cellophanedeity

I was just reading the "Christians and the TFP" thread and I had a thought.

The story of Adam and Eve says (please correct me if I am mistaken at any point here) that a snake convinces Eve and, by connection, Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, which God told them specifically not to do. For this, Adam and Eve are pushed out into the world.

It seems to me that the Christian faith says that this is where it all went wrong. Even taking the story as no more than a story, I disagree. What would be the point of living forever if one was just happy and ignorant the entire time? Is life not for knowledge?

Why even bother if you're just going to be a sedated pet?

MageB420666

In my opinion, this is not just no more than a "story". It was created as a method to back up and rationalize early judiasm/christian dogma. The point of the story was to give reason for mans suffering, and offer a reason to believe in an all-powerful god that allows us to exist in this condition. It also helped to justify certain social biases, such as original sin being woman's fault, and that man is closer to god than woman(god created adam from himself, and Eve from Adam), and by extension better than woman. It has little to do with the philosophy of what is the point of living in a life without struggle in pain, which I must say, is a view that can really only be held by someone who has not lived a life filled with the pain, suffering, and struggle that the majority of the people of that time had to live with.

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Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

cellophanedeity

I agree with you entirely Mage. Perhaps I worded this wrong. What I suppose I should have stated here was:

Would it be better to be 100% blissfully ignorant?

I just thought the Adam and Eve story is a good starting point...

MoJoPokeyBlue

If I'm not mistaken, the Bible mentions two trees: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and bad. God told Adam and Eve that they couldn't eat of the tree of knowledge. Had a certain time period passed and they followed this rule, God would have undoubtedly led them to the tree of life and let them eat from this tree. This would have given them "life".

Instead, both Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit (tree of knowledge) and they suddenly became "aware". How much so remains unclear. We can get some clues however...as shown later when God is walking among the Garden of Eden. The first sign of this "awareness" appears when Adam & Eve are "afraid" and hide. The context seems to imply that they've never been afraid of God before. God also asks them who "told them" they were naked, seeming to imply that they couldn't have found this out of their own.

Merely "eating" of the forbidden fruit wasn't enough for them to suffer. We can infer this from the fact that God cast them out of the Garden of Eden and posted angels to ensure that they couldn't get back in. Had they fought with the angels and somehow managed to get to the tree of life, they probably would have had the best of both worlds...knowledge and life. Unfortunately, the Garden of Eden was destroyed in the flood...so none of us can eat of either tree today.

There's quite a bit the Bible doesn't mention as well...but we can attempt to "guess". How long was Adam & Eve on earth before they ate of the forbidden fruit? It could have been a few days or several thousand years. They never had children while in the Garden of Eden, so this seems to imply the time was somewhat short. However we have to remember that God's original purpose was for them to live "forever" on earth in a paradise. When you have "forever", several thousand years isn't a long time.

MoJo

MageB420666

Well, of course it would be better. If you go through life pampered,cared for, and, as you put it, blissfully ignorant, you won't have any worries, and the entire viewpoint of "it would be boring" would become moot, because there would be nothing else to compare the Adam and Eve lifestyle to. It would be all you knew, and it would be perfect, so there would be no need to sit there and wonder "How can I make this/myself better". There would be no need for improvement, and therefor adversity would become pointless.

People say that life would be boring with challenges, adversity, and obstacles to overcome, but when you get right down to it, all they're doing is striving to recreate their own version of Eden, where everything goes the way they want it to.

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Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

martinguerre

there are many theologians who talk about this story as the "fall in to freedom."

Personally, i think that's not a half bad way of thinking about it...i think the real original sin, the place where the wheels fall off is the rivalry that leads to cain's murber of abel.

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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

MSD

I don't believe in bible stories, and I'm undecided about God (whatever the heck that word means,) and I'd gladly eat from the tree of knowledge if put in the same position.

zen_tom

I see the story as a psychological allegory about growing up.

As a child, you play, run naked, explore nature, and generally live a blessed, blissfull life. This is the Eden bit.

However, as you grow older, you begin to try to put your experiences into some sort of order, you adopt beliefs about how things are and how they should be, you also become aware of what you are and what you should be. You learn things, good things, bad things, beautiful things and ugly things - and have to work to discriminate between them all. This process of growing up leads to all manner of tribulations (as well as providing its own benefits). This is the part where you have eaten the fruit.

So god, seeing his children growing up, has no option but to allow them to leave home, pay their own way in life, and in turn have children of their own. He simply bestows adulthood on them. Naturally, as any parent does, it's a time of mixed feelings. Pride in seeing one's children grown-up, and sadness (and possibly anger) at them no-longer being the doting wide-eyed children they once were.

