" as it contradicts evolution "

OMG, the IQ in these forums is really low... Extinction is the second part of the definition of evolution. I.e. - adapt or become extinct. I think both are quite real "choices"... If we assume "choice" is the correct word. To give... very dumb down example (so people here can understand), imagine a plane crashing in the alps, and to survive - people must eat each other. Ok, I know people today don't have even imagination... So, go watch the movie! Well, this is called "adaptation". The refusal to adapt is called extinction. If you are concerned with a complicated topics like moral, actually to preserve your moral, you sometimes need to chose extinction.

People are afraid / refuse death/extinction for a simple reason - instincts. Instincts are beyond reason, although - easy to explain by reason. People that are not afraid of death, get more easily killed, i.e. they propagate more rarely their genes. And voila - we live in a society that is dominated by irrational drives like fear of death, or desire to propagate. These have nothing to do with reason or moral values, or even choice. We are born like this. It's just traits built in the species, that are proven by evolution to give better chance of survival. Not because evolution somehow want us to survive, just being born has this inherited bias.

In such line of thought, trying to be reasonable, refusal of these irrational parts of you, is borderline choice of extinction. Another movie reference - Idiocracy. It's a fact, low IQ people tend to survive easier. They have more friends, they allow their instincts to work, they have no morals or original thought... you will hardly find low IQ antinatalists, or low IQ revolutionary. Some writers get that, so they prefer to write about an epic death, then mediocre survival. And the masses actually like reading such epic stories about dying heroes... But if it was about them... well they wold prefer survival at all costs. And become the future parents of the next generation. Interesting, hm... Sounds a lot like the idea of "original sin", or Samsara. The circle of life that must go on at any cost, since it's out ultimate goal as being born into this world.

On the contrary - transcendence from this ignorance, was always perceived as non-existence (at least as something opposed to what we call existence). This is reflected the ideal of the monk life. Which is first - celibacy - i.e. not bringing new life, and second - disassociation with the worldly affairs.

"everything has a cause"

Ok, but what is a "thing"? Many of these people assumed they know what they are talking about, but they didn't. Only Kant understood that there is a difference between our own faculty of mind that sees "things", and something else, beyond our "idea", he called thing in itself, and is unknowable. Of course, this sounds unnecessary complicated for simple people. But this is the only way to explain how a world of causality can ever be, what started it, if you need a preceding action to infinitum. Yes, we have big bang theory, but what was before that? Nothingness? Void? Well, it's something beyond our capacity for reason, but it doesn't mean there was nothing in existence. Existence can't have a beginning, and obviously even in the void, something existed, without need for causality. We can only imagine why it exploded and created this universe. But one thing is for sure - there was no cause, since it preceded any cause.

With that said, Karma is very overrated concept in the eastern philosophies, since it deals with physicality and the illusion of life they claim to dispel. But like anything turned into a mass religion, it needs some "rules", some sort of "moral ground" so the society can function. However logically speaking, Karma itself affects your current life, and is destroyed after the destruction of the corporeal body. However, what's left is the mental direction, which has nothing to do with morals or judgment. And actually this was proven by the few real researchers that investigated children memories of their past life. IMO, there are 3 very different layers we exist in. One is this Karma/Causality - I call it the dumb level. It can be explained with these simple rules you said, "Eye for an eye", right. Higher is pure mental level, which can be very complicated. It's like "turn the other cheek". Many do not get this idea, but in it's core this is just to reverse the rule and think. The real mental level is vast, causality is like... 0.000001% of the possibilities. And even beyond that is yet another level, we can't even comprehend. It's the void, or pure being / nothing as Hegel calls it. Nothing means just - without any concept about "things".

This is a cultural saying, nothing to do with... the realm we live in or some metaphysical truth. We have only the rights we can defend. This is true even about your own mind, since especially today, a war is fought even there. Most people do not own even 2% of their own mind. I think many of us want to think the morals are real thing... And I tend to agree... but not in this realm... This realm is "moral free". If you want to use it - ok, but no obligations. We live in a chaos, and whoever can create order out of this chaos... No wander this is the motto of the so called elite ruling this planet. Eventually order will become a machine, and will annihilate this realm altogether. I think the only "god given right" we have, is exiting the realm, but of course... it's not an easy task. A task most people today do not even realize.

For me, Jesus and Judas were playing a theatre. There is important difference between Christ as an idea / consciousness / mental level, and the human called Jesus. The idea of Christ is IMO older (jews for example expect the "messiah" for many many years, and I guess few of them recognize Jesus as such). It's the Roman Christianity that is based almost exclusively on the presumption that Jesus is a god - human. This of course can be explained with the idea of the Caesar and goes back to the Egyptians where the pharaon is treated as god. Catholics took it further with the pope. On the contrary, other denomination of Christianity, like Gnostics, believed more in the metaphysical Christ (human or non human, killed or not, it didn't matter much), and some of them even claimed Jesus was an impostor. In any case, I think a differentiation must be made between the historical figure of Jesus, and the idea about the Messiah/Christ. Assuming both are the same is requirement in the official Christianity, but I can't care less what the Church says... You can't ask a pagan Church who Christ really is...

It's actually quite simple what's the idea of the text, but, hm... people are quite dumb even for that. What is good and evil? It's the world of duality of course. The "forbidden fruit", was entering this world of duality from the world of oneness (i.e. "heaven"). Duality is a mental world. Hard to know whether there are other mental worlds, I suspect the answer is yes. But if you stand outside it, you can't be "mentally blind", you can be such only after you enter it, and you lack the wisdom to play the game. And all of us entered it like this, since duality means taking one of the sides - black or white, and not understanding balance. Actually - this is the trick, this illusion of polarities. In other mental worlds - it may be that understanding just exists as something consistent. In this mental world - it's broken into seemingly opposing forces.

But your statement, is like saying that someone sucks at particular game he never really played.You can't be "stupid" if you do not exist on that particular mental level. If such concept is difficult for you, imagine blaming an animal, that it's stupid since it doesn't know how to solve differential equations. It doesn't need to... Animals are intelligent on their own level of existence. If an alien came to this planet and see our math, it may look as a joke to it... Everything is relative.

Also, don't forget that Yahweh is a product of the human mind and specific cultural narrative. The "story" is somewhat wrong, since the One didn't blame us for anything. However the choice that was made to enter this particular mental game led to a fall of consciousness. This is our own perspective and actually we blame ourselves. The authors of many books love to elevate their own vision, and present it as something much more then their own opinion. The many texts of the Bible are not much different of course. Yahweh's character is just a projection of those who wrote the books. I'm not claiming they had divine inspiration or not. It's a fact they were humans like all of us, and wrote in the way they feel, not necessary what it is... The better question is - were they right overall about the fall of Adam, and my answer is yes, but this is much, much more complicated topic.