bit more.
From what I gather, you don’t have a serious enough background in this field to challenge a consensus.
You are correct, of course. I do not have enough practice nor proficiency at lying and waffling. Continue with your argument from authority.
<blah blah blah
Ignored.
And context (as expounded by competent theologians) given by the rest of scripture clearly implies it’s not a literal death that God is talking about in Genesis 1.
If that were true, you would be able to relate this “context” that all the competent theologians invoke. You can’t because it is rather an argument from consequences. They prefer not to admit that Yahweh is a liar.
Cory Gross #59: I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that atheist critics are just SO super bright that they’re pointing out things in the Bible to us that just no one happened to notice for millennia.
I don’t claim to have discovered anything new. Most of the arguments made by Bart Ehrman, for example, were made over 100 years ago. Why such criticism is not widely known amongst the Christian laity is a question for them and their clergy, not for me.
I also think that “life” in the context of the story means more than just immortality.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinions. You are not entitled to go counterfactual as to the actual contents of the Genesis text.
Tintin #61: God (you seem pretty sure it is a “he”)
Several people here have been sloppy in confusing God with Yahweh. It gets even more complicated when Elohim make their appearance.
@64, Tintin:
I can only assume that you were absolutely terrible in your high school English literature classes. If you can’t be bothered to examine a text or an idea well enough to arrive at some thoughtful conclusions about it, what are you even discussing this topic for?
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@65, TimG:
“Original Sin” is basically Christianese for “human nature” in the sense that people use “human nature” as an excuse whenever someone does something bad. It describes the inherent inevitability of people towards selfish and destructive behaviour.
It is not meant to accuse of any particular sin nor ascribe guilt for any sin of which a person may or may not be guilty. This is a critical distinction to make when people bring up “sinless” children. The argument is that children can’t be guilty since they haven’t done anything yet. But we’re not talking about guilt: we’re talking about human nature.
Children are a good example of what I’m talking about, actually. We are born “biocentric”, centered wholly on our own needs without any sense of a self-identity let alone anyone else’s independent identity. By one or two we transition to an egocentric consciousness that recognizes our own selfhood but doesn’t really have a grasp of anyone else’s. An amusing indicator of a child’s mental development is their capacity to lie, but that ability means that they can recognize that other people are separate individuals who do not share knowledge with them (it also dovetails nicely with what I said about the Fall and the first outcomes of it… we often test our abilities by violating others with them). At every stage of psychological development thereafter, we’re basically pushing the boundaries of our selfhood and displacing ourselves from the figurative “centre of the universe”.
This egocentrism, this sense of entitlement and self as the centre of the universe is the origin of those particular sinful acts of which we are guilty as individuals. In the parlance of my native Lutheranism, it’s the nature of being “turned in on self”. I don’t share Calvin’s view that human nature is entirely reprobate – we’re also intrinsically capable of incredible acts of compassion and charity – but it all comes in this mixed up bag of nature and nurture and circumstance and motivations and complexities and whatever it means to be human.
Did that clarify anything? Since this thread is getting long and nearing its expiry date, if you would like more clarifcation, feel free to e-mail me via the blog linked to my name.
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@66, Reginald:
“This is your remarkable hubris in action, replacing the words of Yahweh with your own words.”
So basically, you’re making the argument that any act of interpretation is “putting words in YHWH’s mouth”… except for YOUR interpretations, of course. Like a true Christian Fundamentalist, YOUR interpretation is indistinguishable from the words of the Bible themselves.
No wait! Because…
“Now you’re making stuff up and pretending that I said it. Yahweh never said, and I never said, “RIGHT NOW.” That was you, making stuff up. Own it.”
Oh, you’re so hard done by. Everyone is just being so unfair to you and making things up. Of course YOU can be beligerent, condescending, insulting and a textbook study in making bad faith arguments, but if anyone besides YOU engages in the basic act of interpreting text, you’re right there on top of them to imperiously command what they should “own”.
And by the way, it’s YHWH, not “Yahweh”. There are no vowels. Get it right.
“What Yahweh said, in the original King James English,”
*blinks* Genesis wasn’t written in King James English.
“was “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. So we have “in the day, ” said by Yahweh, vs. “RIGHT NOW,” said by Cory Gross.”
*blinks again* Yeesssss…. You’re trying to make it sound like you’re saying something here, but you’re not. “In the day” are the words, translated from Hebrew into English, and you apparently take that to mean “this same day” (which, if your reading comprehension is faulty, is synonymous with what I framed as “right now”) and accuse YHWH of being liar on those grounds. If that is not what you meant, say so clearly. Otherwise, follow your own advice and own it.
“Why such criticism is not widely known amongst the Christian laity is a question for them and their clergy, not for me.”
*blinks a third time* Actually most laity HAVE heard complaints like yours before (and been called the names you like to call people too). I guess you’re not really that familiar with common trends in mainline Christian theology. Colour me unsurprised.
“You are not entitled to go counterfactual as to the actual contents of the Genesis text.”
You are welcome to demonstrate how my interpretation is inconsistent with the text and theological/interpretive traditions regarding it. If you have no actual counterargument beyond “IS NOT, POOHEAD!!” and implicit assertions that your interpretation of “the original King James English” (*snicker*) is indistinguishable from the words themselves, then I guess my argument stands unrefuted.
