when god supposedly created adam and eve, he did so without giving them the knowledge to tell the difference between what was good and what was evil. they were morally naive and the only way for them to comprehend good and evil was to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil. so when adam and eve ate the fruit, they didn't know what they were doing was bad. i mean, even though god told them not to do it, they didn't realize that disobeying him was bad because they didn't understand good and evil. so in that sense, god was too harsh when he cast them out of eden and was kinda malevolent when he did it.
ps-i personally believe that the story is just an allegory and not facts so don't reply saying "it doesn't matter since it didn't really happen anyway" i know, im just saying if it is true, god was way too harsh.
-
Knowlege of good and evil vs knowlege of obedience27% Voted for by Jesusquest, looking4realtruth, Makessenseright, ASAEL, blablablooey12.
God told adam and eve not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowlege of good and evil, so they knew god, who is perfect knew what was right. As for you thinking god is too harsh, he gives us what we deserve, and it was pretty nice of him to give us salvation.
-
Knowledge of Good and Bad11% Voted for by Mad-Hatter, looking4realtruth.
keep in mind that there are many people who believe that this story IS true.
With that being said, I have often wondered the same thing.
They DID know it was bad. It was their only knowledge of good and bad, because Genesis states quite plainly, "Do not eat the fruit from this tree, for if you do you will surely die."
This was God's original punishment for them: death. Therefore not only were they guilty in the crime, but also were shown mercy at being kicked out of Eden rather than killed.
-
information i just found out....11% Voted for by cosmosis, ennoia.
before i start ranting...i would just like to say that i do NOT believe the genesis story to be true and i strongly believe it is just an allegory. but there are parts of it that show god to be extremely cruel.
a couple nights ago i was watching a 2 hour special on the history channel about many of the things that were supposed to go in the bible but didn't. one of the things they talked about was the story of creation. there was a part of genesis that talked about the story from eve's point of view. While she was talking to the snake (which was a devil), satan, disguised as an angel came down to earth and told her it was now ok for her to eat. that god didn't mind. at first she was hesitant and said no about 3 times but finally gave in thinking it was alright. afterwards she gives some to adam, thinking it was ok and he ate. god finds out and throughs them out. oh it also says that eve and adam had guardian angels to protect them from doing anything sinful but they were gone for some reason when satan tricked them. thats messed up.
so after finding that out....how could god possibly have done that. didn't he know that eve thought he said it was alright? didn't he realize they were tricked? what kind of god kicks someone out of paradise for being tricked?
-
i would think11% Voted for by Kazrith, hirbie.
that if god placed a tree with a forbidden fruit growing upon it in the middle of the place where adam and eve lived and said do not eat it, was he not creating temptation? without knowing what the consiquences were for eating the fruit, why wouldnt you want to find out. has anyone said to a child "you can't have that" and they ask "why" but you dont give an answer? they will go and do it anyways, because they do not know how bad the outcome will be. so thus the child is tempted.
hence, he created temptation.
-
My opinion on adamVoted for by Roo.
all crap, Adam and Eve were the first in the jewish tribe to abandion the hunter gather life style, and began cultivation.
as for lilith, how could she be a whore if Adam was the only man? I'm pretty sure adam did not build babylon, there was no need for a city.
she is just another myth in the twisted truth
I'll beleive Lilith existed if the Jews shows me in writting, because the story of Adam and Eve was the birth of cultivating Jew, all the old testerment is nothing more than the jewish tribal history.
Adam and Eve was not the frist man, because if you add up the math it slots nicely around the begining of cultivation, the jews have only a third of their tribal history.
No one will ever know the name of the frist man, because small tribal cultures have a habit of never mentioning the deads name, because it hurts to much.
-
Truth of Eve...Voted for by Kya Jaganshi.
Did you know that Eve was NOT the first woman?... did you know that the Genesis that is in the bible now, is the newer version? did you know that the first woman's name was Lilith and that she could be the Whore of Babylon?
