A major problem I’ve always had with that story is the fact that it is predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve acted disobediently by eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. But what is disobedience? Is disobedience a form of evil? To disobey God would be evil if it was done with knowledge, correct? How could Adam and Eve have possibly known that what they were doing was evil if they had no knowledge of such? Why would God set the situation up to necessitate that Adam and Eve would eventually disobey his wishes if they had no knowledge of good and evil, and therefore no knowledge of how their actions would have an impact or how their actions would be considered wrong. If a 2 year old disobeys their parents it’s easy to brush off their behavior as just being ignorant, and Adam and Eve are effectively like the cosmic 2-year-old, totally incapable of understanding consequences, or righteousness, or disobedience. Fundamentally, the God that created the Garden of Eden must be evil because what he did is akin to me putting an infant in a room with a loaded bear trap and telling them not to touch it. They don’t understand the consequences, nor do they really understand what commands mean. Is it really the baby’s fault for getting caught in a bear trap if I am the one with superior agency and knowledge and I was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place? Who is really the evil one here?
God is often referred to as the Father, and if he is truly a father I would say that he fails miserably in that duty by the very fact that he put his children directly In harm’s way. Yes, it is the responsibility of the parent to put obstacles in the way of their children so that they can grow, but at the same time it is also the responsibility to protect them from grievous harm, and clearly he didn’t do this according to Genesis.
A major problem I’ve always had with that story is the fact that it is predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve acted disobediently by eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. But what is disobedience? Is disobedience a form of evil? To disobey God would be evil if it was done with knowledge, correct? How could Adam and Eve have possibly known that what they were doing was evil if they had no knowledge of such? Why would God set the situation up to necessitate that Adam and Eve would eventually disobey his wishes if they had no knowledge of good and evil, and therefore no knowledge of how their actions would have an impact or how their actions would be considered wrong. If a 2 year old disobeys their parents it’s easy to brush off their behavior as just being ignorant, and Adam and Eve are effectively like the cosmic 2-year-old, totally incapable of understanding consequences, or righteousness, or disobedience. Fundamentally, the God that created the Garden of Eden must be evil because what he did is akin to me putting an infant in a room with a loaded bear trap and telling them not to touch it. They don’t understand the consequences, nor do they really understand what commands mean. Is it really the baby’s fault for getting caught in a bear trap if I am the one with superior agency and knowledge and I was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place? Who is really the evil one here?
God is often referred to as the Father, and if he is truly a father I would say that he fails miserably in that duty by the very fact that he put his children directly In harm’s way. Yes, it is the responsibility of the parent to put obstacles in the way of their children so that they can grow, but at the same time it is also the responsibility to protect them from grievous harm, and clearly he didn’t do this according to Genesis.