God's injustice towards Adam and Eve

[John V]

Congrats, it looks like you've uncovered another contradiction in the Bible.

Yeah...unless you keep going and read the next sentence.

[archangle]

It's not difficult, with objectivity, to understand that the Adam and Eve story depicts the worst sort of injustice. Even taking it at face value, look what we have going on here.

God tells A&E not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They did so anyway. God hands down some really harsh punishment, because to disobey God is to commit evil.

The pair immediately exhibit this knowledge upon eating the fruit. They are fearful of God and ashamed of their nudity. It is extremely obvious that they could not have understood it was wrong to disobey God until after doing it. So, they are being punished for doing something that they literally could not have known was wrong. Possessing that knowledge is, indeed, the very 'crime' for which they were punished!

Of course, it wasn't just them. All humanity has to suffer because of this 'sin'. And, just for one harmless transgression that caused absolutely no damage or loss to God. It is a maximal punishment for a minimal crime, and people continue to suffer the punishment for a 'sin' only two people committed.

Why did God do this? He knew they lacked the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. He knew that they had no real concept of the free will they were using, as they had never really used it in any meaningful way before that.

But, it's even worse than that. Why did God create a serpent who could talk? No other animal in the Bible is ever depicted as having innate powers of human speech. In fact, there is only one other talking animal in the Bible, Balaam's donkey. Balaam's donkey couldn't speak on its own. God spoke through it. There was the bush which spoke to Moses, but that was also God speaking through an object that has no such capacity on its own. Satan isn't named as the serpent at any point in the Bible. Who else could it be but God, enticing his ignorant victims into disobeying his own orders?

How can this be defended as 'justice'? It's cruel and wicked and not resembling justice in the slightest. It does, however, make a 'savior' necessary, doesn't it?

The very first story of the Bible is nothing but a diabolical con by an evil monster, and it proves the fallacy of 'biblical free will': God gave it to you and will damn you for ever using it.

As an aside, Adam is depicted as doing nothing to dissuade Eve from taking the fruit, joining her in the 'crime' without argument, and blames Eve for everything when God calls them out on it, therefore demonstrating that he is weak-willed, passive and a total coward. So, why does God make Eve subservient to him, instead of the other way around? He's clearly the less-qualified of the two to be the dominant member of the couple.

The way people describe a story in the bible is better than any ink blot. It is even better than a mirror in that it exposes true intents that may be hiding under that fancy dress.

Who gave you free will?

Let me guess, you think you have something more of "something" than the rest of the universe? Clearly that is not possible.

[StealthySkeptic]

---

It's not difficult, with objectivity, to understand that the Adam and Eve story depicts the worst sort of injustice. Even taking it at face value, look what we have going on here.

God tells A&E not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They did so anyway. God hands down some really harsh punishment, because to disobey God is to commit evil.

The pair immediately exhibit this knowledge upon eating the fruit. They are fearful of God and ashamed of their nudity. It is extremely obvious that they could not have understood it was wrong to disobey God until after doing it. So, they are being punished for doing something that they literally could not have known was wrong. Possessing that knowledge is, indeed, the very 'crime' for which they were punished!

Of course, it wasn't just them. All humanity has to suffer because of this 'sin'. And, just for one harmless transgression that caused absolutely no damage or loss to God. It is a maximal punishment for a minimal crime, and people continue to suffer the punishment for a 'sin' only two people committed.

Why did God do this? He knew they lacked the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. He knew that they had no real concept of the free will they were using, as they had never really used it in any meaningful way before that.

But, it's even worse than that. Why did God create a serpent who could talk? No other animal in the Bible is ever depicted as having innate powers of human speech. In fact, there is only one other talking animal in the Bible, Balaam's donkey. Balaam's donkey couldn't speak on its own. God spoke through it. There was the bush which spoke to Moses, but that was also God speaking through an object that has no such capacity on its own. Satan isn't named as the serpent at any point in the Bible. Who else could it be but God, enticing his ignorant victims into disobeying his own orders?

How can this be defended as 'justice'? It's cruel and wicked and not resembling justice in the slightest. It does, however, make a 'savior' necessary, doesn't it?

The very first story of the Bible is nothing but a diabolical con by an evil monster, and it proves the fallacy of 'biblical free will': God gave it to you and will damn you for ever using it.

