Eden. Original Sin or Original Virtue?

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Eden. Original Sin or Original Virtue?

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http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/20/comparative-theodicy/
“Judaism preaches the Rise of man: and instead of Original Sin,it stresses Original Virtue, the beneficent hereditary influence of righteous ancestors upon their descendants’.”
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http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/original_sin.html
From John Galt's speech, in Atlas Shrugged.
“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 ofknowledge—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.”

Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Gen 3;22 And the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil;

Do you see Eden as our Original Sin or as our Original Virtue?

Regards
DL

[jockmcplop]

The fall of man was intrinsically neither virtuous nor sinful, but necessary.
The tree of knowledge should in this context be given its full name: The tree of knowledge of good and evil.
In this name lies the point of the story, the key metaphor behind it. At one stage we lived in complete harmony with our own nature, including the nature of Earth and the universe as a whole.
At some point we 'descended' into a new state. A state where the oneness of things dissolved into a twoness. Everything from this point on was judged by picking a point on a scale between a pair of opposites (such as good and evil). There was no good and evil before, no light and dark, no happy and sad, just an existence. In this sudden change of psychology we gained new abilities but, in my opinion, we lost something valuable, something many people have been trying to regain ever since using drugs, extreme meditation, prayer etc.
I refuse to look at this story as a moral one. I can't see any useful morality in it. I can't see any virtue or sin, simply a change in the state of human existence (or at least a metaphor for that). For people to actually believe that this metaphorical story has any moral significance with regards to HOW we should live our lives, is to miss the point entirely. Of course this story doesn't mean we are born sinners and must atone. That would be completely insane. Neither can I see any objective moral virtue in it.
In terms of what we have lost and gained though, it is interesting.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Thanks for this.

I agree with this.

"For people to actually believe that this metaphorical story has any moral significance with regards to HOW we should live our lives, is to miss the point entirely.

Let me point out that from the Christian point of view, they have used it in ways to live life but more the negative than the positive as Christians have used this myth to not only vilify women but also to discriminate against women and gays forever.

He shall rule over you and one man and one woman becoming one are often quoted to enforce that discrimination.

Regards
DL

[fkizz]

In this sudden change of psychology we gained new abilities but, in my opinion, we lost something valuable, something many people have been trying to regain ever since using drugs, extreme meditation, prayer etc.

That's an interesting new insight actually

[fkizz]

Let me point out that from the Christian point of view, they have used it in ways to live life but more the negative than the positive as Christians have used this myth to not only vilify women but also to discriminate against women and gays forever.

1) Christianity the religion after BC has not been around forever.
2) Christianity did not "invent" any new villification under the Sun, why would a Messiah with limited time and persecuted for death penalty by 2 different groups of power spend his time rambling on woman and gays? Most of passages in Bible of such come from Old Testament.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

1)

Christianity the religion after BC has not been around forever.

I stand corrected. Since they destroyed Chrestianity then and made it Christianity.

I think the Chrestians were a combination of Gnostic Christians and Jews but that is a hard or impossible thing to prove this far up the timeline.

2) Christianity did not "invent" any new villification under the Sun, why would a Messiah with limited time and persecuted for death penalty by 2 different groups of power spend his time rambling on woman and gays? Most of passages in Bible of such come from Old Testament.

Actually, the vilification of the many Serpent cults active in the early days was likely the main reason for Christianity vilifying the serpent and made the serpent into a female where before it was mostly androgynous like most of the other Eastern Gods.

The serpent cults were quite ancient. They began 70,000 years ago so were likely well entrenched by the time Christianity decided to vilify the serpent.

https://www.apollon.uio.no/english/a...n-english.html

This next is more recent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByX9EErtQzI

Regards
DL

[Cyclops]

Extraordinary to claim a boulder looks like a python when it doesn't, hasn't changed appearance in 70,000 years, and then try to butress the weak thesis with an appeal to modern beliefs.

As you day the talking snake is arguably a stab at the Goddess religion with the combination of woman/serpent/tree found across the Middle East well before the mergence of Judaism. However it could just as easily be a simple folk explanation of the snake's leglessness that's been rolled into another folk story about "why we have to work".

