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jsmiller
And now I will address that Gawd-awful
story of the "Original Sin" which you have already stated was literal.
So we have this "omni-max" (all knowing, all powerful, all benevolent) god create the universe in 6 days, he creates earth and everything on it, including humans, he creates a woman from the man's rib.....he creates a tree of knowledge of good and evil AND a tree of everlasting life. He puts both trees in the garden where the newly formed humans are and tells them they can eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil or they shall surely die in that day they eat.
Lets look at this with a critical eye. There's a tree of knowledge of good and evil that as we read on gives knowledge of good and evil. What does that say about Adam and Eve? It says that if they needed to eat from the tree in order to get that knowledge that they didnt already have it. Your god made them into fukkin bafoons, NOT into rational intelligent beings capable of critical thought; hell they didnt even know what good and evil was, and god said it was "good." Now there is also a tree in the garden which gives everlasting life. What does this say? It says that Adam and Eve were going to die, otherwise there would be no need for a tree to dispense eternal life. Lets go back to the story.
Yahweh also puts a serpent in the garden; this serpent comes to Eve and asks Eve if Yahweh said they couldnt eat from every tree in the garden. He then presents her with a fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and Eve saw that it was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and that it would give her knowledge (she gave him brains in return she had to drop out of college). The serpent told her that she would NOT surely die and that she would become like Yahweh. So she ate the fruit and gave some to her dimwitted mate.
Notice that the serpent did not threaten her or force her to do anything. He simply gave her information and allowed her to decide.
So now "the lord" is walking through the garden and cant find Adam, and has to ask if he has eaten from the tree (some omnimax). He states that the man has become like one of US (a remnant to the old poly theistic religion they stole the story from), knowing good and evil. He also kicks them out of the garden and placed swords to guard the tree of everlasting life so they could not eat of it and live forever. A&E apparently go on to live hundreds of years and have children, and DONT die in the day they ate the fruit.
Now, surely you see all the problems here. First, since Yahweh (actually Elohim, not Yahweh) made them into idiots, how would they know that disobeying was eveil? Would they even know what disobeying is? Does your dog or cat disobey you, do they know of good and evil? How can an omni benevolent god punish them for not knowing something that HE MADE SURE THEY DIDNT KNOW? Secondly, they did not die in the day they ate the fruit, and they became like god, even god said it. So the devil actually told the truth, it was god that lied. The serpent was actually responsible for giving humanity the traits you identify with humanity today, god made people no more than unaware animals. Finally, obviously the result of sin was not death, because they were going to die anyways, or else they wouldnt have needed to eat from the tree of life to live forever and god wouldnt have had to kick them out of the garden to prevent it.
If you believe that story is literal there is nothing I can do for you, you are lost. But even further, if the story is NOT literal then this whole Jesus stuff that Christians rest their hats on is purposeless. A myth, like the rest of the book.
