(July 20, 2014 at 8:39 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I think it's a great allegory for the reasons you mentioned and also because I think it can be broadened to include the entire genesis of conscious reflection itself; that is, there certainly seems to be a crude innocence, if you will, in other animals that most human beings do not share. It's almost as if the Garden of Eden story was an attempt to capture the all too familiar saying, "We're too evolved for our own good." (To eat from "the tree of knowledge").
This is really a good point you're making.
About ten years ago I read a book called Forbidden Knowledge, which dealt with the titular topic not only in history, but also its expression in the arts -- Frankenstein, the various horror movies of the Fifties and Sixties positing monsters coming from techno-nightmares.
It struck me then that the entire Eden story is an allegory about the danger of curiosity and learning, a danger which should have been obvious to the founders of the religion. I reckon Genesis was included as it was written precisely because it is a not-so-subtle warning to believers to not ask questions, to blindly obey, and that the penalty for not so doing is not only death, but the damnation of your progeny.
"Never forget -- knowledge is bad." Seen in that light, it's not so surprising that the fervent faithful despise science, despise nonconformity, and often home-school their children.
