Goober

I have some questions for christians about the garden of eden.

If Adam and Eve only gained knowledge of good and evil by eating the apple, then how could they possibly know that it is wrong for them to eat said apple? How could god justifiably punish them for doing something wrong when god had created them without any conception of what wrongness is?

Also, god, being all knowing, would have known that they would be successfully tempted by the serpent. Why did god not try and prevent this from happening?

If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil, did they commit immoral actions in the garden?

Ronin

Well, you see, Goober...Adam and Eve were as children...and children lack moral knowledge and need to be taught right from wrong. Yet children are not completely devoid of moral knowledge, either.

Children know that when another child cuts in front of them in line or takes the toy they were playing with, they have a right to object. Children don't have to be taught that there is such a thing as right and wrong, or that hurting people is wrong. They don't have to be taught to feel guilty when they do something wrong. What they do have to be taught is which particular actions are wrong or will result in someone getting hurt.

It's possible that Adam and Eve's initial state was similar to this.

In other words, they had the foundations of moral knowledge: they knew there was such a thing as right and wrong, and if one of them had hurt the other, they probably would not have regarded the act as morally neutral. However, they lacked specific knowledge (e.g. they didn't recognize the difference between modest and immodest dress), and therefore learned some things when they ate the fruit. Their relative innocence still didn't provide them with a valid excuse, as their awareness of morality coupled with God's explicit instruction meant they knew it was wrong to eat the fruit.

Mix in a healthy diatribe about freewill...stir.

So...for their heinous transgression ~ <Ard>"...you die; she dies; everybody dies!" </Ard>

Volker.Doormann

Remarks: 1. Genesis is a story from the Jewish Torah, written in Hebrew language. 2. I’m not a member of any religion for more than 40 years.

This story from the Genesis is a parable. It is not to grasp with logic and/or social morality standards. The story shows in general two ways of living. One way is the physical life that is able to recreate life by the 'tree of life' (penis) and the 'Garden of Eden' - Hebrew: 'gan eden' = 'Garden of joy' (female womb) in midst the tree of life is 'planted' to create life, 'watering' the garden of joy, as all people do that, who like to go this way.

The other way is the way of knowledge. There is no apple. As it is symbolized thousand times in the bible, knowledge (Gnosis) is the 'food' for the soul (p.e. Jesus in Matt 16:11:"How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”). This way is linked to the cognition, that the physical life (must) die, if the soul consciousness gets back home to spiritual world, if one ‘eat’s’ from the ‘tree of knowledge’ as counterpart to the ‘tree of life’ (penis).

Fact is you are here in this physical world, you do not know why, and you do not know where you come from. It is to perceive as fact that this world here is not perfect; neither the laws nor the people in this world. Imperfection is all around, as wide as eyes can see.

People can live many times in this imperfect world the physical life - endlessly. They are free to do that, and they are free to try the other way, ‘eating’ knowledge, to be a spiritual soul, that is aware about the spiritual and its laws - justice, truth, love, harmony, order. Laws - which have no location and no time. This principle what ancient people have called ‘God’ in the origin - imperfect humans have abused this principle for social power in this imperfect world and there are religions, which work on hard continuously on this spiritual crime against souls, as Jesus has recognized this, as we know it from the Gospels.

There is no immorality in the Genesis story. The fact, that he, who recognize as soul, that he has a body, but not is the body, creates the awareness, that this body will die, but it is a very own individual cognition of him, not a morality law from the society to press the individual. This is meant by the phrase about eating knowledge etc.

Each human ever is situated free between this two ways. Living the physical life or going the way of knowledge (Gnosis). This is the basic theme of all parables in the Bible. OT and NT.

Volker

Goober

Ronin, surely any sense of right and wrong that adam and eve had before eating the fruit of the tree would be knowledge of good and evil. Sure, they might not use the terms good and evil, but they still knew that certain things were bad. Or is right and wrong not the same as good and evil?

Another question I thought of: If Adam and Eve gained knowledge of good and evil, surely we would all know if allowing gay marriages was wrong or not, but we don't.

Volker, thanks for your thoughtful response, but I was really wanting to discuss the literal implications of the story. Of course I recognise that it need not be taken literally.

Magus55

God told them, do not eat from the tree. Adam and Eve weren't stupid. If you tell a young child not to do something, they understand what no means, but how many 3 year olds understand morality and good and evil? I think atheists have a false presupposition on what the knowledge of good and evil restricts. You seem to think Adam and Eve were mindless morons who didn't know anything.

Philosoft

Actually, if you give this a nanosecond's thought, people with a complete lack of sense of right and wrong would be at the very least perpetually naive. Stupid isn't so much of a stretch.

Roughly as many as understand a swat on the behind.
Yes, I do.

Ronin

I'm with you Goober...I just felt like hitting the christian crack pipe and see if I could still come up with the brain sizzled response to your inquiry.



Hey, do I win anything for beating Magus55 to the punch?

Volker.Doormann

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