Discussion If God, The Garden of Eden etc. was real- was it a trap? Were Adam and Eve set up to fail?

[Forever Sleep]

This is what I've never been able to understand regarding the Christian religion and why people believe God to be a good, caring father figure or even a just ruler.

God presumably knows everything. God presumably created everything in a certain way also. Including The Tree of Knowledge and imbuing Adam and Eve with a sense of curiosity, a susceptability to temptation and even defiance. Then, he lumps them together somewhere knowing the probability of what will happen. How was that not a trap? It wasn't even a test with a low mark if they screwed up. It was lifelong punishment for the whole human race when they inevitably screwed up!

Not that I believe in it to be honest but I still find it so strange people of faith accept it as a reasonable way to rule. Like- I understand why people would fear such a God but, not why they would love them.

It reminds me a bit of this scene from The Matrix...



The Oracle must have known what Smith would do. So- in effect- is there even 'free choice' if we're pushed into a decision?

God created Adam and Eve to be susceptible to temptation, curiosity, defiance. Whether or not the serpant/ snake that tempted them was also created by God- it was still allowed to do its work there. Surely, God was setting them up for failure? Maybe God already knew what they would do? In which case- Why let it play out? Surely, because God enjoys punishing people and creates any excuse possible to justify it.

I want to add that I'm not trying to criticize religious people here. I just find it hard to see how people are comforted by there being such a God.

 

[E5463656]

It's to give humans free will no?

 

[Lost in a Dream]

It absolutely was a trap. It was the kind of trap where a parent laces the cookies with drugs and tells the kids not to eat them because something bad will happen, without telling them what the drugs will do. Free will is a cop out to excuse all the suffering away, when the characters of Adam and Eve were never told beforehand that their choice would affect all life on Earth for the rest of time. All that was told to them was "You will die" not "You will curse all life with suffering and death for generation after generation".

Even though I don't literally believe in the Adam and Eve story, I still believe a malevolent entity created our world. My will is to not exist at the snap of my fingers, and not having this ability proves that I do not have free will.

 

[Forever Sleep]

It's to give humans free will no?

True, but then, they were punished for using that free will via:

'Banishing them from the Garden of Eden.
Forcing them and their descendants to live lives of hardship.
Making Adam work hard to farm difficult land to produce food.
Causing Eve to suffer pain in childbirth from now on.
Cursing the ground so that Adam would have to eat from it with hard labor all the days of his life.
Telling Adam, "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."'

It's like God is saying: I'm going to give you free will but, I'll punish you if you use it to defy me. Also- I'm going to make it incredibly tempting to use it to defy me and- if you don't weaken enough to do so on your own, my slithery snake friend will tempt you further... I feel like an evil laugh should come after that...

Besides that though- why didn't Adam/ Eve/ both turn antinatilist? Not that I believe we originated from them but- it would have spared us if it's true we did.

 

[Namelesa]

I find it also hard to see how people are comforted by a God. The only thing I can see him as is a sadist (one I didn't consent to) and we are his mistreated toys or abused pets that he likes to torture, experiment or play with.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Free Will in general seems to be an illusion. God probably did know all that stuff would happen and totally allowed it. Why? Maybe he was bored idk.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I find it also hard to see how people are comforted by a God. The only thing I can see him as is a sadist (one I didn't consent to) and we are his mistreated toys or abused pets that he likes to torture, experiment or play with.

I don't get it. I think they have an idea of God in their heads loosely based on the nicer bits of life. Maybe cherry picked via a few of the kinder stories in our religions. Plus, even our orthodox religions need to change over time in order to still attract 'customers'. I guess I'm pleased for people who can feel comforted by it but, it does so much damage too. Wars etc.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

"Adam & Eve" have far older roots and weren't invented by the Hebrews. Adam and Eve have their roots in the far older Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.

Lilith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My own thoughts:

Whatever the "Garden Eden" was - considering that at the end of the last ice age sea levels rose and most likely very fertile land began to be "eaten by the sea". Ofc the people living at that time had no idea what was really going on. Also, the Sahara Desert was once green - it could have been the "Garden Eden". It's like today - we know the sea levels are rising bc polar ice is melting and land will inevitably be eaten by the sea. Today we know why this is happening - there's no almighty god needed anymore to explain it.

 

[avalonisburning]

The only way it wouldn't have been a trap, the only way they wouldn't have been set up to fail, the only way God's wrath and the punishment that followed would have been justified, is if God wasn't really as omniscient as the Bible claims he is, and I'm committing sacrilege by even suggesting that if you believe the Bible.

