Adam and Eve as an allegory for the human condition... (paradise, myth)
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This is gonna straddle the line between Religion and Philosophy, but I'll try to keep it applicable. I don't want this to be an argument over the literal truth of the story, but rather what the story means. The Bible isn't intended to be a history book, it's intended to be a guidebook for life, after all.
Anyway, it seems most of Christianity sees the story as the rationale behind "original sin"... the idea that all humanity is tainted because of the actions of Adam & Eve and therefore must be atoned for, and giving a reason for Jesus to do his thing.
I see it in an entirely different way. To me, the story is an illustration of what it means to be sentient. Think about it for a minute...
A young naked couple in paradise, without want or desire... essentially without self-awareness, just like animals.
In comes the serpent, tempting them to go against god's orders to abstain. The fruit they take is from the tree of knowledge. Upon eating the fruit, Adam & Eve suddenly realize they are naked and experience a complex feeling that can only exist in conjunction with self-awareness: shame.
They are awakened.
Being self-aware, they are cast from the garden and forced to carry the burden of life in their new state. But if you think about it, the burden was always there... Adam and Eve just weren't aware of it because they previously existed on a lower comprehension perspective (i.e. the allegorical "garden of Eden"). The characters themselves are allegorical; Adam and Eve of course represent the human race at large. The serpent perhaps represents human inquisitiveness, a force that drives humanity forward and can be both good and very dangerous. The Cherubim guarding the gates to Eden may represent our inability to regress to humanity's simpler state.
And the role of god in the story? Anyone who can figure that out gets a gold star!
The story is really saying: "ignorance is bliss" but it's a lower state of being. Once humanity made that jump in perspective we could no longer inhabit the perspective of animals and became subject to challenges of existence within a higher perspective.
It's no wonder so many people laugh at the story...trying to read it as a literal account of the birth of humanity is rather laughable...
...But who would argue humanity actually began when the first minds crossed that threshold into the higher perspective of sentience, leaving "Eden" forever and being forced to figure out how to manage such a massive paradigm shift to their existence?
Me thinks the ancient goat-herders had some big thoughts after all...it's we who have been stupid about the whole thing.
This is gonna straddle the line between Religion and Philosophy, but I'll try to keep it applicable. I don't want this to be an argument over the literal truth of the story, but rather what the story means. The Bible isn't intended to be a history book, it's intended to be a guidebook for life, after all.
Anyway, it seems most of Christianity sees the story as the rationale behind "original sin"... the idea that all humanity is tainted because of the actions of Adam & Eve and therefore must be atoned for, and giving a reason for Jesus to do his thing.
I see it in an entirely different way. To me, the story is an illustration of what it means to be sentient. Think about it for a minute...
A young naked couple in paradise, without want or desire... essentially without self-awareness, just like animals.
In comes the serpent, tempting them to go against god's orders to abstain. The fruit they take is from the tree of knowledge. Upon eating the fruit, Adam & Eve suddenly realize they are naked and experience a complex feeling that can only exist in conjunction with self-awareness: shame.
They are awakened.
Being self-aware, they are cast from the garden and forced to carry the burden of life in their new state. But if you think about it, the burden was always there... Adam and Eve just weren't aware of it because they previously existed on a lower comprehension perspective (i.e. the allegorical "garden of Eden"). The characters themselves are allegorical; Adam and Eve of course represent the human race at large. The serpent perhaps represents human inquisitiveness, a force that drives humanity forward and can be both good and very dangerous. The Cherubim guarding the gates to Eden may represent our inability to regress to humanity's simpler state.
And the role of god in the story? Anyone who can figure that out gets a gold star!
The story is really saying: "ignorance is bliss" but it's a lower state of being. Once humanity made that jump in perspective we could no longer inhabit the perspective of animals and became subject to challenges of existence within a higher perspective.
It's no wonder so many people laugh at the story...trying to read it as a literal account of the birth of humanity is rather laughable...