Its a story we have all gone through, and one that must have been played out though every generation since (and possibly before) we came out of the trees. It's no wonder it has such a resounding and important place in a book that describes the human condition.

Lets just be glad it was old Jewish guys and not Sigmund Freud (wasn't he an old Jewish guy too?) who wrote Genesis, or we might have an even stranger creation story to contend with.

MageB420666

I don't know.... I think Frued might have had a much more interesting version to tell... and if he wrote it we would probably have a much healthier view towards expressing our sexuality (excluding the Odiepus(spelling?) complex). We probably wouldn't have sex viewed as a sinful activity.

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Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

MoJoPokeyBlue

God did give both Adam & Eve free "moral choice". When He set up the "test", both Adam & Eve obviously understood the concept of life & death, because Eve tried explaining this to the serpent. (It is interesting to note that later when the serpent was trying to deceive Jesus, Jesus told him that God should not be put to the test...however it's okay for Him to test us.)

Now the question becomes, will God ever go back to his original purpose? If so, are we going to live forever on earth as a sedated pet....without awareness or "knowledge"? Well, there are a few things to consider.

First, if God is indeed all powerful, we have to believe that he can do anything he wants. If He wants humans to live as "sedated pets", it's hard to imagine that a serpent/angel/devil (that He created) came along and screwed up all His plans. I can buy the idea that the serpent might have delayed things a bit, but not completely changed Gods plans.

Second, what are we praying for when we repeat the Lords prayer?

"Let your kingdom come."

What is this Kingdom? Why do we want it to arrive or come to us? Obviously it isn't here yet, or we would have stopped asking for it to come.

"Let your will take place on earth, as it is in heaven."

What is God's will? Whatever it is, it's already happening in heaven...now, we want the same thing down here. Again, this is something that hasn't happened yet, or else we would have stopped asking. This prayer seems to indicate that God still has some plans for "earth" and that not everything (God's plans) is going to take place after we're dead, or in heaven.

MoJo

asaris

It might be important that it's not the fruit of knowledge, but the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve weren't necessarily totally ignorant before they ate the fruit.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Seer666

It also does one more thing. Gives man kind a cosmic scape goat. How long have people been saying "the Devil made me do it"? People need someone to blame. Life is filled with pain and suffering, and this gives us someone to clearly point the finger at. Some people need a bad guy. Heaven forbid that their life is screwed up because of what they did themsleves....

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MageB420666

^^^^^^^^^^

Good point, I wish I had thought of it.

But I think it has more to do with man being able to blame his problems on the women in his life than blaming the problems on Satan. (Not that that is in any way true)

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Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

Zeraph

I think it is a round about way of saying to have pleasure we must have pain. Pandora's box. The good with the bad. Etc.

While sometimes it may seem ignorance is bliss, ultimately it's not. It's stagnation. Death.

hoosier52

I don't believe the temptation of man was a test. God created man with a freedom of choice, His desire was that man would chose to follow Him willfully and not be disobedient. However, God is not ignorant. He knew before he created Adam and Eve what the results would be. And if not Adam and Eve, then it would have been someone else sooner or later, and probably sooner. As for this story indicating females are weaker and somehow inferior to males, I don't believe that was the intent. Afterall, God didn't choose Eve, the serpent (Satan) did. Why her instead of Adam? Perhaps it was merely the character Eve had that made her the easiest to tempt and had nothing to do with being male or female. Besides, the Bible doesn't indicate Adam putting up much resistance to the idea. ...I'm sure there's a husband/wife joke here somewhere. :-)

MoJoPokeyBlue

Of course it was a test! The problem we have with ourselves is that we assumed we failed...but what if we passed? Also, there are many examples in the Bible of God being "surprised" at the outcome of various situations. Assuming he is all-powerful, this leads to the conclusion that he simply "chose" to not see the outcome.

Meridae'n

The concept of 'original sin' was merely a vehicle for retarding, and ultimately aboloshing, pagan faith and it's worship of femininity. If the pagans and early sects had've centred their faith around the worship of pineapples, for example, then the story would centre (somehow) around some darstardly deed that involved pineapples, making them somewhat less holy and resposible for all things bad.

Wow, what a bad example. You get my drift.

__________________
What's easier to believe: that a guy was born without sex in the manner of several Greek demigods and grew up to be able to transmute liquids and alter his body density yet couldn't escape government execution, or that three freemasons in a vehicle made with aluminum foil in an era before digital technology escaped our atmosphere, landing on the moon, broadcasted from there, and then flew back without burning up?

