In Genesis, we see established understanding of the cycles between day and night, of the differentiation between "kinds" of animal, of the distinction between the solid ground and the ocean. The understanding and organization of time, distinguishing "days" by the passing of the sun. Reserving the seventh day for recuperation shows imposed meaning on certain measurements of the day cycle. These are simple concepts to us, but remember that this is humankind as it achieves understanding and innovation, as it makes sense of the world.
In this story, humans live within nature, naive and innocent, until insatiable curiosity drives them to take knowledge from nature and as consequence, are made separate from nature. They are made naked, they are unnatural. They craft unnatural things from the flora and fauna, inventing clothes, an essential so ingrained in human society that we don't even think of it as technology.
It is a tribal metaphor of ascent into sapience, that resonates through to modern cultural standards of "decency".
I'm not suggesting these ancient tribal folk were actually talking about evolution or sapience when they told these stories to their fellows, but I can see a metaphor that emerges from this superstitious myth thousands of years later.
It's a tribal myth preserved by the Hebrew tribe from around the beginnings of recorded history, the work of humans trying to make sense of the world. The imaginings of a single band of uneducated, unenlightened, ignorant tribal warlords has made our culture as it is, it has affected every aspect of our lives and our society, regardless of our belief in a god. And this tribe was one among countless others, thousands of other faiths and superstitions and claims to absolute truth.
I don't think we really ever consider exactly how the traditions of a single obscure bronze age tribe have affected all of society. Cause and effect, measured in centuries, are the laws of tradition.
I think that even while arguing from the position of science and reasoning, we can in ways be blinded by our cultural bias. We have been manipulated to think of "God" as an abstract, as something that we can't disprove, as something people can believe in without reason, because as they say, God exists outside of reason.
But "God" does not exist outside of reason, "God" is just a concept, it's just an idea, information passed down from one generation to the next.
In this story, humans live within nature, naive and innocent, until insatiable curiosity drives them to take knowledge from nature and as consequence, are made separate from nature. They are made naked, they are unnatural. They craft unnatural things from the flora and fauna, inventing clothes, an essential so ingrained in human society that we don't even think of it as technology.
It is a tribal metaphor of ascent into sapience, that resonates through to modern cultural standards of "decency".
I'm not suggesting these ancient tribal folk were actually talking about evolution or sapience when they told these stories to their fellows, but I can see a metaphor that emerges from this superstitious myth thousands of years later.
It's a tribal myth preserved by the Hebrew tribe from around the beginnings of recorded history, the work of humans trying to make sense of the world. The imaginings of a single band of uneducated, unenlightened, ignorant tribal warlords has made our culture as it is, it has affected every aspect of our lives and our society, regardless of our belief in a god. And this tribe was one among countless others, thousands of other faiths and superstitions and claims to absolute truth.
I don't think we really ever consider exactly how the traditions of a single obscure bronze age tribe have affected all of society. Cause and effect, measured in centuries, are the laws of tradition.
I think that even while arguing from the position of science and reasoning, we can in ways be blinded by our cultural bias. We have been manipulated to think of "God" as an abstract, as something that we can't disprove, as something people can believe in without reason, because as they say, God exists outside of reason.
But "God" does not exist outside of reason, "God" is just a concept, it's just an idea, information passed down from one generation to the next.
