Adam & Woman, the first humans, are innocent victims of a confidence trick.

The story of Adam and Eve is a myth. It need not be taken by Christians as the fall or the origin of original sin. It need not be tugged and pulled and forced to fit into our understandings of the actual formations of the universe, earth, and mankind. It isn't a true account of true events. It is the cosmogony of an ancient Jewish tribe. Likewise when reading the Norse legend of Odin and his brothers making the Earth out of the body of a large giant and mankind out of the driftwood he found on the beach, I need not make it fit anything at all. The story is exactly what it says it is. It is the creation story of this particular group. 6000 years ago, the Babylonians were brewing beer, the Mongols were running around with domesticated dogs, the Americans were hunting buffalo, and all the other humans across the planet were well established. All of these groups have creation stories (actually there is one odd tribe which doesn't, but lets ignore that) to explain how they came to be where they were. --- (READERS: This section addresses an off topic set of claims made by Brendan) "Evidence, however extreme or absurd it may appear at first sight, must not be cast aside as myth or anything else without examination." Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm not discounting them as myths, and I think you're taking the word myth as a pejorative when that is not what I intend. I am describing the first three chapters of Genesis as a myth because that's what they are. They are a myth. We should consider "shocking" claims but note that they need "shocking" evidence to support them. Where did the above claims of not wanting hearsay or really bad evidence? As David Hume wrote on the subject of Miracles: "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish" -- We need good evidence that such events transpired when what we rather have is a good deal of extremely unlikely claims on no or poor evidence. As such, we should be more inclined towards the explanation of "myth just like those of every other culture" than "truth which is accurate even though it completely fails to fit the data of the natural world." You then go on a rather long tangent with wild claims like, "[t]here is no historical doubt today that this man really did exist and was put to death by the Roman occupation force in the Middle East of the time." -- Actually, there's no good evidence that such an individual existed. There is a sort of hero-legend-tale and several variants. Scholars tend toward Mark being written first followed by Luke and Matthew and then John. These different versions are all very largely derived from each other. Further many of the additions of Matthew and Luke are taken from Q and those which aren't are largely contradictory. This isn't regarded by any reasonable scholar today as four separate eyewitness accounts by actual people but rather one text with details being added as time goes on. In this regard I recommend the book "Misquoting Jesus" or any of a vast array of very good books on the subject. Claiming that there is "no historical doubt" is completely false. I know some historians who are quite agnostic on the claim: there might have been some figure somewhere but the stories could still exist without it. Much of the evidence which you claim is "not only written in the Gospels but" is actually just the stuff written into the Gospels. Surrounding a story with some historical figures doesn't make it true. Gone With The Wind is surrounded by very real events and works in a historical context. Every argument you made about this "other" evidence could equally be made about Gone With The Wind. The fact that I can succinctly waylay your claims with a quick and dirty reference to Gone With the Wind, does not bode well. Looking back to Hume if the claim that the stuff in the Gospels didn't happen is more believable than the claim that it all happened exactly like that. Considering the dearth of evidence for any of the events of the gospels and the "shocking" claims made... one should be far more inclined towards the falsehoods of the gospels on the basis of evidence. - Israel was established because people wanted it to be established. I could go to the casino and if I glued a roulette ball to 20 black, one should not be shocked if I win 20 times in a row. --- (READERS: Back on Topic) "My proposition that the prevailing view simply cannot be right on the basis of the first three chapters of Genesis turns to some extent upon the third chapter." -- The prevailing Christian view is quite obviously wrong and I agree with you there. The theology of original sin and the fall of man is almost certainly a Pauline concoction woven into the later iterations of the gospels. The same could be said of Trinitarianism or a number of the other views added into the religion later. However, the claim you are making is fairly easy to refute, you claim that Adam and Eve are victims of a confidence trick. Reading the story one is not lead to this conclusion. Adam and Eve aren't told that doing so will make them like the gods. They are told initially (Adam is told, Eve is informed later) that if they touch the fruit they will die! The serpent says that they will know good and evil and eating it won't kill them. They eat it and God punishes them all and keeps kicks them out to keep them from the Tree of Life. This isn't a confidence trick. They weren't fooled. They weren't tricked. They were threatened and then told that the threat was hollow. They ate the forbidden fruit and got kicked out. Where's the con? "but there we see the big lie now in the mouth of God. HOW COULD THAT BE." --- The god in the story lied; many Creation Stories involve trickery. I don't see how any of this "worm" or "gift" or "programme" were remotely covered by the story. How are you supporting this claim? You think the God in the story wanted them to fail and arranged for them to fall? This is largely the belief of the Mormons (a little off but close enough) and several other religious groups. "The fall was a necessity of mankind" or similar theological claims. However, this is simply your bias cropping up again. When you read Genesis you think of the God of Genesis is be the modern iteration of divinity, an omnimax deity, able to do everything including the stuff he can't do. However, Genesis is pretty straight forward. The power of the gods are pretty much to live forever (Tree of Life) and to know right from wrong (Tree of Knowledge). This seems to be a pretty obvious etiology to explain the universe and mankind (just like every creation story). Why is man different than animals? Because he's half-way to godhood? Why? Because he knows right from wrong? Why? Because he ate the forbidden fruit... Things have thorns because of the fall. Women has birth pains to punish her. Man must rule over the women because he was beguiled. Snakes crawl along the ground because God punished them by taking away their legs and forcing them to eat dust (they don't eat dust). The story is straight-forward and your interpretation doesn't seem to be a reasonable one in context. --- Your argument is incorrect for the following reasons: 1) The story is a myth and is not true. Adam and Eve were not the first humans and the entire argument you've had thus far is based on that claim. 2) The story involves no conning. Adam and Eve we're given a hollow threat and ate it anyway after being told the threat was hollow.