As an aside, Adam is depicted as doing nothing to dissuade Eve from taking the fruit, joining her in the 'crime' without argument, and blames Eve for everything when God calls them out on it, therefore demonstrating that he is weak-willed, passive and a total coward. So, why does God make Eve subservient to him, instead of the other way around? He's clearly the less-qualified of the two to be the dominant member of the couple.

The way people describe a story in the bible is better than any ink blot. It is even better than a mirror in that it exposes true intents that may be hiding under that fancy dress.

Who gave you free will?

Let me guess, you think you have something more of "something" than the rest of the universe? Clearly that is not possible.

---

Yes, we humans are clearly special. Except for the thing that lazily designed us and makes us blame ourselves for everything. Clearly he needs to be worshipped for his special specialness.

[Natachan]

I never read it that way. The genesis myth was simply a retelling of earlier myths. The serpent was the old gods, and setting that serpent as the villain was a conversion tactic. The old god is evil and the cause of your suffering. Worship our new god.

Reading this as allegory for the emergence of sentience (how I read it for years) the serpent becomes negligible. By this reading there was pain and death before the fall, but as a base animal man could not know or understand. When man ate of the fruit he became aware of good and evil. He became able to perceive suffering and injustice. And by this he became fully human.

However if you read genesis literally it becomes very odd indeed. God is possessive, vindictive, and childlike. God loses some of his divinity and becomes very human. Remember that it is not the sin of eating the fruit of knowledge that gets them thrown out, but that they would eat of the tree of everlasting life and become gods themselves. God is reduced to an immortal human, a gardener who creates a lavish garden to enjoy then when finding something that displeases him simply throws out the weeds.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The Adam & Eve story contains several elements. The first one is to tie all of the other main characters into a line that culminates with the Jesus character, aka the "last Adam".

Another element is about the character who betrayed the Assyrian Emperor, aka "God", by collaborating with the Egyptian Pharaoh, aka the "talking serpent". The Adam character was expelled from his cushy job as a vassal king.

It's understandable why religious folks believe the story but it's silly why atheists believe it. The brainwashing runs deep.

[Esquilax]

That's silly. If they were completely unaware of the concept of right and wrong as you suggest, they would have just eaten the fruit without the serpent's urging. One can have intellectual knowledge of a concept without having experiential knowledge of it.

I love this statement. It's "silly" to say that Adam and Eve didn't have intellectual knowledge of good and evil, but it's not silly to assert that they gained comprehensive experiential knowledge of it from eating a piece of fruit at the behest of a talking snake.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Since all gods are imaginary their creators can give them all kinds of special powers and attributes.

[RobbyPants]

Possessing that knowledge is, indeed, the very 'crime' for which they were punished!

Yeah, the whole story is kind of stupid. One wonders why Almighty God had to put that tree in the garden in the first place. That tree's location and the rule surrounding it is like putting up a sign that only says "it is unlawful to deface this sign". What the fuck is the point of that?

[Tonus]

That's silly. If they were completely unaware of the concept of right and wrong as you suggest, they would have just eaten the fruit without the serpent's urging. One can have intellectual knowledge of a concept without having experiential knowledge of it.

If they were used to doing as they were told, then it would not be surprising that they did not even consider partaking of the fruit until the serpent urged Eve to do so.

God warned Adam against eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge, telling him that to do so would mean death. The serpent tells Eve that this won't happen, but that they'll gain additional insight. At this point the fruit of the tree becomes desirable to Eve, and she is able to convince Adam to eat as well.

When god confronts them over their actions, their explanation amounts to "someone else told me to do this, so I did it." It fits the pattern-- the concept of obeying a command overrides everything else, because they do not have the judgment necessary to determine that an action is right or wrong. The lesson in Genesis is that only god can determine right and wrong, and he deserves unquestioning obedience... whether you understand his demands or not.

[John V]

If they were used to doing as they were told,

Why would they do as they're told?

God warned Adam against eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge, telling him that to do so would mean death. The serpent tells Eve that this won't happen, but that they'll gain additional insight. At this point the fruit of the tree becomes desirable to Eve, and she is able to convince Adam to eat as well.

When god confronts them over their actions, their explanation amounts to "someone else told me to do this, so I did it." It fits the pattern-- the concept of obeying a command overrides everything else, because they do not have the judgment necessary to determine that an action is right or wrong. The lesson in Genesis is that only god can determine right and wrong, and he deserves unquestioning obedience... whether you understand his demands or not.

No, Eve did not convince Adam. Further, we;re told in the NT that Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn't. Adam knew what he was doing.