WillyPete

I'll agree with this and add in some quotes to show why.

Read Gen ch1.

You'll see that it goes about describing the creation of the Earth and all on it.
In vv26-29 it says that he created man, both male and female.
Of particular note is that he tells them here to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth.
V 31 ends the chapter by stating that these were the event of the 6th day (day being 24hours, god's time, period x, whatever you wish to hold to)

Ok, now onto the next chapter.
It starts out that he's happy with what he's done, (excuse the non traditional use of He as I'm too lazy) he says that it's all finished and that everything is created (v1) and calls it the 7th day in which he rests.

Then it describes that there isn't any man to till the earth yet. WTF? didn't it just say that Man AND Woman had already been created on the 6th day?
Ok. Let's read on. Maybe there's something that will let us know that he's speaking in past tense.

Hmmm, v7 says then that he forms man out of the ground. (Genetic manipulation of primordial soup any one?)
Then he makes the Garden of Eden in the Eastern part of Eden and takes Adam to it and causes stuff to grow, including 2 important trees. The Tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. They get hung with a big 'keep off' sign.
He brings all the animals in for Adam to catalogue and name them. (v19)
So this is all done and then it's noted that he still doesn't have a mate, so one is made from his rib. (Genetic cloning?)

Right. Everyone's happy. Or are they? What happened to the command for them to be fruitful? Why no kids? Are they disobeying a command or can they just not have them? And why has it just told us a conflicting account in which things were created?

Note that it looks like God is supposed to have made everything BEFORE it goes on the earth. (Ch2 v5) Does this indicate that the 6 days spoken of are more of a planning period in which everything is given it's proper place?
Is the command to multiply given BEFORE they are physically created?
This way, they can be given the command and not be contravening it.
after this, the only other command given is to not eat of the 2 special trees.

What's interesting to those that believe that it was a test is the use of the following verse:
Ch3v6
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
The woman (and I call her that for a reason. Later.) saw that it was to be desired to make them wise.
She wasn't fooled, although she says later that the serpent beguiled her, letting her believe that she would be like a god.

She takes it to Adam, who listens to her and eats it too.
Note that when God asks him, he doesn't say he was fooled, merely that the woman gave it to him and he ate. God's punishment to him in v17 also indicates this. (Guys, no more bitching and saying that sin started with women, knowledge of good and evil started with women.)

What is of importance to me are 2 more verses.
v16 Describes the woman's punishment and concerns childbirth, in particular that it will be painful.
v20 is the very first instance that the woman is called Eve, and this name means the mother of all living.

Why do the verses only refer to child birth now, even after the very first commandment given to them? Wouldn't they have been guilty of not following that one by now?
The verse about her naming also backs this up, as she is referred to by a name that means mother, only at this point.

These are all interesting to me and if creation is to be believed on some level even if it's not literally, indicate some stage of planning in which men and women (as spirits?) indicated their approval of the plan and assumed the task to multiply. Then they have a paradox. They must multiply, yet cannot until they are made mortal.
What can they do?
When the serpent (guess who?) tells the woman to try the fruit, she sees it's the only way to progress. It's the desire for knowledge and to become like God that drives her to do it, not riches or power.

It is from this point on, the original sin of disobeying a direct command, that mortality is present and we have the world in which we now live.

If that's not a test, then I'm a a monkey's uncle.
oh. wait...

asaris

Most scholars agree that there's no evidence for an originary matriarchal pagan religion, not in Europe, and certainly not in the Middle East.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

MoJoPokeyBlue

WillyPete,

You're right about the Genesis account...it does "appear" that some things are completely out of order. However, I think this can be easily explained. First, Genesis was probably written in Arabic, although no one really knows for sure. This language is very difficult to translate into other languages, because there was no punctuation. No commas, periods, question marks, paragraphs, etc. These were added in later.

Second, you have to look at the "context" or the overall "message". It is generally agreed upon by Biblical students, that there are a few "time lines" in the Genesis account. In other words, the author wrote down a few accounts of the same story, perhaps a general overview of the creation and then another account which tried to filled in the details. This is why some things seem to be repeated and/or out of chronological order.

Would God command Adam & Eve to "fill the Earth" before he created them? Well if you believe in God, you have to believe that He's smarter than that.

As to childbirth; once Adam & Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, God punished Eve by saying the childbirth would be painful. This would seem to indicate that childbirth prior to this involved no pain; why else would it be considered a "punishment", unless God was taking something away?

There are many religions in the world that believe that the original "sin" was Adam & Eve having intercourse. This seems to fit in with what you are saying, however it does seem to contradict God's original commandment.

