God creates a man and does not give him the knowledge of right from wrong , good from evil. he puts that knowledge in the fruit of a tree then tells the man not to eat that fruit.
I posit that Adam's fault was not disobedience at alal but in discriminant obedience.
Having no concept of good and evil Adam did not know that he should obey god and not others. He simply obeys everyone. He obeys the commandment of god until the next person comes and gives him a new commandment. When Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit he takes it immediately. There is no struggling with his conscience. No wrestling with whether it is right or wrong. He knows nothing of that.
Eve, on the other hand, being a woman and somewhat more receptive to the spirit world offers the serpent brief scrutiny of what he tells her to do. Not because she thinks it is wrong but because she has a slight perception that dying may be something she doesn't want to do, though nothing in her world had ever died so she quickly brushes her concerns aside.
The god of the bible returns and as if he does not understand the psychology of the humans he has made he acts as if Adam has done something wrong and worthy of punishment. And now we are to believe that because of these circumstances which the god of the bible set up himself the entire human race is worthy of eternal punishment.
This doctrine does not exist in the old testament. It does not exist in the gospels. It came into existence because the Church realized that they could not convince people that they needed Jesus to save them from their sins when these people had a standard of morality higher than that of the Europeans who were supposedly trying to save them. The doctrine of original sin excuses the degraded behavior of the proselytizers and discounts the superior morality of the so called savages.
I've even heard a preacher say that hell is full of good people. Many of our enslaved ancestors rejected Christianity because they had been beaten and raped, and killed and humiliated in every conceivable way by those who were trying to perv xxxxx I mean convert them and death was their only hope of rest. The thought of spending eternity in a heaven full of white folks was too much.
I posit that Adam's fault was not disobedience at alal but in discriminant obedience.
Having no concept of good and evil Adam did not know that he should obey god and not others. He simply obeys everyone. He obeys the commandment of god until the next person comes and gives him a new commandment. When Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit he takes it immediately. There is no struggling with his conscience. No wrestling with whether it is right or wrong. He knows nothing of that.
Eve, on the other hand, being a woman and somewhat more receptive to the spirit world offers the serpent brief scrutiny of what he tells her to do. Not because she thinks it is wrong but because she has a slight perception that dying may be something she doesn't want to do, though nothing in her world had ever died so she quickly brushes her concerns aside.
The god of the bible returns and as if he does not understand the psychology of the humans he has made he acts as if Adam has done something wrong and worthy of punishment. And now we are to believe that because of these circumstances which the god of the bible set up himself the entire human race is worthy of eternal punishment.
This doctrine does not exist in the old testament. It does not exist in the gospels. It came into existence because the Church realized that they could not convince people that they needed Jesus to save them from their sins when these people had a standard of morality higher than that of the Europeans who were supposedly trying to save them. The doctrine of original sin excuses the degraded behavior of the proselytizers and discounts the superior morality of the so called savages.
I've even heard a preacher say that hell is full of good people. Many of our enslaved ancestors rejected Christianity because they had been beaten and raped, and killed and humiliated in every conceivable way by those who were trying to perv xxxxx I mean convert them and death was their only hope of rest. The thought of spending eternity in a heaven full of white folks was too much.