The words "original sin" do not appear in Genesis and the story does not support any such doctrine. God makes a lot of threats, doesn't carry them out, punishes the transgressors with penalties that apply to all their descendants (a stunning injustice) and then banishes them from Eden as an afterthought. It is not mentioned if the snake is banished though, although the snake's seed is destined to be stood on so they obviously left.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Extraordinary to claim a boulder looks like a python when it doesn't, hasn't changed appearance in 70,000 years, and then try to butress the weak thesis with an appeal to modern beliefs.

As you day the talking snake is arguably a stab at the Goddess religion with the combination of woman/serpent/tree found across the Middle East well before the mergence of Judaism. However it could just as easily be a simple folk explanation of the snake's leglessness that's been rolled into another folk story about "why we have to work".

The words "original sin" do not appear in Genesis and the story does not support any such doctrine. God makes a lot of threats, doesn't carry them out, punishes the transgressors with penalties that apply to all their descendants (a stunning injustice) and then banishes them from Eden as an afterthought. It is not mentioned if the snake is banished though, although the snake's seed is destined to be stood on so they obviously left.

All I did was supply archeological evidence.

Fact is, serpent worship was on every continent even while we believe that those various peoples did not know of each other.

It just shows that the trend seemed to be to have nature and some of it's creations venerated as Gods instead of people or imaginary constructs.

I think the better idea of female worship and Goddess worship that was around 22,000 years ago was the best as it venerates women and their ability to reproduce.

Regards
DL

[Cyclops]

All I did was supply archeological evidence.

Not really. Its a pretty shonky article and contributes nothing to your OP.

Fact is, serpent worship was on every continent even while we believe that those various peoples did not know of each other.

Yes a very good point, and a far better reason for a snake appearing in a Holy book than an African rock.

It just shows that the trend seemed to be to have nature and some of it's creations venerated as Gods instead of people or imaginary constructs.

Yes the snake is a fascinating creature, and seems to have stimulated the religious imagination across the world in a way that say the ant or the rat has not.

I think the better idea of female worship and Goddess worship that was around 22,000 years ago was the best as it venerates women and their ability to reproduce.

We don't really have a manual to explain how the female figurines of the Mother cult were viewed by the people that created and/or shared them. The were clearly (like the snake) an important feature of life but may have been explained differently across different cultures.

Back to your OP, the concept of the garden of Eden and original sin is contentious and I don't think you establish it was a real event let alone a positive one. It is worth discussing but we haven't really made much progress ITT.

[jockmcplop]

Snake mythology is very interesting. Unfortunately its one of those things that's susceptible to 'invisible modern value judgments', whereby we overlay modern logical symbolic thinking onto what we imagine the original intentions were. Often with ancient symbolism we are very much guessing what these meaning societies attributed to their animals, using a combination of information gleamed from modern day tribes, and later cultures who used similar symbolism.

You would often hear people say (Joseph Campbell falls into this trap) that ancient cultures 6-10,000 years ago would have seen the snake as a symbol of rebirth because of the shedding of its skin. You can then say that the Eden story is about the rebirth of man, and this appears to make perfect sense. The original assumption is based less on actual good evidence and more on a presumed similarity of thought between ancients and us.

All we can do is look at more modern religious and mythological societies that we do know about and compare and contrast. This is where the symbol of rebirth can be successfully attributed to the snake, because we have more information. It is still impossible to extrapolate this knowledge to earlier symbolism.

Interestingly, there are three symbols that crop up together all over the place,and they would be the tree, the snake, and the female (Goddess or human). This makes things easier to interpret and figure out what people mean. First you have to figure out what the whole is (ie all three symbols put together must add up to something, hence their repeated proximity in different culture). Certainly they seem to have some sort of cyclical, or transformative meaning. The tree often symbolizes eternity (look at Buddha, and his immovable spot - under a tree in a sacred garden), the snake appears to be - as said before - a symbol of rebirth, and the female tends to be the bringer of humanity into the situation. Often in mythology nature simply takes its course until the female gets involved. The female brings the human 'into' the situation and is the agent of life.

This all makes alot of sense in the context of Eden. The interaction of the female - the human - and the rebirth/transformation symbol of snake brings humanity away from the eternal(see my above post - by this I mean away from the simple, timeless existence of life without judgement whereby all is one) and towards our current, ego based existence.

All of this is very vague, i'm aware of that. These symbols are almost impossible to accurately, concisely and specifically interpret. There is always a layering of different meanings which not even the original creators of the myth were fully aware of, its a bizarre mix of intuition, conscious thought, and some kind of perceived revelation.