What about the theory of Adam's first wife, Lillith? This would also seem to explain why Eve isn't mentioned by name until later.

MoJo

Hektore

To be 100% blissfully ignorant would be to deny the human condition. In 100% blissful ignorance you wouldn't even be able to ask this particular question. Take for instance the chair you are very probably sitting on right now. That chair exists in 100% blissful ignorance; it doesn't lie, cheat or steal; doesn't think, feel or judge. In fact it just exists to suit a purpose, to put your butt on. To be blissfully ignorant would be to you as a person that your just a pawn in God's (since we start with the bible story I'm willing to grant God exists) big plan o' glory. You have no free will, you have an explicit predetermined road you will follow. Where does that leave you? It leaves you as the devoted object of the creator, it leaves you with a grand purpose, a certain sense of accomplishment with death (whenever you die you have served your purpose, even if you aren't aware of it) and ultimately meaning to your life. It has to be better than a life of wandering, self discovery and ultimately lack of certain knowledge about the nature of the meaning of life. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go puke.

This sort of ideology drives me up the wall. How much meaning can your life have if you don't have a choice in realizing it? It can't have any more meaning than the chair's life does, or your desk, or your computer or a blade of grass. In fact this isn't life at all, at least not in the philosophical sense. Life obtains its meaning from it's accomplishments derived from your freedom to choose.

Example: I have this grand plan to go be a pediatrician somewhere, someday. In the course of my career path I will very likely have the opportunity to save the life of a dying child, in fact, the life or death of said child could totally be dependant upon me. And so we come to a crossroads, am I the chair, or am I human. In other words, am I going to save the child because its what I am preordained to do by God's divine plan, in blissful ignorance. Or am I going to face a choice, put in the time and effort to save this child or go get a donut, and let me tell you I love donuts. Which one is better? I choose choice as the better option, whether or not this is the true nature of the universe is another discussion, but I for one, prefer the choice and believe that it ultimately provides more meaning and greater life

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The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.

Meridae'n

That's gold!

Of course, you HAVE read these people's works

__________________
What's easier to believe: that a guy was born without sex in the manner of several Greek demigods and grew up to be able to transmute liquids and alter his body density yet couldn't escape government execution, or that three freemasons in a vehicle made with aluminum foil in an era before digital technology escaped our atmosphere, landing on the moon, broadcasted from there, and then flew back without burning up?

Willravel

I would have eaten the fruit, then I would have felt bad about it. The peace and innocence and life came with a price: ignorance. With the knowledge of knowledge I have now, I would regret living forever like God's pet. I love that the bible is filled with clues and information to process, and reprocess in order to better understand the very things that make man what we are. Everything from morality to science is in there; it's just a matter of how you percieve the lessons taught. Who would choose ignorance over the slim possibility of true knowledge?

WillyPete

MojoPokey: Good points, however I'm just using the standard KJV of the Bible that most creationism is based on. I myself wouldn't even risk going near the apocrypha or other sources/legends/mythsology. I'm not enough of a scholar to try it.

If the genesis account is taken less literally and with a bit of leeway thrown in for translation errors, then there's too little info given in it to base a decision or philosophy of the creation on it. One can't take one word and say that that is the definitive way things happened and yet allow other ideas.

One example is the phrase to 'have dominion over' when referring to the life on earth.
Too many people have taken this to mean 'dominate' whereas I'd suspect a true god would have man be 'responsible' for them rather than superior to them. But with the current translation, that's all I have. A supposition.

If original sin was 'intercourse' then how were they breaking the law of God when told to be fruitful? That's another one I can't get my head around.

d*d

give me 100% ignorant bliss anyday, I imagine it would be much like being a cat

JustJess

I could never understand how people take the Bible so literally... If you're going with the supposition of God's existence in the first place, there are all kinds of things that people believe based on (what seem to me, anyway) rather broad and imaginative interpretations of these words.
I do think that Genesis must be more about the development of the world, and how humans came to be more than animals. I don't think there's a chance we would ever have stayed that ignorant, blissful or no, and the God from this Bible would not likely have planned us to be that ignorant always. And I do believe that the Eden story was written the way it was so that it could easily be interpreted as Eve's fault, her sin, so that it would support the patriarchy at the time.
The part that gets me about the Bible... IT WAS WRITTEN BY HUMANS!!! Even if you take as fact that they were writing the words of God, given the words of God, etc., they were still just humans. No matter how good a person you are (saintly or otherwise), you have a filter, and everyone hears things differently - even back then. I definitely believe that there were a lot of other influences over what got into the Bible, how it was written, the inflection, if you will, other than just God. There were politics and personal world-views and fears and all that stuff put in there too. Not to mention bastardizing the original writings when they got translated a few gazillion times. It's like saying the CliffNotes version of Macbeth is the same as Macbeth - although that might be closer to the real version!!
The point being... I find it difficult to conceive of using interpretations of this book, Genesis in particular since no one else was alive then to corroborate it, as an indication of God's will.. Not that I won't take my own version of the story from it, but it's still a little crazy.
I just wish, like WillyPete, I was more of a scholar to know more about the origins.

