Polonius wrote:The story illustrates that it is not God, but man, that brings evil into the world.
Except god, being omniscient, knew exactly what was going to happen when he created evil. He could have foreseen that Adam and Eve would fall and allow evil into the world and declined to create evil, but he did it. Adam and Eve may be the mechanism, but god still takes moral responsibility for his failure to stop it.
It also shows that man is incapable of not sinning. Even standing in Eden, with God literally telling him, personally, not to do something, man will disobey. So, work hard on resisting temptation.
In other words, "god created you to be too weak to resist, but if you don't resist he's going to torture you for eternity". Even ignoring the whole torture part, how is that a good moral lesson? You should resist, but you're going to fail anyway? Wouldn't a better lesson be "try to resist, because if you try hard you can be a good person"?
Plus, it's an especially horrible moral lesson since the "temptation" was to take knowledge and become truly human. It isn't like they gave in to temptation and murdered someone or whatever, you can legitimately argue that they were entirely justified in doing what they did.
For christian's it's important because the fall of man is linked to his salvation. Man rejected god at first, but god reached out again to save him.
I don't deny that it's important, but the entire concept of salvation is morally appalling. Even if I grant you that "original sin" does not refer to a specific act of our ancestors (which is what many Christians believe it is) and therefore avoid the whole "sins of the father" problem you still have the problem of god's choice of "salvation": scapegoating through torture and murder. In what decent ethical system is human sacrifice with a threat of eternal torture preferable to simply allowing everyone into heaven unconditionally?
Polonius wrote:There's also a very basic moral rule that seems to be missed: when somebody askes you to respect a boundary, respect it.
Particulalry when you watch a being create your wife, and the garden around you, and then he says, "hey, if you eat that, you will die." Maybe, just maybe, you should listen.
So if a parent leaves a bottle of poison out and tells their kid "don't drink this" the moral lesson is "you should listen to your parents" not "wow what an awful parent"? You really aren't doing a good job of proving that this story has anything remotely approaching a good moral lesson.
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generalgrog wrote:I will proffer a possibility, God knew full well that in order for Him to have nonrobotic, free will moral agents, have a relationship with Him He foresaw what would have to happen, and knowing full well that His creation would fall... he created it anyway
Ok, so now we're forced to pick from a couple options here:
1) God is incompetent. He could have created humans with free will but without evil. However, he was unable to do it. I suppose you could always say that, but then you lose that whole "omnipotent" thing that most believers want god to have.
or
2) God is a sadistic
. He knew humans would fail and many of them would be tortured for eternity, but he created us this way anyway. Not exactly the most impressive moral lesson here...
and also created a way out, by foreplanning of his descension into a human body and allowing Himself to be sacrificed as a way back from the fall.
Also, the idea that god left us a way out is just insane. WHY did god have to have himself tortured to death before he could allow us a way back? Why couldn't he just declare "you have a way back" without all of the torture? Does god just enjoy BDSM?
In the mean time from Adam and Eve to Christ..and ultimately to modern times...the story of Adam and Eve can serve as an example of disobediance to Gods will and the consequences for that disobediance.
Seriously? That's the supposed moral lesson that we're all supposed to respect and praise? "Obey the sadistic tyrant or be tortured for eternity"?
(I'm sure we'll soon have a nice statement about how you're not a "real" Christian so that doesn't count.)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Monster Rain wrote:Also, before you say "or they didn't happen at all". We know. I'm operating with the idea that at least some of them did. Context is important, and prevents wasted time.
But WHY are you operating with that idea?
Also, "things happen that are beyond the level of technology of the author unless it's supernatural" is hardly unique to the Bible. In fact, it's a safe bet that it's a feature of pretty much every system of mythology we've ever created.
