Eve and the Tree of Knowledge... Why are people not on her side?

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Permalink Reply by Teagraves on October 21, 2011 at 5:57pm

Cos ancient dudes wrote the Bible and wanted to make the woman the "bad" one. I guess o_o

I see where you're coming from, actually, though I don't think I'd ever actually thought about it before! Ignorance is bliss and all that, so I guess Eve ruined everyone's bliss or something, I dunno.

edit - I suppose it's like God being the overprotective parent (you know the ones). He was doing his best to shelter them from everything, but then someone from outside the bubble came in and gave Eve the scoop on the knowledge fruit. So she ate it and got in trouble. I guess it's one of those "obey me" things, but seriously Eve was just doing what people do.

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Permalink Reply by nafir nun on December 9, 2011 at 4:29pm

wrong...

ancient people wrote the bible and most other sacred texts...

MODERN people interpreted the words in the bible and other sacred texts incorrectly.

if one REALLY does the studying, one will get strongs biblical concordance and cross check the greek and hebrew words and what they mean before saying that the bible story meant "this or that"

in the bible..

the word used for god is often a plural word..

and there are DIFFERENT gods that did different things..

yahweh was one of the gods in that congregation..

many xtiaqns would say im blashpheming..but i challenge any xtian to debate this with me, ...i have a strongs concordance handy ;)

anyhow adam and eve is a STORY which is mostly allegory, and very little fact

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Permalink Reply by Charles Beddoe on December 5, 2011 at 9:42pm

She disobeyed God. That's it.

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Permalink Reply by John D on December 5, 2011 at 11:05pm

Actually... I used to hate the adam and eve story... but... as I get older I am starting to like it.  The old sheep herders wanted to understand why people suffer.  Really, don't we all try to understand that?  Why do we suffer?  We naturalists understand that suffering simply is part of nature.. but... animals do not suffer the way humans do.

Animals are free in one sense.  They suffer, but not the way humans do.  Humans suffer more than animals because they UNDERSTAND what suffering is.  They sympathise with the suffering of others and they know they willl have to suffer in the future.

This special form of human suffering is due to our KNOWLEDGE.  This is what the adam and eve story is about.  It is symbolic of the special kind of human suffering we feel that is unique.  It is unique and horrible because we have the knowledge of the fact the others suffer and we all will suffer.

It is really quite a special story.  Not literal of course... but unique.  Every culture creates stories to describe "why" we suffer.  The Greeks thought the god made suffering because they were jealous of mortality.  Some people think they suffer because of conservatives in government... haha!

I like the story... yeah... kind of weird.... but I think I understand the meaning of this old story.

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Permalink Reply by nafir nun on December 9, 2011 at 4:32pm

the creation story goes back much further than hebrew sheep herders

and it was not just a story to show why people suffer...

if you are familiar with dr oyibo and g.a.g.u.t. the ORIGINAL story of creation mimics science in a profound was...but only if one nderstands the key to the allegory..

without the key, people will read these stories and become retarded

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Permalink Reply by John D on December 10, 2011 at 11:25am

Excuse me?  Are you suggesting people are becoming "retarded?"  Nice slur against a handicap.... especially from someone who wrote this indecipherable masterpiece of a sentence... 

"if you are familiar with dr oyibo and g.a.g.u.t. the ORIGINAL story of creation mimics science in a profound was...but only if one nderstands the key to the allegory..."

Are you looking for a fight.... seriously?  Maybe you could have explained your opinion and linked to an article by Dr. Oyibo.  That would have been helpful.  Sheeeeesh.

It looks like you have some solid knowledge about this topic.  Care to share?

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Permalink Reply by Richard K. Emms on December 6, 2011 at 6:40am

This is a good obsevation.  The answer seems somewaht obvious though.  When you're starting a cult following, as all religions are, knowledge is not a good thing.  I have thought about this myself.  Then to top it off, this jesus character comes along and gets cricified to atone for what Eve did?  OK, I don't get it.  What's the connection? 

   Let's see, the god wanted us all to remain blissfully stupid.  Eve decided that knowledge was better.  The god gets upset, and lets humanity suffer for a long time, then sends his emmissary, (through virgin birth no less), to get killed to atone for it. 

   That's the way I understand the story.  Pretty loosly assembled if you ask me.  On top of that, "virgin birth", (parthenogenisis?), can not produce a male offspring.

   Someone should have told the ancients not to eat the mushrooms from the pasture.