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My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

WillyPete

Well,I guess if you're going to believe in the God perpetuated by the Bible, whatever translation, at some point you will have to take literally some of the things said about God's nature or motives.

The problem, just as with who authored the document, is that it's humans making the decision of what to take literally and what to throw away.

Phage

You have pointed out what I think is the point of the tree. One of the stumbling blocks many have in understanding the whole sin-God-guilt thing is the idea of free will. The significance of the tree giving knowledge of good and evil is that before then humans did not have any idea of right and wrong, and so could not be held responsible for their actions. When they ate from the tree they did not really sin any more than they were before, but because they now understood what they were doing was wrong they were no longer allowed into Eden.

MoJoPokeyBlue

JustJess,

You mention some excellent points. However, there are three possibilities that I can think of.

First, you believe in God and believe that He's all powerful and can do anything he wants. If anyone can tell another person a story and make sure it survives centuries of numerous translations, God can make it happen.

Second, if you don't believe in God, then the Bible is just another book of various myths of how the world started.

There is the third possibility that someone could believe in God, but don't think he's powerful enough to tell humans what he wants from us. God might be strong enough to create the heavens, earth and us humans, but he completely loses it when he tries to save the Bible.

MoJo

tecoyah

The femanine Nature of Pagan belief is well known.....to Pagans

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

JustJess

MJPB: There is a fourth possibility: you believe in God, but because of “free will” and all that, he didn’t direct the saving of the Bible – rather, he let humans do with his words what they would, just as we do with the knowledge of good and evil.

Ever read Piers Anthony’s books, the Incarnations of Immortality series? The last book deals with the Incarnation of Good (aka God), and it was an interesting theory to me. I’ll spoil the ending if you wish, but you should check it out if religion issues interest you AND you enjoy a good fantasy read.

__________________
My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

MoJoPokeyBlue

JJ, Thanks for the tip! I've written down the authors name and will do a search later tonight. Thanks for not spoiling the ending for me as well !

MoJo

cellophanedeity

Woah... I can't believe how many responses this has!

I suppose I posed my question in a very vague manner. I think I meant it to be more related to Huxley's A Brave New World than to the Bible. Who were the lucky ones? Bernard and John, who knew they were being sedated, or everyone else?

Which would you rather be? A comfortable blissfully ignorant pet, or a knowledge filled relatively not happy person?

I, personally, would choose knowledge.

d*d

only if you knew about the knowledge, in which case you wouldn't be ignorant. There is a semantic paradox here

meembo

I too would choose knowledge.

__________________
less I say, smarter I am

d*d

to say you have the choice means that you would not be ignorant, so there would be no choice to make - am I the only one who sees this?

Wyckd

It was not that man was without knowledge, but God wanted man to rely on God for all things because God will and has provided all things to man. All God wanted was man's 100% trust in the Lord. The events of Adam and Eve is not simply a story, it is a record of what has happened in the beginning of time. I believe that apple God forbade Adam and Even to eat did not really provide any real knowledge, it was just put there, to give Adam and Eve free will, so God has not imprisoned them, rather gave them the choice to do things of their own will... Going against God is a sin, which Adam and Eve has done by defying God and eating the 1 fruit out of the entire world that God has given to them to rule over.

Someone once told me, If my mother told me not stick my hand into open flames, for if i do, i will surely get burned, and the moment she leaves the room, I proceed to stick my hand into the open flames. Who's fault is it?

Coppertop

That would be your fault - not the fault of your children for limitless generations.

Zenir

If god is omnipotent, how would he not forsee the eating of the fruit?
The contradiction could be ratified if you were made ignorant.\

It is possible to choose knowledge and be happier about it. As a matter of fact it is obviously true or else most people wouldn't have chosen it. For that matter there wouldn't be a thing called science or study. We probably would regress to the point which makes life easier and happier.

__________________
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.-Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate
(1875-1965)

irateplatypus

yes, that's what i was screaming to myself all the way down this thread till i saw you say it.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill