So we are all aware of the story of Genesis and the fall of man from Grace.
Just to recap...
-God made everything and everyone in 6 working days and like the public servant that he was rested the 7th day. (Didn't want anyone else to work as well)
-Told Adam & Eve that they cannot eat from the tree of knowledge. A snake (apparently Satan/ apparently not satan as well) tricked them (by telling them the truth) to eat the damned fruit.
-They ate. were enlightened. And then evicted without a notice period.
My question is;
1. why was the fruit said to be from the tree of knowledge of Good and evil. Meaning that Good and evil existed and "Man" was ignorant and God preferred we stay that way but the devil chose to enlighten us?
2. How can Eve & Adam be held responsible when they didn't know good from evil. (My theist friends would argue that it wasn't about good or evil, it was about disobeying god..... But they didn't know disobeying God was Evil. They found that out after eating the Fruit. shouldn't God have taught them Obedience first. We train our pets in obedience, God couldn't have taken that 7th day of rest to train his pets to obey.......) (Courtesy; Truett)
Its like you got a new puppy (not even an adult Dog... Adam and Eve were Just created.... then putting a biscuit in the middle of the room and telling the puppy not to eat it and walking out of the room.... on coming back you find the pup has eaten the biscuit o you kick the pup out on the road and then decide to kill it and its progeny one random day in the future...) (My two Bits on Truett's recommendation)
3. How is Satan the bad guy here? / Why is God the good Guy?
4. Is the story warning agains learning and does the bible prefer we all stay ignorant?
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Why did god even put the damned tree in the garden anyway? It's pure entrapment. It reminds me of a Candid Camera episode where little kids were left alone in a room with candy. Then they were secretly filmed doing the inevitable, before someone came back in and asked them if they'd eaten any so viewers could laugh at their childish attempts to deceive.
Adam and Eve were set up to fail, and then all human beings, especially the women, have supposedly been punished for that ever since. If this vile fairy story were true, it would be outrageous.
Charvak, these are great questions that I hope our resident theists will address. When they do, I hope they also explain why persons who do NOT know right from wrong were punished for doing something "wrong". How the hell were they supposed to know the difference between right and wrong if they didn't know the difference between right and wrong? It is the most absurd proposition immaginable.
And don't let any theist get away with saying it doesn't matter. It is the entire basis for the supposed need of salvation which America's favorite human sacrifice supposedly satisfied.
Treatt, That is a fantastic opinion and one that I will definitely edit into the OP...
@Truett: "How the hell were they supposed to know the difference between right and wrong if they didn't know the difference between right and wrong?"
Absolutely right. It's the original Catch 22.
Have you read The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield metaphorically is trying to keep children from falling off of a cliff. The cliff represents adulthood. The field of rye where the children are playing are innocence and childhood. Of course, Caulfield isn't a god. He didn't make anything, but it is a parrallel of the genesis story of preserving innocence. The moral is that innocence always fades and reality must slap one in the face. Theists have been slapped but they still just don't get it. Maybe they should be slapped again...HARDER!
John; "But I think it is safe to assume that this knowledge wasn't the type of knowledge we equate with learning and wisdom. It was experiential knowledge "
Why would it be safe to assume that? There is no reference in the Bible nor does God specify. The only thing God says that it is the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Not experiential knowledge. Not even whatever else you stated.
The bible is clear it is the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL. NOT KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL, NOT EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL. Thats learning or just knowledge. encompasses everything.
Thus why did God want them to be ignorant.
and why is the knowledge giver evil. because of death. is death evil ?
In my opinion Adam and eve before tasting the fruit were no different than the animals. they were lacking knowledge, intellect to discern knowledge. would you chose infinite indifferent ignorance for eternity or definite finite known mortality.
with an ignorant infinity you may be immortal but don't understand it nor anything else.
whereas look what we have created with our finite mortality.
