Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[vulcanlogician]

Ok, next passage:

The Fall

Probably the first philosophically interesting passage. Who would like to give this an analysis? Doesn't matter what type of analysis, anything is fine.

I have some things to say about this one. I'm going to analyze the excerpt for its myth value here. That is to say, I'm looking for themes that adequately or accurately describe our predicament as human beings or illuminate some facet of human nature/human experience that is better expressed via symbols.

Take the story of Arachne from Greek myths. Arachne was a weaver who boasted that she could weave better than the gods. One day Athena challenged her to a weaving contest. Arachne won. Out of spite, Athena turned Arachne into a spider. This is a piss poor origin story for spiders, which is what it pretends to be on one level. (Evolutionary science does a much better job of explaining why spiders exist.) But, if you were mining the tale for truth/wisdom, you might arrive at "Never outshine the master" or, (if you went deeper) "a person is often held in contempt if she has extraordinary ability, regardless if she proves herself or not." C. G. Jung took this to a further extreme and said that myths were a symbology through which we can better understand ourselves and the world. 

Adam and Eve (and the Fall):

We were once innocent creatures of nature. Like the lion is blameless in the harm it causes to it's prey (ie not morally responsible), we were once in this state of innocence where we were at times interpersonally destructive and violent...... but never evil. To further elaborate on this, I could bring in the example of a mean neighborhood dog who bites a child and is subsequently put down. Nobody says the dog is evil. The dog is put down because it is dangerous. People might point to the dog's training, but nobody holds the dog morally responsible. Humans were once in this state of profound innocence.

But as we evolved to our current state and began to settle and practice agriculture, we found ourselves with free time in which we might reflect on our actions. Being "rational animals" we could recognize the destructive impact that some of our actions had. (ie. "We saw that we were naked," we became aware of good and evil). We saw that it was wrong to let children die of starvation, to murder, or to steal others' hard won goods. At this point we were "cursed" with moral responsibility and cast out of the paradise that we previously enjoyed. From then on, we had to toil in the fields and take part in society... though such an existence enslaved us to some degree. Society itself had it's fair share of goods and evils and we were cursed to recognize those evils when we saw them, becoming outraged. But we could also recognize the good too.

As the Bible story suggests, our eyes were opened at that point. And though our existence became a great burden, it also afforded us insight and autonomy that we previously did not have.