If anything I just find it an enjoyable and fun thing to think about. Its fulfilling, but also an impossible puzzle, as well as a good history lesson.

[sumskilz]

If one is interested in the intentions of the original author(s), there are a few pieces of evidence to consider:

The mother goddess Asherah is the wife of El (God) in Ugaritic texts. Ḥawwāh (life-giver) is her most common epithet. Ḥawwāh is Eve in Hebrew. Asherah appears to be the wife of Yahweh in some Iron Age inscriptions. Asherah's symbol is the tree of life. Canaanite goddess depictions are often of a woman holding two snakes, sometimes with a tree of life symbol on her pubic area. These are assumed to be Asherah.

To me, the story seems to be an etiological myth which has an agenda of adapting well-known polytheistic folklore to a monotheistic perspective. Genesis also does the same with Tiamat/Tehom by making her inanimate.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Back to your OP, the concept of the garden of Eden and original sin is contentious and I don't think you establish it was a real event let alone a positive one. It is worth discussing but we haven't really made much progress ITT.

I am not delusional enough to even attempt to argue for the reality of this myth. Only really delusional people will believe that serpents really talk human speech.

I think I have shown that the myth was written to be a positive one, they have become as Gods, whereas Christianity decided to make gaining, all knowledge as all knowledge is subject to good and evil, as somehow being evil.

Regards
DL

If anything I just find it an enjoyable and fun thing to think about. Its fulfilling, but also an impossible puzzle, as well as a good history lesson.

Interesting. Thanks.

I read you as coming down on the Jewish interpretation side. Yes?

Regards
DL

If one is interested in the intentions of the original author(s), there are a few pieces of evidence to consider:

The mother goddess Asherah is the wife of El (God) in Ugaritic texts. Ḥawwāh (life-giver) is her most common epithet. Ḥawwāh is Eve in Hebrew. Asherah appears to be the wife of Yahweh in some Iron Age inscriptions. Asherah's symbol is the tree of life. Canaanite goddess depictions are often of a woman holding two snakes, sometimes with a tree of life symbol on her pubic area. These are assumed to be Asherah.

To me, the story seems to be an etiological myth which has an agenda of adapting well-known polytheistic folklore to a monotheistic perspective. Genesis also does the same with Tiamat/Tehom by making her inanimate.

Each book of the bible is to stand alone as they were written separately.

Scriptures even tell us not to add to them. You have added quite a bit.

Do you see Original sin or Original Virtue in the story of Eden?

Regards
DL

[jockmcplop]

Interesting. Thanks.

I read you as coming down on the Jewish interpretation side. Yes?

Regards
DL

Kind of. I tend not to try and think about any grand metaphysical claims when it comes down to this stuff. I guess I like to look at it from an anthropological/psychological/historical point of view. At heart i think i'm a bit of a materialist, but with an interest in what makes humans tick, which isn't something science has come even close to getting a grasp on yet, so in the meantime these myths and symbols are a good guide to how people have historically seen things.
When it comes to Eden specifically, I guess the Jewish interpretation is probably somewhere close to where i sit. I also see parallels with buddhist mythology though, and prefer to interpret symbols as I find them, rather than stick to one interpretation or another.

Eden to me is simply one of a million metaphors for the birth of the ego, or rational thought. Its no wonder this concept is so heavily symbolized in ancient thought, the whole idea of a species gaining an entirely new way to experience life is an Earth shattering, traumatic ordeal, and these myths usually convey that type of apocalyptic idea.

Interestingly, if you look at modern new age conspiracy theory type myths, they are very similar. Michael Tsarion tells a fantastic tale of aliens coming to Earth and genetically modifying humans by inserting alien genetic markers into the human genome, thereby suppressing the subconscious. His myth uses modern psychological and pseudoscientific language to tell a similar story, but with a clear antagonist to humans (maybe YHWH is the closest thing to the aliens in the Bible).
Interestingly, he presents it as factual truth, despite the fact that he acknowledges the influence of mythologists like Joseph Campbell on his work.

I find that often accompanying these stories is an implicit yearning to get back to the state before the ego, which is very telling.

[Cyclops]

I am not delusional enough to even attempt to argue for the reality of this myth. Only really delusional people will believe that serpents really talk human speech.

I think I have shown that the myth was written to be a positive one, they have become as Gods, whereas Christianity decided to make gaining, all knowledge as all knowledge is subject to good and evil, as somehow being evil. ...