Did you know, she left Adam because she wanted to be domainate and god sent 3 angels to bring her back? Did you know she refused, vowing revenge on Adam...Vowing to kill his children?
DID YOU KNOW THAT LILITH WAS THE FIRST FEMENIST?
Think about that as you read YOUR version of the bible... and tell me what you think...
-
What I understandVoted for by asphyxiated grace.
This story is a pyrable to teach us the sins of humanity. Adam and Eve knew God was perfect, so in betraying his only rule, they ruined their chance of being perfect. God was merciful in that he only threw them out of the garden (so to speak) when his original punishment was death. By the way, Lucifer (the Devil) was originally an angel who got to big for Heaven and thought he could do a better job than the Lord. He was imprisoned in Hell but he broke loose and came down to the garden of Eden as a snake.
-
Adam and Eve is our story as wellVoted for by Mary O.
Have you ever realized how often we ourselves experience a paradise lost. Where love is violated that same love can never be returned to in its original state. One example. High school, virgin, sweethearts, marry and solemly vow their love to each other until death. They're lives are happy, a perfect sharing in the innocence and purity of their love. They have two children, a reflection of them and their love. However, the husband is tempted by another women to share the jewels of his love, promised only for his wife. The wife ultimately finds out. Her love has been violated. Let's say, after all the hurts felt due to betrayal the husband and wife reconcile and stay together.
Even though they choose to remain together their Garden of Edan once known can never be returned to because of new knowledge. No longer will or can the innocence of their love be as it was. That paradise is forever lost.
Where love is violated love does not exist in that same given moment in time, only pride or selfulness. One cannot love and at the same time be selfish or hateful and visa versa. One is either in love or in pride
Oh, love unlike pride will live forever. Pride on the other hand can and will be distroyed. Nothing can be taken from humility which is love, but pride can always be taken down.
God is Love and Pride cannot have share in the same given space in time. God gave us the power of freewill to choose, God/love or Pride/world. Our journey here is to perfect love to the best of our abilty in order to ultimately become one in Love in the next life for all eternity.
A good start for instance when tempted to make a derogatory statement of someone (which by the way is an act of pride or lording oneself over another)would be to try humility and reframe. You'll notice the interior peace that will reside. Better than eating vegetables for good health interior peace will do far more for body, mind and soul. By reframing from judgemental statements you can always without fear or feelings of unease look a person in the eye. With a clean conscience no harm can be felt. No, it's not easy but little by little it can be mastered. We do have a lifetime to exert effort. One Saint used to jot down all her faults for the day. Each following day she'd try to improve. After about a year she found what used to be a dozen or more marks had now become just a couple.
Adam and Eve are our example of how love/paradise is and can be lost. The hardship, where love is violated is in the the forgiving, not only of self but of others.
God does not make us choose Him/Love. However, Pride and Love cannot co-exist in a same given moment in time. When we die time will no longer exist and thus we will have chosen one or the other. The Devil offered Jesus the world if he'd give in to self/pride and not the will of God/Love. Judas, out of pride chose to commit suicide. He ultimately chose death. Jesus said it would have been better he were never born. Judas's pride caused him to think himself unforgivable where Peter who cowardly denied Christ for fear of his own life wept in sorrow and was forgiven. If only Judas, who sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, wept in sorrow for what he'd done, Jesus would have forgiven him as well. The Devil's back door is opened when we lord ourselves over others to the point we think ourselves unworthy of forgiveness.
The story of Adam and Eve is our everyday story.
-
eh?Voted for by grant.
is this really a philosophy site or a fairytale site? We might as well discuss santa clause.
-
The sinVoted for by Dwn.
The sin wasnt the eating of the fruit, but rather disobedience, and good and evil, is not morrality , good and bad are,Man knew not to disobey,He did not understand the concept of harming.
-
jesusVoted for by Joshua-Luke.
First of all god was not "cruel" when he kicked them out. when god confronted them he asked eve, while she was hiding out of shame of her nakedness, "where are yOu?" god knew where she was of course, but that's not what's taking place. what happened was they had in spirit strayed from the lord. when he asked where she was, it was a spiritual question. He kicked them out because it was his house and they had withdrawn from his goodness in their spiritual life. After this happened, to the joining of a man and a wife adam claimed representation of man. in the sense that all men are sinners. now, when jesus began his ministry the first miracle he performed was turning water into wine at a wedding. This is very symbolic because at the joining of man and woman jesus sanctified the marriage and claimed representation of man. in the sense that we are all forgiven, if we accept it. so, with that said, i would not stress the details of each story in the bible because all that matters is that where Adam failed Christ succeeded and we can inquire these things of the lord in heaven. god bless you all
Adding your reply:
Registration is required because of issues with spam. It is fast and free! This author would LOVE to get a comment from you, please join!
January 3, 2006
Edit | Reply
Illogical. Knowledge of Obedience?
First I'll set aside my usual arguement concerning the nonsense of Genesis: An omnipotent, all merciful, Perfect Being creates a lesser being "in His own image" (presumably, just like him but not omnipotent) yet somehow the Perfect Being's Creation is Imperfect. If an all-perfect being created Adam and Eve, then Adam and Eve would be perfect as well. How is it possible that a Perfect Entity creates something Imperfect or even capable of Imperfection? Now bypass all that and your response still avoids the original question. "Knowledge of Obedience?" still implies that somehow Adam and Eve's disobedience was wrong and that they possessed the knowledge to know it was wrong. The statments directly contradict themselves, and you unwittingly prove yourself wrong. They hadn't yet eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, but they still had the Knowledge to know not to? Something doesn't add up... They hadn't eaten from the tree yet. So they could not have known that it was 'wrong' or 'evil' to do anything. If to disobey is wrong(evil) and the reason for their expulsion, and to obey is right(good), they still would have no knowledge of the difference. And the yet the omnipotent all-loving and merciful perfect God punishes them, expels them, and does not forgive their obvious shame for themselves, now realizing they are naked? Sounds pretty malevolent to me, or at the very least not belevolent, forgiving, or merciful. Then to top it off, because of all this, we are all born unpure because of something a supposed ancestor did? By that same logic, you (we) are just as guilty as any of our ancestors crimes or wrongdoing, even though we ourselves have done nothing wrong. So if your great great great (multiply as desired) grandfather murdered someone, you were born a murderer, just as guilty? How is that possibly benevolent? I'm inclined to agree with the poster, on top of being completely illogical in the first place, in my opinion the story was made up to try to explain something that could not be understood or explained. Not much different than Sasquatch, the Lock Ness Monster, the Yeti, Alien abductions, haunted houses, ESP, and other nonsensical mythology that fails every attempt to prove true over and over again. Yes, I AM comparing the story of Genesis to Alien abduction stories. No personal offense intended, but after all this is supposed to be a debate. Oh, and I do have a question: Back when the world was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, some people believed that men had one less rib bone than women. (since it was taken from Adam to make Eve, correct?) So wheres the rib, wy was it a rib and not a toe bone, and if Adam was created from nothing than why was the rib needed to create another human in the first place?January 3, 2006
Edit | Reply
January 4, 2006
Edit | Reply
uhm.. :)
I think that when they got the idea of good and bad after they ate the apple god decided to show them TRUE good and evil.. let them SEE and experience good and evil. It wasn't a punishment to cast them out, but a gift.January 31, 2006
Edit | Reply
April 7, 2006
Edit | Reply
October 6, 2006
Edit | Reply
I agree
I agree but lets ask this question, in the bible in genesis no matter which version of the bible or even in the book of enoch the word is not specific wheather or not adam knew the fruit that he was eating was in fact from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, all the bible says is that eve gave adam the fruit and he did eat. It doesnt say that she told him where she got it from for all we know is she said just eat this fruit. Which would bring up another question even thought adam ate of the fruit was it sining if he did not know that the fruit was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I guess well never know really but we do know that we are here in this sinful world that destined for damnation. Any way that is a whole another subject.Please register or login to comment! It's totally free