Why do we assume that eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil made humans fallen? Why would anyone consider wisdom evil? Is there a possibility that this event elevated humans in that they could then experience all that life had to offer?

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InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

I think it is a possibility in how we approached those experiences.

When, YOU might ask, was the concept of conflict introduced to humankind? In the Garden of Eden. The original serpent does not stand for Satan, or sin, or evil. It stands for fear, doubt, and conflict. When Adam and Eve faced the choice of eating the symbolic fruit of UNDERSTANDING, they approached it as a conflict instead of a decision.

HELLO IT'S ME: An Interview With GOD
Chapter: Genesis And The Garden Of Eden
Pg: 277

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

"Why do we assume that eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil made humans fallen?" - because that is the claim of the religion.

I think that - rather than the ability to "experience all that life had to offer", it gave us the ability to experience all that spirit has to offer, which can be attained by knowing the difference between right and wrong, and only doing that which is right.

Just my twopenn'orth.


Peace, Love, & Light

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"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

It's an interesting story, full of odd little bits of lore.

There are two trees in the middle of the Garden. YHWH forbids the innocent Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, telling them they will die. But they have only just been created, and have no understadning of what Death is. YHWH definetly fails Parenting 101....... either you need to explain to children (and, for all intents and purposes, Adam and Eve are children) why something will hurt them in terms they can understand, or you simply prevent them from touching it. You do not draw their attention to it, and then leave them unattended.

And there is nothing in the text to indicate that this was any sort of test. YHWH makes a Garden, taking care to place the most dangertous thing at the centre of it, places human beings right besdie it, and then wanders off to do heaven-knows-what. Hardly the most logical way to conduct a test, unless you wanted the subject to fail.

Furthermore, please observe that it is YHWH who lies, and the Serpent who tells the truth. Adam and Eve do not die, instantly, upon eating the fruit, which is what YHWH's words must lead one to believe. (Although, since Hebrew doesn't have tenses people might argue that; still it seems perverse to argue that knowledge of good and evil leads to death.)

And, as the Serpent told them, knowledge of Good and Evil makes Adam and Eve "like god", which YHWH himself admits in verse 20. But, to ensure that humanity does not become too powerful he denies them access to the Tree of Life.

It's pretty clear from context that it is YHWH's denial of lthe fruit of this tree that leads to death.

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Grassaf, Eolas

" .... Furthermore, please observe that it is YHWH who lies, ...." - The Original Sin -- in my opinion.

The very first one in the Bible.



Peace, Love. & Light

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"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

[quote=Eolas Pellor]YHWH definetly fails Parenting 101.......

I tend to think of the Old Testament God as the ego's version. Psychology might say we projected our thoughts of separation onto God and now are the innocent victims of the ultimate victimizer.......

OR......

The tree could be a metaphor for duality. Once we create a dual world, we're out of the Oneness. Now everything has an opposite, even Life...........

Interesting thread LK!

This is a difficult question since in the esoteric Christianity I know, everything is connected. But without wanting to write a book, I have to begin with certain premises without their introduction and avoid a lot of detail.

Man's purpose as I understand it, was to work the garden and he was put to sleep in order to convert him from a being of inner unity into a sexual being where the yin and yang have been divided. This division served to serve the purpose man on earth was needed for at the time.

This purpose that was necessary to serve required man existing as this sexual being to be unaware of his conscious potential. If he were, he would resist working the ground and seek to return to inner unity.

Objective good and evil for Man is evolution and involution. The objective good for man is in the direction of his evolution and the objective evil is what denies it.

So Adam and Eve, becoming aware, now became lost in the trees, the details. rather than remain at the conscious though oblivious level they were existing as. The powers that be were compelled then to cause man to distort meaning and purpose and associate it with the earth so as to continue their work in the garden.

However, when the need for man's work in the garden was no longer present, our species had adapted so to this artificial condition that the absurdity of living backwards became considered normal.

Where a conscious being worthy of the name Man would begin with higher conscious awareness, or the big picture and gradually work are way down psychologically to the associate intellectual level, we had become accustomed to fixating on the associative level while becoming oblivious of the higher conscious perspective that should be normal for Man but denied by our fixations. Fallen man refers to the automatic perpetuation of this abnormal condition through habit.

The result of this abnormality is a condition in which we can learn more and more knowledge normal for a computer while losing more and more our capacity for conscious objective perspective.

It is not that the fruit itself was evil but rather that it interfered with participating in a temporary cosmic need. Naturally once it became normal to eat of the fruit and evolve normally for the Tree of Life, our habits refused it and no matter what conscious influences have tried, it has only resulted in a minimal effect. We still refuse the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and as such, remain in a fallen state lacking the perspective that unites conscious evolution with involution.

In Judaism, traditionally this story was usually viewed as allegory, so what's important is not the literalness of the story, but the messages found within, and it should be taken into the context of the creation accounts through the story of Noah.

The idea becomes that we have "free will", and that is a mixed blessing. We are not puppets on a string on the one hand, but then there's the implication that we also have the power to do evil, and that by doing as such, we do harm to others as well as ourselves in the process. Therefore, "wisdom" could be "evil" if it's misused as we've seen happen many times in our lives.

Shalom,
Vern