I don't think you have demonstrated that. The notion of original sin is not present but nor is a positive sense of awarenss as a positive thing: the myth speaks of shame, tyrannical punishment and exclusion.

One can certainly construct a reading but at best that's a re-arrangement of lifeless words and at worst it seems likely a complete contradiction of the original meaning.

If one is interested in the intentions of the original author(s), there are a few pieces of evidence to consider:

The mother goddess Asherah is the wife of El (God) in Ugaritic texts. Ḥawwāh (life-giver) is her most common epithet. Ḥawwāh is Eve in Hebrew. Asherah appears to be the wife of Yahweh in some Iron Age inscriptions. Asherah's symbol is the tree of life. Canaanite goddess depictions are often of a woman holding two snakes, sometimes with a tree of life symbol on her pubic area. These are assumed to be Asherah.

To me, the story seems to be an etiological myth which has an agenda of adapting well-known polytheistic folklore to a monotheistic perspective. Genesis also does the same with Tiamat/Tehom by making her inanimate.

Etiological! That's the word my woolly brain was fumbling for.

Completely agree. There are great jagged hunks of common Near Eastern mythology studded throughout the OT. The purposes they have been put to have changed over time sometimes leaving use wear on the texts.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Kind of. I tend not to try and think about any grand metaphysical claims when it comes down to this stuff. I guess I like to look at it from an anthropological/psychological/historical point of view. At heart i think i'm a bit of a materialist, but with an interest in what makes humans tick, which isn't something science has come even close to getting a grasp on yet, so in the meantime these myths and symbols are a good guide to how people have historically seen things.
When it comes to Eden specifically, I guess the Jewish interpretation is probably somewhere close to where i sit. I also see parallels with buddhist mythology though, and prefer to interpret symbols as I find them, rather than stick to one interpretation or another.

Eden to me is simply one of a million metaphors for the birth of the ego, or rational thought. Its no wonder this concept is so heavily symbolized in ancient thought, the whole idea of a species gaining an entirely new way to experience life is an Earth shattering, traumatic ordeal, and these myths usually convey that type of apocalyptic idea.

Interestingly, if you look at modern new age conspiracy theory type myths, they are very similar. Michael Tsarion tells a fantastic tale of aliens coming to Earth and genetically modifying humans by inserting alien genetic markers into the human genome, thereby suppressing the subconscious. His myth uses modern psychological and pseudoscientific language to tell a similar story, but with a clear antagonist to humans (maybe YHWH is the closest thing to the aliens in the Bible).
Interestingly, he presents it as factual truth, despite the fact that he acknowledges the influence of mythologists like Joseph Campbell on his work.

I find that often accompanying these stories is an implicit yearning to get back to the state before the ego, which is very telling.

Indeed. That is what the Christian take of a fall in Eden tries to tell us. They think a life of ignorant bliss is better than a life with knowledge. That I cannot agree with as it goes against our natural tendency to embrace and seek knowledge. In an evolving world where our evolution is more mental than physical, knowledge is what determines which of us is the fittest. Stopping that evolution would have the less fit inheriting the planet, somewhat as Jesus preached. That is not how nature works. It wants the fittest to inherit the earth.

Instead of some alien interfering with man, I begin to think we might have done it to ourselves cooperatively and universally because archeology is pushing civilization further back in time than presently accepted. We are finding pyramids deep in the oceans and they would have taken a lot more time to move there than our present view of civilization allows for. As we get more technological, we find that more and more children are committing suicide because of boredom and not seeing a worthy future for themselves. If that is one of the drawbacks of using more technology to do work instead of using our bodies, then an ancient unknown people might have decided to burn the books and do the other things that would return humanity to a more simple but rewarding lifestyle. This thinking borders on Matrix type thinking which some Gnostic Christians were into but I am not convinced of any of this as yet.

At present, we are pushing more and more hardship on future generations and if any such ego killing moves are to be done, we will have to wait for them to collectively decide to back us up to give them more to live for. If not, I can imagine mass suicide by those just fed up with being bored.

Regards
DL

[QUOTE=Cyclops;15025412]

I don't think you have demonstrated that. The notion of original sin is not present but nor is a positive sense of awarenss as a positive thing: the myth speaks of shame, tyrannical punishment and exclusion.

Shame is a result of the moral sense that A & E gained. I see that as good. A Timocratic Tyranny is what any God would create. He would rule for duty and honor and any people who chose him or her as a God would want a tyrannical enforcement of the laws collectively decided upon. Such a God would not allow freedom to break the rules.

