What Changed with Sin?

Agreed. Further, to “gain the experiential knowledge of evil” makes wonder why that Tree existed there to begin with. Any decision (no matter how arbitrary) that was in defiance of God’s command (“don’t kick the purple toads”) would have sufficed.

@gbrooks9

Then what was to be gained from partaking in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?

If they knew what was wrong … the primordial couple didn’t NEED the tree

The serpent told them that if they ate of the Tree they would be like God, that is they would be equal to God, which is the goal of pagan religions like Scientism.

Natural Selection includes EVERYTHING in the Environment

@gbrooks9, when you need to make a citation you do not, and when you don’t need to quote others you do. Here you make a blanket statement, which is totally unsubstantiated. Please give me at least one source, so we can discuss it.

Natural selection is based on symbiosis, which is living together, not competing for resources. E. O. Wilson disagrees with Dawkins and so do I. If you and Bethany want to go with Dawkins’ wrongheaded views, you are free to do so, but please give me some evidence.

So…they needed the Tree to know what was wrong?

@fmiddel

No, they did not need the tree.

God wouldn’t tell them not to eat from the Tree, if they needed it. There are many things in life that we do not need. Some things are bad for us like tobacco. Many are neutral. Most can be good or bad depending how we use them.

God gave them the ability to choose, the freedom to say Yes or No to God’s way, and they used it to say No, even though they knew it was wrong. That is the message of the story.

So why was the tree…the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”? Is that just a coincidence? A quirk of the story?

4 posts were merged into an existing topic: Invasive species and survival of the fittest spin-off

3 posts were split to a new topic: Invasive species and survival of the fittest spin-off

@fmiddel

I am sure this is not a coincidence or quick of the story. We moderns sometimes think that the Bible is written especially for us, when it was not. The writer, whether human or divine, wrote for the people living at the time the writer was writing. They I am sure would know why the Tree of Knowledge was used in the story.

My view is that many people see religion as magic. They eat the fruit, they say a prayer, they believe a confession of faith, and they are approved by God. That is what Adam and Eve seemed to think that is what they had to do, eat of the fruit and be like God. This probably had something to do with the pagan faiths of other peoples, who believed that they received special knowledge that made them like God when they took part in a particular ritual.

It seems clear that it is not coincidence; thus, it would be premature to suppose that any arbitrary prohibition would suffice.

@Bethany.Sollereder wrote:

> Sin did not enter the world because a great capacity for moral perfection was lost, but because the possibility of moral perfection was finally offered in the divine invitation to love.

I would agree with the first part of your statement. Gen 3 is not about the loss of moral perfection. Moral perfection is not the goal of the Bible. Harmony with God is.

Gen 3 is about alienation or separation from God and others, the turning self-ward of humans away from YHWH and others. Love comes later as the way to overcome selfishness and to find harmony with God and others.

Perhaps it is easier to see the PRIMORDIAL difference between God and Adam when you reflect on Abraham’s words:

To acknowledge the vast difference between humans and the divine, Abraham used these words:

"Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord,” he said, “I who am but dust and ashes”
(Genesis 18:27).

These compositional materials did not suddenly manifest at the transgression. Adam was made of dust/ashes from the very beginning. Presumably this is why God had the Tree of Life in Eden - - to keep the flimsy fabric of human flesh alive for all time.

The transgression compelled to God to evict Adam and Eve … if for only one reason: to keep the humans from
eating from the Tree of Life and becoming as gods !

@gbrooks9

Thank would be only if Life meant only survival.

@Relates

Roger… your comment seems to be irrelevant to the point of my discussion. Certainly your life is over the moment you fail to survive.

@gbrooks9

Since when?

@Relates

Roger, obviously I’m not talking about the afterlife.

@gbrooks9

Why not?

@Relates,

Why not? Because we were discussing the normal bounds of mortality … rather than confuse matters.

@gbrooks9
Aren’t we talking about the Bible and the things of the Spirit?

@Relates,

Roger… I think you are wandering in the dark with your own rhetoric. Let’s try this again. This is what I posted quite a while ago before you entered on your path of sophism:

Perhaps it is easier to see the PRIMORDIAL difference between God and Adam when you reflect on Abraham’s words: To acknowledge the vast difference between humans and the divine, Abraham used these words:

"Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord,” he said, “I who am but dust and ashes”
(Genesis 18:27).

These compositional materials did not suddenly manifest at the transgression. Adam was made of dust/ashes from the very beginning. Presumably this is why God had the Tree of Life in Eden - - to keep the flimsy fabric of human flesh alive for all time.

The transgression compelled to God to evict Adam and Eve … if for only one reason: to keep the humans from
eating from the Tree of Life and becoming as gods !

@gbrooks9

You evict people when they don’t pay the rent.