Obviously this story is metaphorical and you are not meant to take it literally. It's basically a metaphor for mans ascent from 'innocent' hunter gatherers to more decadent settled communities based around arable farming. So you can see there wasn't actually an actual tree of 'the knowledge of good and evil' in the garden of Eden at all. It was probably much further afield, say in China or somewhere.


Boro Nut

Hey Boro Nut,
What is that book? Someone else mentioned this, and I'd like to do some reading. Sure makes more sense than talking snakes.

My spin on the Eden thing has lately been a blatant appeal to non-authority. Eden is not representative of an original perfection from which we descended into a state of sin. Instead, the Creator first assigns us to hell to see how we like it. We're in this carefree, sexless hell with devils, with nothing else to do but eat, sleep, defacate and urinate. Ultimately we must choose between a life of carefree slavery or earned existence. We finally choose to leave this Hell of Eden, much to the pleasure of our Creator, who lets out a huge sigh of relief.

nescio

I've always wondered how eating a particular fruit made people realize they were naked. Maybe they just didn't pay attention until some juice dripped into their crotches.

For some reason my lengthy reply to this thread is missing from this morning. It must have been a database rollback or something related to the forum.

=edited=I had a link here to my response but realized it was not ready for presentation.

Thanks,
Rasak

[This message has been edited by Rasak (edited June 07, 2001).]

One of my posts also appears to be missing.

Hubjones, I don't have time right now to respond (and the missing post isn't helping things), hopefully I'll get back to you this evening or perhaps tommorrow.

Hi All,

When Genesis was written (whenever that was) the words "knowledge of good and evil" meant knowledge of everything. Genesis 3 is a story about how man came to know everything (as compared to animals). It's a charming myth that way.

Of course the question remains, "If God knows everything that's going to happen why'd He put Adam and Eve in the Garden in the first place?"

Parsifal

I, too, posted several remarks in a couple threads this morning only to find out this afternoon that they were missing.

I will see if I can get a definitive answer as to why this occurred.

rodahi

Perhaps it was a banana or cucumber or something, and Adman just felt inadequate.

Someone mentioned that the concept of time was different for God. Can someone tell me how that relates to knowing the future ?

I am not disagreeing but for prophecy to exist at all implies what we consider a future, so to us God does know the future correct ? Perhaps predestination ties that together somehow.

Thanks,
Rasak

Okay, here is my post that vanished. (Fortunately I'd saved the contents) I originally posted it after Ish's post and before Hubjones's and it is what Hubjones is replying to:

Hi Hubjones.
This debate is probably a bit off-topic here and probably should be in the Philosophy forum. But as Rodahi has already read this thread and made no complaints, I will reply to your argument.

Your argument is not quite clear to me. As I see it you are combining two separate arguments into one. The first being that nothing contrary could happen to the will of an omnipotent being. The second being that if actions are known ahead of time by an all-knowing being then there was no free choice involved.
Needless to say, being a Christian I find neither of these arguments convincing. I have a few problems with the arguments, but I'll point out the major flaw in each as I see it.
1) The main problem is almost a semantic one on the word "will". What exactly do we mean by this?
Perhaps an analogy would help. My son tells me he is going out to a late party with some people he knows. I suggest to him on this occaision that this is probably not a good idea, and don't really want him to go. He wants to go anyway, and not wanting to be to be too overstrict a parent I allow him to go.
What was my will in the matter? It was my will that he shouldn't go. It was also my will that my son make decisions for himself. Ultimately I deemed the latter more important and thus my "ultimate will" (the will on which I acted) was that my son do what he wanted.
Apply this to the situation at hand. I would say it is God's will that we love him, do good etc. It is also God's will that we think for ourselves and be able to choose volutarily. The former without the latter is all but impossible, and so I would say that inherently the latter must be the more ultimate of the two. At anyrate we have free will so God's "ultimate will" must be that. But you see how things can occur which are contrary to a (non-ultimate) will of an omnipotent being?

2) This flaws in this argument are most clearly demonstrated by setting it out in logical order:
a) If an action is known ahead of time that action can not occur in any other way to the known way.
b) An action that could have never been otherwise is not free.
c) God knows our actions ahead of time.
Conclusion: Our actions are not free.

Out of this I would disagree with 'b' & 'c'. How can I possibly disagree with 'b'? Quite easily, however it is extremely difficult to explain the reason for this, so I won't. My major disagreement comes with 'c': God doesn't know actions ahead of time, because God is not bound by time. This is a fairly basic Christian doctrine. (I could support it with several Biblical passages - but you asked me not to so I won't ) As soon as we realise that God is not in time the whole argue falls flat. God simply knows our actions. To say he knows them before we do them is problematic because for God all our actions are in the present (for want of a better word). God always knows everything, because for him everything is always happening. Because he is not in time the words "past", "present" and "future" have no meaning when applied to God. You see, it is inaccurate to imagine God as someone who can see the future - to him it isn't the future. As modern physics has concluded, time is merely a dimension: we see three, God sees four. (Or perhaps 10 or 27... no doubt it will be decided eventually...)