Greetings,
I was listening to a YouTube video while I was cooking dinner, and the speaker was discussing the Garden of Eden, when all of a sudden the subject of this post occurred to me.
We're all familiar with the story: God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or "in the day that they eat thereof, they shall surely die". Then the Serpent comes along and contradicts God by telling Eve that they won't surely die, but will become as Gods if they eat of the tree. So they eat of the tree, and we all know the rest..."Original Sin", man is cast out, etc., etc.
But for the life of me, I can't figure out why this tree was there in the first place. Perhaps a change of venue for the story is in order to illustrate the point.
For example, let's say that in my pantry there are all sorts of good and nutritious foods for my daughter to eat, but there's one particular box of cereal (let's make them Corn Flakes) that I tell her not to eat or she'll surely die. Maybe they are coated with rat poison or something, who knows.
But the larger question is: what kind of jackass parent leaves "lethal" food laying around that their kids might eat? Wouldn't it be better to just throw it out, or at least have these Corn Flakes under lock and key somewhere if I just have to keep them around? You mean to tell me this idea would occur to me, a lowly human father of one, but not to God Himself, maker of everyone who will ever exist?
C'mon.
And what if, in this example, the Corn Flakes really aren't lethal, but I just like Corn Flakes and don't want them all eaten up in case there's none left when I go to have a bowl. What if our "talking dog" tells my daughter the real deal about the Corn Flakes and why she can't have any? What if she then eats up all my corn flakes, and I find out and then tell her to GTFO of my house forever, and kick my talking dog's ass for good measure to the point where he has to crawl on his belly for the rest of his life? Who would do that?
(And by the way, a "talking dog" is no more farfetched than a "talking serpent" for cryin' out loud.)
So our faithful Christians (and Muslims and Jews) rationalize this inexcusable lapse in common sense on God's supposed part by saying that the tree was there as a test of Adam's and Eve's free will to make sure that they would always listen to the commandments of God, but that they failed that test.
But here's the thing: why should this so-called test of free will have a fatal outcome if it was failed? Isn't that a bit on the heavy-handed side?
I could understand it if you ate of the tree and subsequently grew a third arm, or maybe a horn in the center of your forehead, and possibly had to live with that for the rest of your life, or possibly pass these deformities down to your offspring or something. But death??? Isn't that a bit harsh? What loving parent would potentially put their child in a predicament like that, especially knowing how curious children can be?
So anyway, back to the story. The serpent comes along and tells Eve "Pshaw, you won't die if you eat of that tree. God just doesn't want you to know good and evil like He does, because then you'll be like Him."
The serpent's is the more plausible of the two explanations of what would happen if the fruit of the tree was eaten, so Eve, who in the back of her mind was probably already suspicious of the original reasons given for not eating of the tree anyway, recognizes this new explanation as being more realistic, and goes ahead and eats the fruit. Then after she doesn't die, she gives a bit of it to Adam who also doesn't die.
So in actuality, the Serpent didn't lie, to the chagrin of every Christian minister (propagandist) out there. They (Adam and Eve) both ate from the tree but neither one died, and actually their eyes WERE opened to the "knowledge of good and evil", just as the Serpent said.
So who was the true liar of the story? The Serpent? Nope, exactly what he said would happen did.
Then was the liar God? Yep, because nobody died like He said they would after eating the fruit.
So my point, and the main "question nobody asks" when confronted with a rational analysis of this story is: "If the entire Christian Bible begins with, and bases itself upon this story about "God" lying to his new creations, precisely why should anything else in the Bible be believed, literally or otherwise?"
I know, I know, that's just TOO simplistic of an analysis.
Or is it? If you simply can't just leave the story at face value without a bunch of doctrinal-sounding rationalizations about why all of the characters involved did what they did, then my analysis may indeed seem simplistic.
However, if we only go by what is written, and treat the story like a court case, where only the known facts are allowed into evidence, then who is the liar (or liars, as in the case of those who actually wrote the Bible) and who is the Liberator?
It really ain't that complicated, is it?
So further, being that the ENTIRE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE is based around this bullshit "fall of man" story, with the ideas about "Original Sin" and the eventual necessity of Jesus' death/sacrifice, etc., shouldn't this analysis give even the staunchest supporter of the story a degree of pause?
Look, if we were in a court of law, given only the evidence presented in this case, we could simply "move to suppress" the entire Christian doctrine as being the "fruit of a poisoned tree" once these facts are revealed. It's not like this contradiction is the only one in the Bible, there are scores of other ones.
But this story isn't just any story, it's basically the foundation of the whole doctrine, meaning NOTHING else in the Old or New Testament scriptures has a rational basis without this story.
BTW, if you're a theologian/minister, a "Chrislemew" as Lon Milo Duquette calls them, or if you simply want to debate this idea, please feel free to counterpoint me in the comments. I promise to use only the Bible (and a healthy dose of common sense) as my reference material. You, on the other hand, can use whatever reference material you think you'd need.
But quite honestly, I really can't see anyone taking me up on my offer....