Awareness would be knowledge of what is going on.

How do you figure that awareness is not a positive thing?

One can certainly construct a reading but at best that's a re-arrangement of lifeless words and at worst it seems likely a complete contradiction of the original meaning.

What do you see as the original meaning if not what the writers of this myth put to it, those being the Jewish?

Regards
DL

[fkizz]

Actually, the vilification of the many Serpent cults active in the early days was likely the main reason for Christianity vilifying the serpent and made the serpent into a female where before it was mostly androgynous like most of the other Eastern Gods.

The serpent cults were quite ancient. They began 70,000 years ago so were likely well entrenched by the time Christianity decided to vilify the serpent.

https://www.apollon.uio.no/english/a...n-english.html

Interesting link. But to be fair, the serpent of Old Testament is not a serpent as we imagine it, it does have the name of serpent, but given its sentence was to crawl the earth forever, then how was the serpent before the fall of man? Did it fly? Walk on two feet?

Just the word serpent isn't enough, given we're talking about a being that 1) is capable of talking to a person and persuading said person, therefore high level of intelligence 2) has other means of roaming around other than crawling. This is very far away from a serpent as we know it.

Do you see Original sin or Original Virtue in the story of Eden?

Both, but we lost more than we won in fall of man. If you disagree, simply see on how in natural state it is easier to be pessimistic than optimistic. Optimistic times can even be dubbed as relatively rare "golden ages", while pessimistic times is the regular.

The mother goddess Asherah is the wife of El (God) in Ugaritic texts. Ḥawwāh (life-giver) is her most common epithet. Ḥawwāh is Eve in Hebrew. Asherah appears to be the wife of Yahweh in some Iron Age inscriptions. Asherah's symbol is the tree of life. Canaanite goddess depictions are often of a woman holding two snakes, sometimes with a tree of life symbol on her pubic area. These are assumed to be Asherah.

To me, the story seems to be an etiological myth which has an agenda of adapting well-known polytheistic folklore to a monotheistic perspective. Genesis also does the same with Tiamat/Tehom by making her inanimate.

I take you see current reading of Fall of Man with an influence of Jewish rebuilding of 2nd Temple under Persian and Zoroastrian religious influence?

[Cyclops]

How do you figure that awareness is not a positive thing?

Oh I think awareness is really cool.

But the writers of genesis 2:2 ff state that Adam and Eve on eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong felt afraid of being naked and made themselves clothes: these in turn tipped God off that they had eaten the fruit and this got them all cursed with pain: for man it was the pain of hard work to eat, for woman it was the pain of childbirth (as well as obeying their husbands because they were sexy) and the snake was made to crawl and get stepped on (although his offspring would get to bite the odd heel).

Pain and fear is the story of Eden as it is written.

What do you see as the original meaning if not what the writers of this myth put to it, those being the Jewish?

I agree with Sumskilz (who I can't rep anymore than I already do) that the myth looks like fragments of an etiological (love that word) myth about why snakes crawl, why women have pains in childbirth and why men have to work for a living.

Someone bundled some cute "just so" stories into a bigger story, and then it was glossed with comments about marriage (Genesis 2: 24) although this may be another etiological myth to explain marriage customs. The actual text is weird, talking about a man leaving his mother and father to cling to his wife when neither Adam or Eve has parents.

It was set "in the beginning" to give it the patina of antiquity, God was called into the story to give it some authority and Eden invented as the setting: a special place were God kept special trees (references to non Jewish religious practices, indicating either Judaism was more diverse in its early beliefs, or includes non Jewish stories). Later on the Christians cook up some nonsense about original sin which just isn't there but that doesn't change the fact the elements that look the oldest (snakes getting stepped on, women screaming in pain, men with backaches) are harsh and negative.

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Interesting link. But to be fair, the serpent of Old Testament is not a serpent as we imagine it, it does have the name of serpent, but given its sentence was to crawl the earth forever, then how was the serpent before the fall of man? Did it fly? Walk on two feet?

Just the word serpent isn't enough, given we're talking about a being that 1) is capable of talking to a person and persuading said person, therefore high level of intelligence 2) has other means of roaming around other than crawling. This is very far away from a serpent as we know it.

That info has been lost or shrouded. The serpent has been associate with both Satan and a winged dragons so it is best to just use whatever the individual myths show.