It's all vibes-based, and it falls apart the moment you apply high school literary analysis and criticism to it. That's probably why so many religious authorities want to gut education, because they have too much tied up in people being incapable of critically examining their beliefs.

 

[SVEN]

As Dante could have ( but didn't) expressed it in his Divine Comedy; would an almighty Creator's motto be, "What else could I be but a Jester ?"
Though that inspirational thought had to wait for "Horseshit on Route 66".

 

[nihilistic_dragon]

When I was religious, the explanation I came up with to not lose my faith was that in our world if, for example, you murder someone and you didn't know that it was unlawful, you will still not escape punishment, you can't say "oh I didn't know murder was illegal".

I could never understand, however, why god had to be this strict and cruel the very first fucking time the first humans made a mistake. Plus the punishment extends to the whole human race. Not fair.

An argument can be made that the biblical account is not a very detailed one. So perhaps the first humans had made lesser mistakes and the forbidden fruit was basically the final straw? In any case, whatever beliefs we hold, we are all influenced by the confirmation bias and even by the cognitive dissonance, and it takes a lot of effort and courage to question our own beliefs. Confirmation bias really lets you delude yourself indefinitely, it's amazing what things you're able to explain away while you are holding onto a certain system of beliefs.

 

[Darkover]

the adam and eve story just highlight that we are deterministic with limited choice between a selection of things


In the movie 'The Matrix', there is a shot of a mirrored doorknob that Neo reaches for.

There was no way to properly hide the camera, so the director of photography threw a coat onto himself with a tie matching the one Morpheus was wearing, trying to blend in as much as possible.

You probably never noticed.

 

[notreallybored]

ב''ה,

Great, an opportunity to study on the day for it. Rabbi Manis Friedman has some Jewish hot takes if you search his name and 'garden of Eden' on YouTube.

Jewish perspective: human life has always been a muddle, but as far as what the culture was, a young male would have the opportunity to study and pray until marital obligations took him from it, while depending how voluntary or functional/obligatory the marriage was (dowry etc.) there's a sort of academic ribbing about that: ah, you've been swept off by G-d's will keeping you from studying, now to walk the kids in to see it unfold again. It's complicated but once married a Jewish male has duties to his wife, and if everyone is hetero enough hopefully that's happy but don't show the whole village and arouse envy.

So, the combination of phallic and placental allusions in the story allude to that, with the creation of people and birth of nations setting the stage for that.

Hope that helps y'all figure out what the hell you're reading, but Rome put twists on it by the time it got copypasta'd into a different religion.

 

[I_go_in]

Honestly and no offense but I don't know a single person with a three digit iq that unironically believes any of that stuff is real. I'm assuming you're young. Don't worry, religion is like everything else an emergent phenomenon and only exists in the minds of people (though that is powerful). What you see is what you get in this world unfortunately. There's no "true world" theories.

 

[E5463656]

True, but then, they were punished for using that free will via:

'Banishing them from the Garden of Eden.
Forcing them and their descendants to live lives of hardship.
Making Adam work hard to farm difficult land to produce food.
Causing Eve to suffer pain in childbirth from now on.
Cursing the ground so that Adam would have to eat from it with hard labor all the days of his life.
Telling Adam, "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."'

It's like God is saying: I'm going to give you free will but, I'll punish you if you use it to defy me. Also- I'm going to make it incredibly tempting to use it to defy me and- if you don't weaken enough to do so on your own, my slithery snake friend will tempt you further... I feel like an evil laugh should come after that...

Besides that though- why didn't Adam/ Eve/ both turn antinatilist? Not that I believe we originated from them but- it would have spared us if it's true we did.

Not really...80% of human history has been humans living life of hardship, farming on difficult land and women suffering in childbirth...

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

Something I don't understand is if eating the fruit gave humanity knowledge of good and evil, then presumably Adam and Eve wouldn't have even been able to conceive of the idea of deception, obedience, etc. They have no morality before eating the fruit, so even disregarding the whole free will discussion, how could they be held accountable? The analogy @nihilistic_dragon provided, with the murderer who doesn't know murder is wrong, doesn't work because in that scenario, maybe the individual himself isn't aware of the morality of their action, but everyone else in their society--and species--is. In the Garden, however, a known system of morality doesn't already exist for humanity, so it makes no sense to judge their actions based on it.

 

[nihilistic_dragon]

ב''ה,

Great, an opportunity to study on the day for it. Rabbi Manis Friedman has some Jewish hot takes if you search his name and 'garden of Eden' on YouTube.

I like that rabbi's perspective on marriage and relationships. Even if you're not religious, he has some solid advice.

