This was not a knowledge of experience or understanding, but one of awareness; self-awareness. — Possibility
God indeed loved the world, He even gave up His only-begotten son so that anyone believing in Him should not perish". — Serving Zion
anyone who does not love does not know God, for — Serving Zion
In order to really understand why what she did was so bad, we need to look at what it means to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. — Serving Zion
is to reckon that sometimes evil can serve our interests well. — Serving Zion
1. This is the Jewish version of Pandora's box, meant to explain why bad stuff exists and how it relates to knowledge and making choices. It's also an allegory for growing up. — Marchesk
The moral reality of “The Fall” or “The Disobedience in the Garden”or the “Original Sin” is central to christian theology — Brainglitch
I do not throw the baby out with the bath water either. — 3017amen
And if you don't know something, just say you don't know; don't let your ego get in the way! LOL — 3017amen
I was thinking thereabouts. It makes me think of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. Self-awareness, true AI, would naturally have goals which may possibly involve the annihilation of humans. Do you think we were actually created as robots and then became self-aware making/forcing God to banish us from Eden. I think we would do the same to AI if it ever became self-aware after all we couldn't kill it could we? We do kill each other you know. — TheMadFool
One strange question relates to nakedness though. The author/interpretation could be extended to mean or represent nakedness as being equal to unawareness, yet if one were to take it literally, then why use the term naked?
Accordingly, we so find ourselves embarrassed or shameful by actually being naked [me, not so much] in public, but do we really understand why? While it is true, young children can be on a beach or by a pool naked, yet at some point we decide to make them either aware or they naturally become self aware that it is bad. — 3017amen
Some time well after the death of Christ, the Church cooked up a plan of salvation which begins with Adam's and Eve's "original sin" and ends with Christ's crucifixion. Christ died to take away the sins of the world, the first of which was Eve's disobedience. — Bitter Crank
I don’t think we were created as robots - I think we evolved according to integrated information processing systems rather than survival or reproductive value, but that’s for another discussion, perhaps. Self-awareness is a natural development of five-dimensional integrated information processing. ‘God’ was a way of objectifying this capacity for higher awareness in order to obtain more information about it. The OT tracks the progression of five-dimensional awareness; the NT tracks our foray into six-dimensional awareness.
I think the key here is the emergence of fear, as well as pain, loss and humility - as a result of self-awareness. And yes, we do kill each other - in fact it’s the very next story in the Book. — Possibility
Think about God trying to get people to be good, be ethical, be honest, loving, faithful, and so on and many so forths. — Bitter Crank
Your misinterpretation of the Bible is one reason why some people say that only adults should be allowed to read it. It is a richly complex book, and the uninitiated, unguided often make a hash out of it. — Bitter Crank
I was pretty sure it was Augustine, but I was too lazy to double check. Thank you for confirming. — Bitter Crank
Your interpretation brings to mind two thoughts; one being fear based, and another relating to self awareness of having wisdom or knowledge.
Consider a child who is naïve about many things. Consider that naivety in the face of the concept 'what he doesn't know won't hurt him' paradigm (or as adults).
It could follow that with knowledge comes pain. That with awareness comes emotional pain. (Not to mention what other's have said about the interpretation of our temporal existence; finitude, mortality and death-physical pain sort-a-speak.) — 3017amen
And so how that relates to the concept of fear based behavior is interesting. If we are to fear reverence (God), how do we develop that fear? I'm thinking that as the OP suggested earlier, that somehow awareness of wisdom or knowledge in and of itself imparts or results in a sense of fear too. Otherwise we are just naïve and go about our business care free. The tree of knowledge then becomes a bitter sweet concept viz. the joy that wisdom imparts, but the pain it brings about accordingly. — 3017amen
1. We lack a complete knowledge of "good and evil"
2. God punished us for knowing "good and evil" — TheMadFool
This makes the punishment unjust especially since God is supposed to be omniscient and omnibenevolent. God should've known we didn't get it and he should've been kind enough to forgive us. If we bring omnipotence into the picture then additional problems arise because he could've easily pressed the reset button. — TheMadFool
The problem is - that denies free will.If we bring omnipotence into the picture then additional problems arise because he could've easily pressed the reset button. — TheMadFool
If you lived in a family where you were shielded from all harsh truths of existence, and never required to take responsibility for anything you did, then you would never grow up. — Wayfarer
The creation story is a great piece; just don't take it literally — Bitter Crank
But it's likely that the tale of AI would have an expected resemblance to the Bibilcal story of man. AI would "disobey" and then get punished with death/mortality. — TheMadFool
Your use of ‘disobey’ and ‘punish’ in reference to the Biblical story shows your limited viewpoint, though. It wasn’t that A&E disobeyed God - it was that they ate the fruit. And it wasn’t that they were punished - it was that they acquired a capacity they would never learn to use in the current situation, so that situation had to be changed.
From the authors’ point of view, though, it feels like punishment. Just like Cain’s reaction to God’s apparent favour towards Abel, they’re reading more into it than is there - as a threat against them, evidence that they did something wrong. And another naive judgement that death/mortality is a ‘bad’ thing... — Possibility
The fall of man, or the fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. Although not named in the Bible, the doctrine of the fall comes from a biblical interpretation of Genesis chapter 3. At first, Adam and Eve lived with God in the Garden of Eden, but the serpent tempted them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden. After doing so, they became ashamed of their nakedness and God expelled them from the Garden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life and becoming immortal. — wikipedia
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