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I think it's similar to some Irish myth like where boann the Irish goddess is not suppose to take from the well of wisdom,the source of knowledge that is completely forbidden she does so anyway and is drowned.
There are mythological tales about forbidden knowledge,I think it symbolises esoteric learning,and the mysteries also symbolised by the serpent.
I think religion is the tree. From it we hope to gain insight into the mind of God. Be like him, know his desires, likes, dislikes...We desire to know "good" from "bad" and be able to judge (ahem discern) the wicked from the righteous. We race ahead and instead of wait for things to be revealed because any answer is better than none. If I would have been an adult as soon as the serpent came around trying to trick I Eve I would have slammed that book shut. You can see it's not going to end well. I wasn't given that choice so here I am.
Since this is not Christian, per se...it is here in Religion.
What is your take on the garden, fruit, Eden story?
The word 'blame' was brought up in another thread...do you think God 'blamed'
Adam and Eve?
I don't.
I thought it was clear, (but I see, now, like mud).
Again, my take shouldn't influence the direction of this thread...I can give my take later on.
Do you think it is all metaphor? Do think it happened?
Anything goes...are you mad at God for the whole thing?
Oh, and when I say 'your take'...I didn't mean long copy/pasts of Bible verses...but I suppose that will be inevitable.
"My take" on the story is that a certain amount of it is metaphorical. Yeah, I believe that there was a point in human existence when man fell from grace, but an apple? a serpent? a couple of trees? I just don't know.
The reason I believe that it is not an entirely fabricated story is that we are told in scripture that Jesus Christ was "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world." There would have been no need for an Atonement had there never been a Fall, and I believe the Atonement of Jesus Christ was very, very real.
As to who was responsible and whether or not God blamed Adam and Eve... My belief is that whatever transpired in the Garden of Eden, transpired exactly as God knew it would. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was supposed to provide Adam and Eve with something they did not have until after they ate from it. Since they did not previously have a knowledge of good and evil, I don't think God saw what they did as a "sin." To me, sinning involves consciously choosing to do something you know to be wrong. Eve was tempted by a very cunning individual and promised that if she ate, she would be "like God, knowing good and evil." Not already knowing good and evil, how could she have been expected to do anything other than what she did? While it is true that God had told them not to eat that particular fruit, they could not yet "sin" by disobeying. (This is why Mormons refer to their eating the fruit as a "transgression" as opposed to a "sin." They could only sin after having eaten the fruit and gained the knowledge it promised them.)
I'm not mad at God for the whole thing. I think of the Fall as more of a temporary setback than anything else. I don't believe Adam and Eve could have ever truly attained their potential as children of God had they not been forced to leave the Garden and experience the trials of mortal life. Likewise, I don't think we could either. The Fall wasn't a glitch in God's plan. It was how He started the ball rolling. He had something much, much more spectacular in mind for them and their posterity than traditional Christianity gives Him credit for.
That is initially persuasive, but I don't think it works. The idea is that original innocence (skipping over just what one might do if one didn't know it was bad) was replaced by an instinct of good or bad - which the writer couldn't comprehend other than as absolutes that existed as a sort of moral law.
But there was a lot that went down before God decided to destroy it all and begin with a Righteous family (and if Noah's lot was best he could find the rest must have made Sodom and Gomorrah look like a Presbyterian prayer meeting). No I hadn't forgotten that we are talking metaphor, but the knowledge of morality existed before the law, and the law is really rather like the command not to eat from the tree in the first place. Instead of One command "Don't learn what is good and evil is', a List was given to tell people how to do the good and avoid the evil. The Eden fall isn't the Law, but the Law is given to deal with the Fall.
Knowledge of Good and Evil as a bad thing can only be one thing in my opinion: The Law of Moses. The NT writers practically identified it as such.
Adam and Eve weren't ashamed of themselves before they ate that fruit. That's when they tried to hide from God because now they thought something was wrong with them. I wan't born knowing there was something wrong with me that needed saving. That's were religion comes in.
Adam and Eve weren't ashamed of themselves before they ate that fruit. That's when they tried to hide from God because now they thought something was wrong with them. I wasn't born knowing there was something wrong with me that needed saving. That's were religion comes in.
Uhhh....
No sorry,. I mispermestimated you. You got it right. But it isn't religion that gives us code of rights and wrongs (social education does that) and religion just builds on that
It's the counter to Ray Comfort's 'have you ever lied? apologetic. (Hasn't he?) In fact none of us are perfect, but because we haven't been honest all our lives doesn't make us criminals.
And I know what he's say if I showed him lying 'Sure We are all theives and liars, but I'm Forgiven".
Sin isn't about morality, it is about imposing a Jail sentence on everyione, then dealing himself a get out of Jail free card and then trying to sell one to everyone else.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 01-16-2018 at 09:19 PM..
The 'fall' of mankind was something that needed to happen in order for people to have free will. Satan needed to do what he did, so we would all have a choice. a faux story about angels rebelling and being thrown out of heaven is just an easier way for people to get the jist of the story, its something we can relate to, it would be much more complicated to try and explain that Satan was created for the part he was to play, and that in order to have a choice, there needed to be an alternative.
If you go the car lot and they only have one car for sale, the buyer does not really have a choice, must be at least 2 selections available, for there to be a choice.
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