Something I don't understand is if eating the fruit gave humanity knowledge of good and evil, then presumably Adam and Eve wouldn't have even been able to conceive of the idea of deception, obedience, etc. They have no morality before eating the fruit, so even disregarding the whole free will discussion, how could they be held accountable? The analogy @nihilistic_dragon provided, with the murderer who doesn't know murder is wrong, doesn't work because in that scenario, maybe the individual himself isn't aware of the morality of their action, but everyone else in their society--and species--is. In the Garden, however, a known system of morality doesn't already exist for humanity, so it makes no sense to judge their actions based on it.

Yeah that's a good point actually. Just makes the whole situation seem even less fair.

 

[notreallybored]

ב''ה,

As much as I've gotten good at understanding the meaning of this perspective and other religions running with it have stressed people out, amidst all the hatred in the world:

Gender roles, everyone loves to hate them. As Judaism possibly repeatedly settled down from nomadic to urban-agrarian, males got to run the courts and religion, generally on the advice of spouses who would run the home and have less religious obligations for being busy with that, the blursed miracle of carrying and raising children etc. (If anything in between, bunch of law on what your religious obligations become.) While probably tried every different way in thousands of years of history, married life at least always meant a reassortment of homes and leaving the comfortable womb or placenta of religious-legal studies to encounter 'the real world' hopefully with knowledge of the history and law of the land for that, cue US complaints that school doesn't even teach tax forms while at least in ancient Israel it did.

So while it's ripe with meanings, the story really gestures at that and the additional drama of the slight exaggerations making the situation worse, 'value truth because look what got us into this mess.'

Jewish culture takes it somewhat more as another wild story from the great-great..great-grandparents and a reminder to be on your guard against behavior that makes things worse than some of the stuff Rome and Europe etc. added.

Can feel like a stretch but within the practice, it's not exactly misogynistic both for Rabbinical adjustments (matrilineality) and because the whole thing ends up being about comparing guys' obligations to G-d to obligations to their spouses. Everyone gets different ways of wielding power, 'and you can do whatever within your obligations' although the list isn't exactly that short.

Hoping that gives anyone a more balanced perspective. As how Eve turns up in the garden, ancient religious education would preserve some gender segregation yet, come that time of life, parents would still perhaps hope their kids find someone, so the original 'wrestling with G-d' was leaving studies to married life and this was about as much as could be impressed by bar mitzvah age. "Aww, how terrible, you're not going to be at shul as much, mazel tov with that."

Now, because there's that Yoko Ono bit of hazing encoded in the religion if practiced strictly, and Eve (just going with the names y'all know) initiates the adventure as would connect sheltered males to the female side of village life and gossip around the well and laundry etc., it's that "here's a slightly naughty thing you must do to preserve humanity" story. (And also save all that for after the ceremony lest the whole village get bent.)

As much as this is tinged with aspects of village life then, take it that way. For guys after marriage it was ping-pong between home life, their professions as may have been shared with their spouses or not, and the Elks' Lodge of the school/study hall/court, and for women it was fairly free aside from dress code and the menstrual stuff arguably to avoid bloodthirstiness because Judaism is wild, just no obligation to study or perform in public as much. Still awkward because life is awkward, fair to say the ladies would be busy learning survival stuff while the guys studied law and whatever else might have been taught for the needs of the time.

Cleansing in Judaism happens.. regularly with all the immersion and hand-washing, not least to keep the precious scrolls clean, and spiritually, once a year around harvest, maybe G-d gives you any portion of another year. It's a different perspective if you've been immersed in the "European" approach to religions. Possibly also got a bit more screwed down after generations of exile in Europe but comparing Middle Eastern zeal to European zeal shows G-d can make folks nuts anywhere.

I guess the difference I'm trying to get at is that this is the "hey, people fuck up sometimes, sometimes with massive consequences, and you can add the G-d planned this chassidic twist" vs. the Roman "you specifically have to keep showing up to atone for your ancestors" approach to keeping kids in school, shul, church, mosque, whatever.

 

[divinemistress36]

"Adam & Eve" have far older roots and weren't invented by the Hebrews. Adam and Eve have their roots in the far older Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.

Lilith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My own thoughts:

Whatever the "Garden Eden" was - considering that at the end of the last ice age sea levels rose and most likely very fertile land began to be "eaten by the sea". Ofc the people living at that time had no idea what was really going on. Also, the Sahara Desert was once green - it could have been the "Garden Eden". It's like today - we know the sea levels are rising bc polar ice is melting and land will inevitably be eaten by the sea. Today we know why this is happening - there's no almighty god needed anymore to explain it.

Love Lilith