It has occured to me that the story of Adam and Eve as told in the book of Genesis, was really a case of God tricking man, NOT man falling away from God.

How can I prove that you may ask? The answer I'd tell you is very simple. When God created Adam and Eve, he created them NOT knowing right from wrong. The tree of knowledge itself was said to tell you good from evil (which makes it even more absurd that God wouldn't want them to eat it, in effect saying he wanted them to be stupid) so how could they know?? They couldn't! They were innocent!

So thus, if they DIDN'T know what right and wrong or good and evil was.....how could they have known it wrong to disobey God not knowing what wrong even is?! They wouldn't have. Yet somehow it's their fault for doing something they didn't even know was wrong to begin with somehow. It doesn't make a lick of sense. They were manipulated into a fall by God, they didn't fall of their own accord.

How about this little scenario??....what if the tree of knowledge was created by man in gods name to manipulate fellow men as a means to an end for the manipulator?....yeah...that'll cause a few jaws to drop ay?

Edit to apologise to the christian crackers...

well,mine won't drop!

<<<<What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil—he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor—he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire—he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy—all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man’s fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was—that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love—he was not man.

Man’s fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he’s man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.

They call it a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man.<<<<<

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/original_sin.html

In the Jewish faith, there is no Original Sin, only an Original Blessing

there is no indicator they didnt know right from wrong

right and wrong and good and evil are different standards

Msharmony, they were made completely totally innocent, to the point they didn't even know they were naked! So I highly doubt they could know what right or wrong was. And it's the same thing, right/wrong, good/evil there's no difference except the word to describe it.

they were tricked by satan not GOD

much as they are being tricked today

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/327150

there is a HUGE difference,, 'innocent' children still know right from wrong,, but they havent yet learned 'good' from 'evil'


IT is wrong for a child to snatch something from another childs hand
that doesnt make it 'evil'

they are different standards, I think most christians understand how different they are,,,


right and wrong refer to correctness

good and evil refer to states of moral consciousness

Something's odd here MsHarmony.

I would like to see the differences between good and right, and evil and wrong better explained. I mean, what can possibly be considered "good" if it is not also moral(right) as well? What could possibly be considered "evil" if it is not also bad(immoral).

So what is the difference between evil/wrong and good/right?

Rather than continuing with the story and attempting to conclude that God "tricked" them, why not just reject the entire thing based upon the incoherence that you've set out?

as simply as I can put it, I am a parent


when my toddler is doing wrong she is not being 'evil', because she doesnt yet possess the knowledge to understand anything more than that she shouldnt do it, as opposed to understanding fully the impact of what she does or why she isnt supposed to do it,,,


ADam and EVe knew enough to know they were to listen to God and be obedient, they didnt yet have any knowledge of the concepts of 'good and evil' though,,,

whe

I would agree that not all things considered wrong would be correctly called evil as well. I don't understand the rest. I mean, are you saying that one cannot do evil unless they possess the knowledge of what doing evil is?

God commanded Adam. I have no doubt that at that point, Adam and Eve's entire view of morality was "obey God". They didn't have to think that they were naked or any other aspect of interpersonal morality. Their only concern in the world was to obey God.

I actually DO reject the whole thing, I am merely pointing this out to illustrate the absolute absurdity of this story, among many others in the Bible.

Ok, let's stop it right there. Adam and Eve are in effect toddlers in mind in the creation story up to before the fall, can we agree to that? They have been instructed not to do something, but nothing more than that. They know nothing of why they shouldn't beyond that God tells them this. Ok, fine.

Now then.....if you tell your toddler NOT to touch a hot stove, and they touch it anyway, what do you do? Do you push them further into the fire for disobeying despite the fact that they really don't know what they are doing yet, or do you correct them in a direct but loving way, so that they may learn? The answer I would think would be obvious.

Given this being the case, if God is supposed to be better than we are, His ways above our own, how is it that WE know that you don't throw the book at someone who really doesn't understand what they are doing yet, but He doesn't? Think for a minute, we've already established Adam and Eve had a toddler's mindset at the time of the fall, so how on earth is it possibly just for God to react in the way that He does given that being the case? It is idiotic, and lacks good sense.

Im not sure why I keep responding because we are obviously only going to believe what we believe,, but here it goes

its futile to even try to judge the judgement of God, because his knowledge is so much more expansive than ours

like I have said before, its like a child telling a parent they 'dont understand',, when the parent already has incite much further into how life is than children do

so, in you analogy, the child who touches a stove gets BURNED, thats his lesson, and the parent tries to avoid that touch so he doesnt get burned


in the biblical story, if adam and eve eat the fruit, they CONDEMN themselves, and God tries to avoid that by instructing them not to eat the fruit, just as a parent instructs a child not to touch a hot stove,,,because they KNOW the consequences


Adam and Eve brought on their own consequences just a child when they are disobedient enough to run after being told not to and they fall,,,

i think it worked out like GOD had planned


the tree of knowledge will bring your demise

so you don't eat apples? how would an apple "burn" anyone? Why did god tell them that to begin with?

We have absolutely no reason to believe that.

They walked, talked, fed themselves, named animals and who knows what else. Eve had a conversation with the Serpent, which didn't sound like a toddler speaking at all. Then Adam tried to defend his actions when God questioned him. Nothing at all like toddlers. How much time passed between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3? We don't know. How intelligent and knowledgeable where Adam and Eve at creation? We have no idea.

And so then we base our conclusions upon what exactly?