John; " The story isn't a warning against learning. I guess the most important and basic lesson is against believing lies and disobeying."
thats just it they had no Idea what disobeying meant nor what a lie was. They had no knowledge of Good nor any knowledge of Evil. It was the fruit that gave it to them at the cost of their and our immortality.
@Charvak: "Is the story warning agains learning and does the bible prefer we all stay ignorant?"
Take god out of the story and it becomes much more interesting. In one of his books, Carl Sagan described Genesis as a metaphor for the growth of the human brain. Human birth is difficult and painful because of our enormous heads. Our huge brains also give us self-awareness, the ability to think (and fear) ahead, as well as the knowledge of goodness and evil (conscience). Maybe that's why monkeys seem to have more fun than humans.
Our wonderful brains give us the potential to live better, wider, deeper and more complex lives than any other animal--provided that we don't hobble ourselves with chains of religion.
All of this is assuming that the bible has any merit at all. This is like arguing over if Cinderella's shoe size is 5 or 6. I know that religion is a fairy tale people of power actually believe and make choices on. However, we should be honest and keep in mind that we are talking about a text written thousands of years ago by people who thought the Earth was flat and didn't know that shit carried disease.
And that goats changed fur color by mating in front of stripped poplar shoots. Read Genesis 31. Laughed my ass off.
It is comical that anyone would take Genesis literally. Where there eyewitnesses on the six days of creation, when the serpent spoke, when Abraham abused his son Isaac? Reads like a fairy tale because it is.
I think the story of Balaam’s Donkey is funny. Numbers 22:21-39New International Version (NIV), Numbers 22:30 is when the donkey talked.
Proves the Omniscience of GOD....... HE knew of Shrek (and the talking Donkey)
You can analyze the biblical stories in countless ways but I think it's a mistake to go for the simple explanation. For instance, the story of Adam &Eve plainly says that there were other civilizations at that time. They included Assyria, Ethiopia, Persia, Arabia.And Cain went to the land of Nod and built a city = town/village/three huts). Later on it says that the king of Tyre lived in the Garden of Eden but got kicked out when he ticked off the God character (the emperor of the dominant empire at that time).
Then you throw in Moses, the Exodus, crossing the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments. Well we know that Moses wasn't in Egypt proper and that he didn't part the actual Red Sea. So we are left with a bag of metaphors.
We do know that the Egyptian Empire extended past the Euphrates River, including Israel, Lebanon, Syria (aka Arabia). Egypt, ancient: empire during the rule of Thutmose III, about 1479 BCE -- Kids Encyclopedia | Children's Homework Help | Kids Online Dictionary | Britannica
http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-143572/During-the-New-Kingdom-pe...
We also know that the Egyptian pharaohs had images of serpents on their crowns. Royal Crowns
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/pharaoh/explore/bluec_b1.html
Then throw in Noah and his ark and the flood. As a bit of trivia Noah was also the name of a woman. Numbers 26:33 (ERV) = "Zelophehad was the son of Hepher. But he had no sons—only daughters. His daughters’ names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah."
The point is that the Egyptian Empire moved into the Israelite's territory. The serpent was the Pharaoh. The tree of knowledge of good and evil and the parting of the Red Sea was the education of the Israelites. They left the ignorance of the Egyptians and became literate while the mass of the Egyptians remained illiterate. Moses and the Ten Commandments signify the creation of their alphabet and literacy program. In Deuteronomy 27:7-8 (ERV) it says = "7 And you must sacrifice and eat fellowship offerings there. Eat and enjoy yourselves there together with the Lord your God. 8 You must write all these teachings on the stones that you set up. Write clearly so that they are easy to read.”
So maybe the real point of the Adam & Eve and Moses stories is how they brought education to the masses, like Prometheus.
The Noah story is simply a war story that describes enemy forces invading the land and killing everyone. A few years later Noah's great grandson Nimrod ruled Babel and built towns in Assyria.