From: jim@doink.b23b.ingr.com (James B. Reed)
Subject: Re: Adam and Eve
Reply-To: jimreed@b23b.ingr.com
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 18:45:55 GMT

In article <4465.29E9F6A1@umagic.FIDONET.ORG>, Christian.Walters@p0.f14.n373.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Christian Walters) writes:
|> Did God ever come out and tell A&E why they should steer clear of the
|> tree? In my copy of the KJV, God tells Adam (and Adam ONLY) to stay away
|> from the tree, but never mentions why, beyond the inferred "because I
|> said so." Oh, God claims it's because he will die, but he never says
|> WHY.

I'm going to post a separate on the why question.

|> God himself called it "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,"
|> which presumably humans did not have before the tree was eaten from.
|> Does this mean that, in spite of all the arguments for free will, God
|> originally planned for us to be puppets?

No, He originally planned for Adam and Eve to trust Him enough to
avoid something He instructed them to avoid.

|> (And after they ate, why was
|> the only noticeable change simply a desire to make clothes?)

Lack of imagination perhaps? :-)

|> Let's look at this: Eve is wandering in the garden, which is apparently
|> all she or Adam EVER did. She finds herself near The Tree somehow, and
|> there is a snake TALKING to her. Now, as far as she knows, she has never
|> been lied to, and would not recognize a lie if she heard one, because
|> she doesn't have that Knowledge yet. The snake tells her to go ahead and
|> eat, in direct contradiction to God telling her to not eat. What
|> conclusion would she arrive at? She doesn't know it's possible to speak
|> a deliberate untruth, so she maybe assumes that God changed his mind and
|> hadn't told her yet. Or maybe she was looking for a thrill. Or she was
|> hypnotised or whatever. There is no reason to believe that she had
|> adopted a "screw God and his rules" attitude.

Whether or not she really understood the concept of a lie, she still knew
what God had said.

|> No, the Adam and Eve story is strictly allegorical. And a bad allegory
|> at that. If God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree, he
|> shouldn't have put the tree there, or shouldn't have put fruit on the
|> tree, or given the snake access to the garden and the ability to speak.

Even if it is an allegory, you suggestions for what God should have done
remove free will.  There was only one thing God prohibited.  Not a big
long list of things.  One thing.  If there had been no prohibitions
and no temptation, they would have been unable to exercise any free will
in the matter, it would have been impossible for them to choose anything
other than what God wanted.  That's getting pretty puppet-like.

|> To me, this theory makes more sense. I believe that knowledge
|> constitutes a good, and the capacity to have that knowledge is the only
|> thing that is distinctly human.

What do you mean by "knowledge"?  Is it related to the ability to learn?
Birds are learn where bird feeders are.  Monkeys teach other monkeys
how to make and use tools.

|> And yet Christians believe that these
|> abilities were granted by Satan? That defying God's silly rule
|> eventually lead us to civilization, literature and music? If this is
|> true, my only regret is that A&E didn't stuff more fruit in their mouths
|> before they got busted :)

I don't know that those aspects of civilization wouldn't have happened
if the garden of Eden had turned out differently.

|> But didn't you tell me in another thread that you didn't understand the
|> crucifixion part? God allows an innocent to be born, and then sacrifices
|> him later. Why?

True, I don't understand everything, especially the why.

|> It's God's heaven, God's ballgame, God's rules. Why
|> could he not just bend them a bit to accommodate our fallible selves?

Some people look at God sending Jesus as bending the rules.  Without
Jesus' sacrifice, the rules doomed us.

|> Also, there's quite a list of punishments that God visited on A&E
|> beginning in Genesis 3:14. Ignoring the petulant attitude of "sins of
|> the father," why did he have to do that to Jessu? Isn't that being
|> punished for the same thing twice?

I not quite sure I understand the question here.

|> Sorry to butt in :)

Hey, that's what discussions are all about.

-- 
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