Both, but we lost more than we won in fall of man. If you disagree, simply see on how in natural state it is easier to be pessimistic than optimistic. Optimistic times can even be dubbed as relatively rare "golden ages", while pessimistic times is the regular.

I do not agree that we lost more than we gained. I do not see a life, even eternal life, as worth living without what is basically the knowledge of everything, as everything is subject to good and evil.

I am pleased that the Jews thought so as well.

Do you see yourself enjoying life with a blank mind that is too stupid to even know that you are naked and lacking a moral sense?

Regards
DL

Oh I think awareness is really cool.

But the writers of genesis 2:2 ff state that Adam and Eve on eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong felt afraid of being naked and made themselves clothes:

You distort the story. They felt shame, not fear, which is said to demonstrate that they had developed a moral sense.

You do not go about naked because of your moral sense. Right?

these in turn tipped God off that they had eaten the fruit and this got them all cursed with pain:

An omnipotent all knowing God would have known what they were going to do before they did it yet he allowed it. If he did not want them to do what they did then he would have been there when the serpent was deceiving Eve. Right?

for man it was the pain of hard work to eat, for woman it was the pain of childbirth (as well as obeying their husbands because they were sexy) and the snake was made to crawl and get stepped on (although his offspring would get to bite the odd heel).

Yes but the gain was as shown in the O.P.

The gain was becoming an adult instead of remaining a dumb and unproductive kept child.

You might wonder though if it is moral for God to have added all those woes arbitrarily after the fact instead of before the fact of them eating of the tree of knowledge. I think that that is quite immoral. Do you?

Pain and fear is the story of Eden as it is written.

Graduating or moving to adulthood from childhood is what I see.

I agree with Sumskilz (who I can't rep anymore than I already do) that the myth looks like fragments of an etiological (love that word) myth about why snakes crawl, why women have pains in childbirth and why men have to work for a living.

Someone bundled some cute "just so" stories into a bigger story, and then it was glossed with comments about marriage (Genesis 2: 24) although this may be another etiological myth to explain marriage customs. The actual text is weird, talking about a man leaving his mother and father to cling to his wife when neither Adam or Eve has parents.

It was set "in the beginning" to give it the patina of antiquity, God was called into the story to give it some authority and Eden invented as the setting: a special place were God kept special trees (references to non Jewish religious practices, indicating either Judaism was more diverse in its early beliefs, or includes non Jewish stories). Later on the Christians cook up some nonsense about original sin which just isn't there but that doesn't change the fact the elements that look the oldest (snakes getting stepped on, women screaming in pain, men with backaches) are harsh and negative.

Sure beats being a kept child who never matures.

I am pleased that you see the Original Sin as the nonsense, lie to me, that it is.

Regards
DL

[Cyclops]

....
You distort the story...

Look that's a pretty serious accusation. If you're going to start accusing people of distortion you might want to back that up with evidence. I'm finding nothing in your posts with any more certain basis than the beliefs you disparage, and they are presented far less convincingly than orthodox Christian beliefs.

.... They felt shame, not fear, which is said to demonstrate that they had developed a moral sense.

The chapter and verse is Genesis 3:10 He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” The only mention of shame in the Eden story is a negative one at Genesis 2:25 "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed."

....Sure beats being a kept child who never matures.

You're entitled to your opinion. Its entirely irrelevant to your exegesis though.

....I am pleased that you see the Original Sin as the nonsense, lie to me, that it is.

I do not see Original Sin as nonsense, just the arguments based on genesis to support it. As an agnostic I don't claim to know the truth.

You are entitled to construct your own exegesis of Biblical texts, but I have to say they are less convincing than the ones you criticise.

[fkizz]

I do not agree that we lost more than we gained. I do not see a life, even eternal life, as worth living without what is basically the knowledge of everything, as everything is subject to good and evil.

I am pleased that the Jews thought so as well.

Well, that is the definition of Original Sin, regardless if you see such as good or bad. Do you not see the irony?

Do you see yourself enjoying life with a blank mind that is too stupid to even know that you are naked and lacking a moral sense?

Given on how average dude bro likes to get laid and drunk the most possible, I'd say they miss such state and end up mimicking non sense caricatures.

I am pleased that you see the Original Sin as the nonsense, lie to me, that it is.

You agreed with the definition of Original Sin, ie. losing immortal life in exchange for knowledge of Good and Evil, as other now mortal awarenesses.