Sean, you say “I want to see a religion founded on exhortations to disobey authority and seek the truth at any cost.”
I see a religion founded on exhortations to help the suffering and the unfortunate.
Just a block down from where I live, the destitute are starting to gather this morning, outside a church where they will be given boxes of food and groceries. A little further away another church in my locality will be organising a soup kitchen. Later this morning I drive to a nearby town to visit a home for the mentally handicapped, also supported by the church in that town. And in another nearby town a school for autistic children will be busy on the premises of the local Catholic Church.
And so it goes on in town after town after town. Wherever I look I find these quiet, unsung heroes, ordinary people motivated by an extraordinary idea, that good exists, that it should be given expression in love, support and help for the unfortunate. Each person, in his own small way, doing what he can to make the world a better place.
While you carp about about allegories there is a world of suffering out there. We need more people to address this, we don’t need the obsessive attacks of the Fundamentalist Atheists.
So basically, you’re making the argument that any act of interpretation is “putting words in YHWH’s mouth”… except for YOUR interpretations, of course.
As I have said repeatedly (so that you must be quite thick to have missed the message), you are entitled to your own opinions and interpretations. Where you run into trouble is that you confuse your interpretation with the original text, abundant examples already cited.
And by the way, it’s YHWH, not “Yahweh”. There are no vowels. Get it right.
In HBRW it’s YHWH. We are not speaking HBRW today, we are speaking NGLSH.
*blinks* Genesis wasn’t written in King James English.
Not only are you a wnkr, you’re a humour-impaired wnkr.
“this same day” (which, if your reading comprehension is faulty, is synonymous with what I framed as “right now”)
I’d be willing to grant Yahweh 24 hours to fulfill his prophecy, thus avoiding debate as to whether “day” starts at sunrise, sundown, or some other time.
You are welcome to demonstrate how my interpretation is inconsistent with the text and theological/interpretive traditions regarding it.
The text has already been presented, and I care not a whit about the theological/interpretative distortions of you or anyone else. I should think that would be clear to you by now. Your problem seems to be in maintaining a distinction between the text and interpretations.
I presume you’ll want to get back to your wnkng, so I’ll leave you to it. Goodbye.
@69, Reginald:
“Not only are you a wnkr, you’re a humour-impaired wnkr”
OH! This whole angry, insulting Internet tough-guy shtick is SUPPOSED to be funny. That explains much. My apologies.
Protect what truth? All I see is a Church protecting itself.
Death became “part of the human reality” that day only after God found out and cursed A&E with it. Death was not inevitably connected with the eating of the fruit. God had to make a deliberate act after the fact to make it so.
Note also God’s reasoning – “now that they have knowledge of good and evil, they’ll know about the Tree of Life, and if they eat that they’ll be immortal, and then they’ll be just like me being immortal and knowing morality, and that just won’t do! Out of the Garden with you!”
Parse that for a moment. This means, that contrary to apologist claims, A&E weren’t immortal when first made, and since God never told them about the Tree of Life, at all, there’s no indication that he ever wanted them to eat from it. In which case, they were going to die, eventually, whether they ate the fruit of knowledge or not. They just wouldn’t have known what it would mean if they hadn’t eaten the fruit of knowledge. There’s no “death entering the human reality” here. Death was there all along. Humans just wouldn’t have recognized it.
Alternately, the statement is a legal one. Transgression-punishment. “Eat not of this fruit, lest ye die” then means “I command you not to eat this, and if you disobey the punishment is that I will make you die”. Contemplate the divinity giving such a command to innocents with no knowledge of good and evil, and thus no knowledge of law, no conception of transgression, no understanding of obedience, and no comprehension of punishment, and tell me why said divinity is something that is worthy of anyone’s worship?
The most generous interpretation I know of is that it wasn’t a command, but a statement of fact, a choice-consequence thing. If you eat the fruit, then you will die. The choice is eternity in child-like innocence, never changing, or knowledge and the opportunity to grow, but with attendant suffering, and God wanted A&E to make that choice freely for themselves. The statement was made to sound like a command because Free Will itself was part of the choice. Because Free Will has to include the freedom to disobey God, or else it isn’t free will at all. Thus the choice is also the choice to accept the gift of Free Will, and all that it implies, or to reject that gift in favor of eternal blind obedience to God.
On the contrary, it is a wonderful “lesson on which to found a system of belief” because its flexibility of interpretation demonstrates to any with eyes to see the vacuity of the entire concept of a “system of belief”.
In fact, the religion you want – and just about anything else anyone else might want as well – is a legitimate interpretation of judaeo-christian mythology. So long as you don’t confuse the search for truth with the claim to have found it, then what you want is not in conflict with the idea of the “forbidden fruit” being “knowledge of good and evil”. The only justified claimant to such knowledge is identified as “God” (who probably does not exist), and to claim his authority, ie to “take his name in vain”, is not only presented as the fundamental source of human suffering, but is also explicitly forbidden in another of the Hebrew books and is also a recurring theme in the Aramic/Greek books where “Jesus” frequently rails against religious “authority” and proclaims “judge not lest ye be judged”.
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I was just reading genesis a couple of weeks ago and pondering why god would put such a tree in the garden of eden, if he didn’t want Adam to eat the fruit from it. There seem to be so many gaps and ambiguities in the bible, I guess it makes it easier to “interpret” it to fit your own beliefs! Interesting discussion in the comments.