Is the knowledge of good and evil, good or evil?

[Greatest I am]

Is the knowledge of good and evil, good or evil?

For you, me, and Adam to answer this question; we need the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam may have needed what he was denied by Yahweh to know if the tree of the knowledge of all things, is good or evil to eat from. As scriptures say, he was mentally and morally blind without it.

You and I cannot see any better than Adam could when our mental eyes are blind on issues and without knowledge of them.

It seems that Yahweh put Adam in a catch 22. Damned to being mentally blind and as bright as a brick and unable to reproduce or condemned to death if he educated himself.

Regards
DL

[omar]

I think that we desire as if it was something good many things that are not very good at all for us. God appealed to their irrational drives, their drive to survive, to seek sustenance and avoid death. The serpent tries to sell the fruit on its merit of providing an easy education and yet that (wisdom), for Eve, is only secondary what for the serpent, knowing as it is, is primary.

[Greatest I am]

I think that we desire as if it was something good many things that are not very good at all for us. God appealed to their irrational drives, their drive to survive, to seek sustenance and avoid death. The serpent tries to sell the fruit on its merit of providing an easy education and yet that (wisdom), for Eve, is only secondary what for the serpent, knowing as it is, is primary.

I am not sure I understand your post.

Are you suggesting that the drive to survive is irrational?

Are you saying Eve should not have eaten of the T Of K, and that Christians who sing of Adam's sin as a happy fault and necessary to god's plan, are wrong?

Regards
DL

[omar]

I apologize.
Irrational in the sense that it requires no cogitation. We normally desire to live without having to think about (or ask) why.
Eve sought the apple from hunger, as a fruit primarily and as a source of X after and not surprisingly since she had no concept of good beyond what is good at the moment.
Should she have eaten the fruit? I don't know. Is it a tale about our fall or our evolution? Who knows, maybe it is a tragedy. But in general what the stories in the Bible mean change with the times.

[felix dakat]

The garden of Eden story is a good example of polysemy, the capacity for a narrative to have multiple meanings. Why? Because the images that underlie the story are of archetypal significance. The archetypes of the collective unconscious precede logic and transcend ethics. They are nature itself as we encounter it in our own psyche. The Eden story is actually a mythical portrayal of that very fact. Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a fall from communion with the divine into duality.

[Dan~]

The garden of Eden story is a good example of polysemy, the capacity for a narrative to have multiple meanings. Why? Because the images that underlie the story are of archetypal significance. The archetypes of the collective unconscious precede logic and transcend ethics. They are nature itself as we encounter it in our own psyche. The Eden story is actually a mythical portrayal of that very fact. Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a fall from communion with the divine into duality.

JW and many other christian factions take adam and eve as literal.
It makes more sense as a symbol.

[Greatest I am]

I apologize.
Irrational in the sense that it requires no cogitation. We normally desire to live without having to think about (or ask) why.
Eve sought the apple from hunger, as a fruit primarily and as a source of X after and not surprisingly since she had no concept of good beyond what is good at the moment.
Should she have eaten the fruit? I don't know. Is it a tale about our fall or our evolution? Who knows, maybe it is a tragedy. But in general what the stories in the Bible mean change with the times.

I agree with your last, but if you insist on thinking of important knowledge as an unimportant fruit, you will never understand Genesis.

Eve hungered for necessary knowledge and would have been a fool to follow Yahweh's poor parenting.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The garden of Eden story is a good example of polysemy, the capacity for a narrative to have multiple meanings. Why? Because the images that underlie the story are of archetypal significance. The archetypes of the collective unconscious precede logic and transcend ethics. They are nature itself as we encounter it in our own psyche. The Eden story is actually a mythical portrayal of that very fact. Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a fall from communion with the divine into duality.

Yes, a fall, to Christians, which, as Christians sing of Adam's sin, was a happy fault and necessary to Yahweh's plan.

Would you have prevented or encouraged Eve?

Regards
DL

[felix dakat]

The garden of Eden story is a good example of polysemy, the capacity for a narrative to have multiple meanings. Why? Because the images that underlie the story are of archetypal significance. The archetypes of the collective unconscious precede logic and transcend ethics. They are nature itself as we encounter it in our own psyche. The Eden story is actually a mythical portrayal of that very fact. Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a fall from communion with the divine into duality.

Yes, a fall, to Christians, which, as Christians sing of Adam's sin, was a happy fault and necessary to Yahweh's plan.

