Cris said:
Jenyar,
Clearly this is entirely false. It contained at least two major flaws, which would make it an entirely evil place. First it contained a tree of temptation, i.e. a tree of wonderful fruit ideally suitable for human consumption, but which was forbidden. In a perfect place nothing would be forbidden or at least nothing that could possibly cause any harm. And secondly its security protection was abysmal since it had allowed the serpent to enter.
How do you know that a perfect place (in reality - as opposed to a fantasy in your mind) wouldn't have rules? You're describing a place with no consequences, and life inside such a place would therefore be
inconsequential. I would say a place that cannot sustain meaningful life isn't perfect at all, no matter how idyllic it
sounds.
Eden was literally a death trap. A&E had had no education against the danger of temptation and no knowledge of deception or lying, had not been taught that things could be bad, or that disobedience was bad, i.e. they had none of this knowledge since they had not eaten from the tree that provided that knowledge. Consequently they were woefully unprepared for the evil nature of the alleged and false perfect paradise.
They didn't need the tree to know that eating from it would be contrary to the rules by which they lived in Eden. God had already told them that, and warned them of the consequences, so they had the necessary information even before they ate from the tree. It's
your contention that they somehow weren't able to use the information - Genesis doesn't portray that.
Eve made it perfectly clear to the serpent that she understood the concept of consequences - in particular the relative desireability of being
dead. Were that not true, the serpent's alternative "you surely will
not die", would have been a meaningless assertion. Faced with two contradictory claims, she believed the serpent and not God: an act of faith. There is no question that she was deceived, which Genesis clearly states, but that's not what they were guilty of. They were only guilty of what they
did know and understand.
What an entirely bizarre and twisted notion.
And it's something people in all cultures around the world came up with spontaniously. It doesn't have to mean specifically
animal sacrifice - grain and fruit were also offered (like Cain did). Your indignation is a little hypocritical, though. What do you call killing animals for food? Just because you don't attach any
symbolic meaning to it, doesn't mean it doesn't refer to the same reality.
You might recall that the first animal sacrificed in the Bible was to provide Adam and Eve with clothes, which they needed to cover their shame. Before the fall, the had only "seed-bearing plants" for food (Gen. 1:29).
"Then I let out all to the four winds And offered a sacrifice.
I poured out a libation on the top of the mountain. Seven and seven cult-vessels I set up,
Upon their pot-stands I heaped cane, cedarwood, and myrtle.
The gods smelled the savor,
The gods smelled the sweet savor,
The gods crowded like flies about the sacrificer."
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
You forget that logic and reason depend on knowledge and that critical knowledge of good and evil had been deliberately denied them. They acted perfectly logically based on how they had been inadequately constructed and instructed.
Why do you suppose they needed this meta-knowledge? How ambiguous is "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die"? Command and consequence. What the "knowledge of good and evil" meant was that the
source of differentiation between good and evil would no longer be God, but man himself. It made no difference to the consequences, or their desireability.
Why would they? A suspicion of deception would require knowledge of good and bad which they didn’t have. They had no reason to suspect the serpent was bad or even comprehend what that would mean.
It would only require a contradiction, which there was. To resolve the contradiction, she had to weigh her options. The desireability of the forbidden fruit swayed her decision in its favour, and away from God's clear command. The serpent only facilitated the process by sowing doubt and making it sound like a good decision. Like I said before: there is no question they were deceived, but they were still responsible for the knowledge they
did have. No amount of excuses can remove that responsibility.
But it requires an understanding of good and evil to be able to make such valued judgments.
A value judgment only requires relative norms, not absolute values. Eve had a choice between two moral frameworks: God's, and the serpent's. Each framework allows different value judgements: If what the serpent said was taken as "good", then doing what it said would be "right"; If what God said was taken as "good", then doing what
He commanded would be "right", and anything else "wrong".
The difference between the two frameworks is basically this: God's morality depends on knowledge, sustenance, and natural order (the consequence of death as deterrent, other fruit as food, humans as creation), while the serpent's morality relies on greed, desire and megalomania (the inherent attraction of the fruit, the desire to be like God). It's
reasonable to measure good by the One who created it, and not by one who questions it without reason.
In order to
change this norm, Adam and Eve had to make a
bad decision, per definition, because it would overthrow the default
good.
As a side note, what do you think the word God used for "evil" (as in "the tree of knowledge of good and evil") denoted to Adam and Eve? Do you simply suppose it had no meaning to them?
Unless he is appropriately constructed and instructed.
You mean, given a conscience? And who measures how closely it adheres to its conscience, whether it's still acting within its specifications, and what deviations can be forgiven? You've seen
I, Robot.
A bizarre rationalization of the Christian farce that could have all been avoided had God truly created a perfect paradise and appropriately educated A&E against any potential pitfalls.
You fail to realize that the plot of Genesis 1-3 concerns moral judgement in the absence of god-like knowledge. If you think about it for a moment longer, you'll realize that we're still in the same situation. Some societies might have set themselves up as the highest measurement of morality, but nobody knows on the whole whether they're truly on the
right path - they would have to be omniscient to know all possible consequences in eternity. We can't stand far back enough to gain that perspective on ourselves. But the danger isn't lack of knowledge, it's thinking that more knowledge will justify neglecting our
present responsibilities, like Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command.
