From: Christian.Walters@p0.f14.n373.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Christian Walters)
Newsgroups: hsv.religion
Subject: Adam and Eve
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 15:01:30 CDT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:373/14.0 - The Aviation BBS, Meridianville AL

James Reed says, in response to Jim Mason:
>> IMHO the Fall, then, results not from a wilful desire to do wrong, to
>> rebel and violate God's will, but rather from a kind of hubris: a
>> desire to become Godlike by obtaining the knowledge of good and evil.
 
>Becoming godlike was an aspect of the temptation offered by the
>serpent.
 
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.
 
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? (And after they ate, why was
the only noticeable change simply a desire to make clothes?)
 
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.
 
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.
 
>> perhaps the figure who claimed to be God in the Garden was in
>> actuality the personification of evil whom the Christians would later
>> vilify as Satan, while the serpent was, as the Gnostics claimed,
>> actually the Good/Christ/God/etc.
 
>It all comes down to who you believe doesn't it.
 
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. 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 :)
 
>> Any God who would require a blood sacrifice as the necessary and
>> indispensable condition of righting a flaw of the human species is
>> Draconian and unworthy of respect.
 
>As the central tenet of the Christian religion, it underscores the
>thesis of God's love for mankind and His mercy towards us.  Any God who
>would love us enough to offer His Son (somehow a part of Himself) to
>make up for our failings is most worthy of our respect and returned
>love.
 
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? 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?
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?
 
Sorry to butt in :)


--  
 * Christian.Walters@p0.f14.n373.z1.FIDONET.ORG via Micro Magic