At that fateful moment, Adam and Eve are standing together at the tree, and although only the woman and the serpent speak, Adam was present, and it seems he accepted the fruit that his wife handed him. He was fully complicitous, and indeed, Yahweh holds him responsible. Yahweh reproaches Adam. Adam says: Well, Eve handed to me. She gave it to me. Eve explains, the serpent tricked me. Yahweh vents his fury on all three, and he does so in ascending order: first the serpent for his trickery and then the woman, and finally the man. The doctrine of original sin, which is the idea that humans after Adam are born into a state of sin, by definition. The actions of Adam and Eve bring death to the human race, they don’t bring a state of utter and unredeemed sinfulness. In fact, humans have moral choice in each and every age. Adam and Eve after eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and bad, they also lose their harmonious relationship with nature. There had been a peaceful relationship between creatures and humans to that point. Humans are banished now from the Garden. It used to yield its fruits to them without any labor, but now humans have to toil for food and the earth yields its fruits only stintingly. The humans will learn that the concomitant of their freedom is responsibility. Their first act of defiance is punished harshly. So they learn, that the moral choices and actions of humans have consequences that have to be borne by the perpetrator. Evil is a product of human behavior, not a principal inherent in the cosmos; man’s disobedience is the cause of the human predicament. So knowledge or wisdom or perhaps moral freedom, seems to come at a very high price.

The disobedience happens in a rather backhanded way. It’s interesting, Yahweh tells Adam before the creation of Eve that he’s not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, lest you die. Eve doesn’t hear this command directly, she hasn’t been created. Then we meet the cunning serpent, and although many will identify the serpent as Satan, an enticer, a tempter, some sort of evil creature, the serpent doesn’t seem to be so. The serpent in Eden is simply a talking animal.

Adam and Eve after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad are like Yahweh; they have become wise in that they have learned they have moral choice. They have free will, they can defy Yahweh and Yahweh’s plans for them in a way that animals and natural phenomena cannot. But now that means there is a serious danger here, Yahweh says, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and life forever!” So the acceptance of mortality as an inescapable part of the human condition, the quest for immortality, Yahweh could not afford to allow them access to the tree of life, and Yahweh maintains the upper hand in this, the fact that they eventually must die. Yahweh has to punt the ball, he has to modify his plans by barring access to the tree of life, humans are going to be a force to be reckoned with. Because of the length of these reasoning’s, read more at,

http://thatlifeyahwehhas.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=12

Thanks for any insight.

Now, I don't believe the myths of the Bible, however, this stuck out at me.

"In fact, humans have moral choice in each and every age. Adam and Eve after eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and bad, they also lose their harmonious relationship with nature."

Depending on who you talk to, humanity lost its harmony with nature once we harnessed the power of fire. It's an interesting story, Adam and Eve in the Garden. I don't take it literally mind you, because it's a good analogy for the human condition. At most it was written by a bunch of ancients attempting to figure out why people act the way they do, trying to imagine an elevated state-of-being for humanity. Like everything else in ancient texts, it's explained in philosophical language because they lacked the capacity to explain it otherwise. The sciences hadn't developed yet, so everything to them was a 'God' that needed pleasing. The author also implies that humanity is inherently evil--something I disagree with--trying to 'battle against Yahweh' for eternal dominion. I think it's just as silly as the Kolob story.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2011 06:52AM by Strykary.

The problem with Moism and fundamental Christianity is that they want to make the story a literal, factual account of two real people and a live snake. Instead of accepting it as a poetic metaphor, they try to make it history. Of course, Moism takes it one step further with all the temple mumbo-jumbo which only serves to muddle an otherwise elegant tale.

The hyper-fundamentalism of Mormonism strikes me as Joseph Smith trying to "out-do" the ancients. To outsiders it's obvious...but to members on the other side of the looking glass, it's a sign of the divine.

Thanks for your insights, that life Yahweh has within himself is cool stuff, do a word study on that life John 5:26.

How come it’s Eve (“the woman”) in the garden who was the bad guy, hmmm??? And subsequently people use that as an excuse to be misogynistic… Scripture says she gave some of the fruit to Adam, who was with her.

Didja catch that? He was with her! Standing right there. Now if men are so very righteous and superior, so in command, and so much BETTER than women, why in the world did Adam not say something? If he was so smart he coulda just said, “Now, look here, Eve, this ain’t such a hot idea,” or grabbed it away from her and threw it, or something! No, he didn’t. The jerk kept his mouth shut. He stood there like a lump and then meekly ate some too when she gave it to him and said, “Eat this.” So why are the consequences the woman’s- and every other woman’s- fault ever since? How come Eve's sin is so much worse than Adam's?

And hey- they were two brand-new totally ignorant and innocent creatures- couldn’t they get by with a reprimand or something?

I guess when Adam was standing, maybe this is the first case of Pu$$y whipped? The man seems to have gotten a raw deal, don't get me wrong, giving birth to a child would hurt, but the man has to struggle to make the land give food all his life? A reprimand would have done no good, the tree of life was in the garden, do a word study on that life Yahweh has within himself, John 5:26, that life is cool stuff.

Is that your blog? Because it sounds like you're pimping something here.

newnature Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess when Adam was standing, maybe this is the
> first case of Pu$$y whipped? The man seems to have
> gotten a raw deal, don't get me wrong, giving
> birth to a child would hurt, but the man has to
> struggle to make the land give food all his life?
> A reprimand would have done no good, the tree of
> life was in the garden, do a word study on that
> life Yahweh has within himself, John 5:26, that
> life is cool stuff.
===============================================
I guess what I am referring to is not so much the punishments as you described above, but the general ideation that "the woman brought sin into the world" (and the subsequent misogyny) because it looks to me like they were equally culpable.