More specifically, it could just be a metaphor for the dawn of agriculture, which one could cite as the beginning of our destructive, virus-like spread across the Earth. It’s not some kind of nefariously planned mind control memo. We are only just starting to break out of our old ways of thinking, but must keep in mind the good things the ancients taught us (either explicitly or symbolically) and apply them to a just and free society.

Anyway, Adam and Eve had to decide if God had the right to govern them or if they desire autonomy. Simple as that. By taking the FRUIT – By the way, the fruit is not identified in the Holy Writ – from the Tree of Knowledge, their actions implicated they chose the latter: Independence. Their actions also determined that they rather take on all the responsibilities that comes with knowledge – Being like God, knowing good and bad; even being falsely accused as God is; all the negatives. And so, as history reveals, perhaps Adam and Eve should have permitted their Creator to govern them.

Throughout the ages, mankind has exercised his right to reign independently from God. Wars, violence, crime, among other disappointments. Was God holding something back from them? Yes, the pain and anguish of living imperfect as we do today. Suppose they chose not to eat the fruit that the envious serpent coaxed them to eat; would God still allowed them to exercise their freedom? Let’s see; God decreed: “From ALL the trees you may eat to satisfaction….” The only one tree God held out on was the one that caused the most pain.

Is there anything wrong with God protecting them from harm? Are we to say that the serpent really was a smart informer? Because look what eating from this forbidden fruit resulted. Now if this is a metaphoric story, well it’s a darn good one. Mankind has been steering his own ship for a long, long time. A Higher Power must intercede before mankind destroys himself.

Examine the principles of this story before writing it off as nothing but a fable.

suggested reading for the redemption of eve: http://www.mormonmonastery.org/PDF/TheRedemptionofEve.pdf

incredible work, really.

Nietsche said that the cow is happily grazing because it doesn’t know stuff. would it know that it is genetically modified to give maximum milk and for generations enslaved by us humans (who have no quibbs killing it in the millions for some fear of a strange disease), it wouln’t be quite as happy in its own eden’s garden – now, would it?

so this Adam and Eve story is just an allegory that our knowledge makes us human.

http://lds.org/ensign/1990/01/the-fall-of-man-and-his-redemption

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”.

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.

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.

What do you make of the Church that is even prepared to be counter cultural and unpopular to hold onto and protect the truth?

Protect what truth? All I see is a Church protecting itself.

“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.

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.

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.

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?

———-

@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.

—————-

@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.

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.

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.

“[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.

“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?