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Permalink Reply by Pat on December 6, 2011 at 7:49am

Interesting take on the story, John D.  I never looked at it as a metaphor to explain human suffering. I always looked at the glaring internal contradiction of the story itself, and religious admonition against knowledge.

The internal contradiction being this.  If Adam and Eve were created without "knowledge" of good and evil, and were told not to eat from the tree, how could they know that eating from it and disobeying god was evil, and therefore wrong?  They had to eat from it before they could "know" what they did was bad.

And then, there's the admonition against the acquisition of knowledge, and the horrible consequences if you do.  That warning, alone, seems to sum up religion.

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Permalink Reply by John D on December 6, 2011 at 8:22am

I think there is an element to the story that attempts to describe the "desire" for knowledge.  This was eve's desire.  She wanted to know more.  This is a common human desire and the old sheep-herders felt much the way we do now.  They were interested in knowing how nature worked even if it meant you would suffer from the knowledge.  For example, we all want to know and share with people even though we know they will die and we will be separated from them.  It is our knowledge that everyone will die that causes much of our on-going suffering.

So, I don't think that the adam and eve story necessarily tells us to avoid knowledge.  I think some people who use religion as a tool for power use this interpretation.  This is not a very subtle or helpful interpretation.  When we think of this story as a legend it is far more interesting.

And, of course, the old sheep-herders were trying to understand god.  They all assumed there was a god.  What they couldn't understand was why this god would allow for them to suffer.  The story of Jesus is also tied to suffering.  The Jesus story admits that we all suffer on earth, but god has shown through Jesus that he suffers with us.  And really... don't we all try to share our suffering with others?  We feel comfort from knowing others suffer in a similar way that we do.  It must feel comforting to christians to know that god is also suffering.  but... christians still can't tell a coherent story of why god makes us suffer.... only that we must suffer as part of god's plan.

And I think that much of the appeal of all religions is that they attempt to explain suffering....and... I think that my own suffering is the greatest burden to me, and in my life.  Too bad there is no good "reason" for suffering.  As a naturalist, I just accept that suffering is part of how my evolved body/brain works.

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Permalink Reply by MADHUKAR KULKARNI on December 6, 2011 at 9:19am

This story is meant to tell us that a woman's childbirth pains are not god's disfavour or unjustice to women but are a result of a woman's sin.  

Such stories to explain away today's ills in a way favourable to god exist in scriptures of Hindu religion too.

MADHUKAR KULKARNI.

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Permalink Reply by John D on December 6, 2011 at 9:26am

M.K. - You present a common interpretation... but one that is not very fulfilling nor subtle to me.  There is much more to this story and this story should be understood as one that likely predates the rest of the Bible.  This story was pulled into the Jewish faith from older traditions that did not share the Hebrew version of "sin" or "god's law".

Of course, as with any legend, it is reinterpreted by each generation to satisfy people's needs.

People who see this ONLY as an anti-woman story often color their interpretation to fit with modern women's rights issues.

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Permalink Reply by Maruli Marulaki on December 6, 2011 at 11:03am

Biologically seen, the survival of mammals including humans depends upon the willingness of the females to bear and raise children.   Animals do not think, they have no option to be either willing or not, they are the robots to their procreation instinct.
But human females have such an option, unless men succeed in depriving them of the choice.
Men through history knew, that their success in breeding and spreading their genes depended on their control of over ignorant women.
Evolution has made men physically stronger enabling them thus to establish control over women.  During all history and also at the time of the invention of the story of Eve and Adam, male power over women was more or less established in all societies.   Polygamy, male power over all resources for survival, women being the property of men, were common social situations.
The male can rape a woman, he can force pregnancies upon her, but he cannot stop her from aborting, killing or abandoning the child, that she does not want to raise.    This is the limit of a man's power over a woman's womb.
The fact, that the number of children is inversely related to women's eduction has well been observed in those modern societies, were women have at least legally equal rights and chances.
Therefore in addition to gain control over women, those men driven by the breeding instinct throughout history also attempted to keep women ignorant as a method to ascertain their willingness to breed.   They attempted to keep the women doubly ignorant.  Ignorant of any methods to avoid breeding and also ignorant of anything to do with themselves in life, that is more interesting and more rewarding than sacrificing themselves for their offspring.

The Eve and Adam story is nothing more than the religiously expressed advice for men to keep the women ignorant as the best method do their due to the survival of the species.

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