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Monday 25 January 2016

Original Sin

Adam and Eve.
Are we really responsible for original sin?

“God fashions Adam from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden. Adam is told that he can till the ground and eat freely of all the trees in the garden, except for a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of which he is prohibited from eating. Subsequently, Eve is created from one of Adam's ribs to be Adam's companion. However, a serpent tricks Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree, and she gives some of the fruit to Adam. God curses the serpent and the ground. God prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God. Then he banishes 'the man' from the Garden of Eden.”


What I am writing here is that by telling some one not to do something, by making a rule you will automatically create a desire in other peoples minds to break that rule, to do the very thing you don't want done.

God told Adam and Eve they could till the ground and eat freely and then in that garden of plenty he made a tree that would bare fruit too and then forbade Adam and Eve from eating from it. God at that moment planted the seed of desire into the minds of Adam and Eve. He created a tree that bore fruit and then forbid the fruit from being eaten! Is God by doing this the origin of original sin which the church to this day says we are responsible for still?

Is the serpent responsible for Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit? It is after all responsible for tempting Eve to pick the fruit and share it with Adam. If the seed of desire had not been planted by God in the first place the serpent would not have been able to make that seed grow in the mind of Eve until she acted on it. It was this seed planted by God that drew the serpent into the garden of Eden!

By creating the garden of Eden, a home for Adam and Eve, and then setting a condition by which he knew he would have to punish Adam and Eve if they broke it, was God not in fact setting up Adam and Eve to fail? If God wanted Adam and Eve to have free choice and to be able to make their own decisions perhaps he should of shared the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit? Expulsion from the garden of Eden!

I think the tale of Adam and Eve is just a story, it has a message, it's true message has been lost I suspect replaced by the church with one that supports it's needs, it's need for it's followers to be burdened with the concept of original sin, a constant feeling of guilt over something they have no responsibility for backed up by fear, the fear of hell and not arriving in heaven after we shed our earthy form unless we do as the church instructs. In short, story's like Adam and Eve are a form of control used by the church to keep us fearful and therefore compliant and following it's teachings.

The church likes to refer to followers who have strayed from it as lost sheep, has the church it self in it's desire to control it's followers become a lost sheep itself from the true teachings of God?