...But who would argue humanity actually began when the first minds crossed that threshold into the higher perspective of sentience, leaving "Eden" forever and being forced to figure out how to manage such a massive paradigm shift to their existence?
Me thinks the ancient goat-herders had some big thoughts after all...it's we who have been stupid about the whole thing.
It can represent humans change from animal to conscious being. I like your metaphor. Maybe it is the moment that "man" first becaome aware of his Creator too.
It can represent humans change from animal to conscious being. I like your metaphor. Maybe it is the moment that "man" first becaome aware of his Creator too.
If there was any reason to think there was a "creator" to become aware of then this would be an interesting point, but we have far from established the first shred of evidence for such an idea so no cigar.
I doubt there is any one moment when humans started to think there was a god. Most animals have what is called "Agency detection" which is that they have evolved to think "Who is that and what do they want" at the merest rustle of a bush.
The evolutionary advantage of this is clear. Mistaking agency for non agency is going to get you killed. Mistaking non agency for agency is going to do little more than make you look or feel silly.
So it is quite likely bred into us over a long period of evolution to see agency even where none exists, including in the very existence of the universe itself.
For my own part to answer the OP the only real message I seem to be able to glean from the story is that the writer wants to portray Open Inquiry in a bad light. The quest for knowledge, wisdom and scientific experimentation.... in the face of the totalitarian god character asking for blind faith and trust..... was their only crime. What the god character should have learned is that trust is earned, not granted by decree or request. Also humans value freedom and trying to hide facts, truth or knowledge from them will likely only result in them rebelling and realizing that the aforementioned trust has not been earned, or deserved.
I always saw it as a metaphor for growing up, both as individuals and as a species. We spend life as kids in an Eden state (ideally) protected and provided for by parents who, at least when we're little, seem all-knowing and all-powerful. And then we get a taste of knowledge and it's time for us to leave the house and deal with the real world...
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It could also be a metaphor for the stage when we progressed from animals to animals plus something more - although that's if you believe there's some sort of 'threshold' a being must cross to become sentinent and 'in the image of God.' Biologically speaking, it could have been when we evolved into Homo sapiens. Their self-awareness, the knowledge of 'Good and Evil' was a 'putting upon' the burden of the 'human condition' and finding out the awful fact that they will now die.
It can represent humans change from animal to conscious being. I like your metaphor. Maybe it is the moment that "man" first becaome aware of his Creator too.
I would say that man didn't so much become aware of his Creator but became aware of the potential power of a Creation Myth complete with a fictional Creator.
I would say that man didn't so much become aware of his Creator but became aware of the potential power of a Creation Myth complete with a fictional Creator.
Thinking along these lines makes it easy to to see the biblical god itself as a metaphor for the world (or even universe) at large... something great and terrible that is beyond human control or comprehension... giving and taking life all at once.
I have mostly thought of it as the awakening to the knowledge of right and wrong. Bad choices bring about bad results. I think a lot of the bible scripture can probably be much more meaningful if the very last words in many of the stories ended with "and the moral of this story is..
I always loved Aesops Fables and the morals explained at the end.
Last edited by Miss Blue; 08-14-2012 at 04:11 PM..
Reason: AL
Well, Chango, Again, you have most interesting post.
I kind of rejected The myth of Adam and Eve long ago, along with the myth of a creator, of man being seperate from "god" because no such thing as "god" exists in my experience. I do not think we as humans need to be apologizing for being human to some "god" who created us , because again, in my experience no such thing exists.
THAT being said, the symbolism of Your anaology remains valid to some degree, it would be wymbolic of man rising to some higher degree of "good" or as you say man's shame or ignorance.
The important thing is that we as humans, in our experience, are our own gods, we can decide what is the ghigher good based on waht is good for humanity and promotes acceptance and human rights. We sure don't need (or in my case, sure don't have) a god for that
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