Would you have prevented or encouraged Eve?

Regards
DL

The question is undecidable. Who is Eve?

Genesis 3:20 says "And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living." It doesn't say that she was the mother of all humanity. It says that she was the mother of all living.

That contradicts the narrative of the Genesis Eden story in which Eve is formed out of Adam's rib. There, Eve plays no part in giving birth to the living who are created by God without her and Eve doesn't give birth until later and then only to human sons and daughters.

An Eve who is the Mother of All Living is bigger than the story! What's going on here?

[Greatest I am]

Rib woman is in the Yahweh and Adam are androgynous Jewish interpretations.

Christianity tried to take all of the feminine out of Yahweh but were too stupid to do a real good job.

That aside.

Mine was a moral question with an end game. Your question has no end game.

Without an answer, there is no point in continuing, as my focus is morality.

Regards
DL

[felix dakat]

Rib woman is in the Yahweh and Adam are androgynous Jewish interpretations.

Christianity tried to take all of the feminine out of Yahweh but were too stupid to do a real good job.

That aside.

Mine was a moral question with an end game. Your question has no end game.

Without an answer, there is no point in continuing, as my focus is morality.

Regards
DL

Good and evil are stuck in duality. Life is beyond good and evil.

[Greatest I am]

Rib woman is in the Yahweh and Adam are androgynous Jewish interpretations.

Christianity tried to take all of the feminine out of Yahweh but were too stupid to do a real good job.

That aside.

Mine was a moral question with an end game. Your question has no end game.

Without an answer, there is no point in continuing, as my focus is morality.

Regards
DL

Good and evil are stuck in duality. Life is beyond good and evil.

Apologies.

Meaningless statements.

Regards
DL

[omar]

Hello Greatest

I agree with your last, but if you insist on thinking of important knowledge as an unimportant fruit, you will never understand Genesis.

Eve hungered for necessary knowledge and would have been a fool to follow Yahweh's poor parenting.

Please, don't misunderstand me; The fruit's important is not in dispute but my issue is that you think that Eve was aware, or was capable of understanding it's importance when she lacked the discernment that only the fruit could give. Eve was tempted more by her hunger for sustenance than by a reasoned calculation about what is good or evil.
Now, you think that I'll never understand Genesis? Well, who judges what's a proper understanding of Genesis? I think that both you and I would be accused of lacking understanding by someone from the Church.
Is Yahweh a bad "parent"? Who knows? Certainly debatable. Again so much can be read into the bare scaffold of the story that would depend of your preconceptions. It can be read as a commentary about man's state of nature and what prevents us from going back. Or a tale, like many others, about how humanity rebels against God (or gods) while stealing that which is divine (fire or knowledge) leading to punishment. And again the time in which the interpreter lives matters. For what is "good" parenting?

[Dan~]

The Socratic definition of good and evil is exact opposite to the biblical one.

Knowledge is good, ignorance is evil.

It seems that many mistakes people make,
all stem from a lack of understanding.

Also there is the idea that truth is good, and lies are bad.
This is even better than the Socratic.
At least a little bit.

[omar]

The Socratic definition of good and evil is exact opposite to the biblical one.

Knowledge is good, ignorance is evil.

It seems that many mistakes people make,
all stem from a lack of understanding.

Also there is the idea that truth is good, and lies are bad.
This is even better than the Socratic.
At least a little bit.

I think that biblical writers qualified knowledge, so that it is not that they are against knowledge itself but qualify it as knowledge of God. Knowledge of God and ignorance of God is evil.
Another theme that colors the Biblical stories is fidelity towards an anthropomorphic God. That personalization of God (rather than the impersonal Mover) adds the personal relationship as decisive. Understanding, under such preconceptions, becomes of secondary importance.

[Greatest I am]

Hello Greatest

I agree with your last, but if you insist on thinking of important knowledge as an unimportant fruit, you will never understand Genesis.

Eve hungered for necessary knowledge and would have been a fool to follow Yahweh's poor parenting.

Please, don't misunderstand me; The fruit's important is not in dispute but my issue is that you think that Eve was aware, or was capable of understanding it's importance when she lacked the discernment that only the fruit could give. Eve was tempted more by her hunger for sustenance than by a reasoned calculation about what is good or evil.
Now, you think that I'll never understand Genesis? Well, who judges what's a proper understanding of Genesis? I think that both you and I would be accused of lacking understanding by someone from the Church.
Is Yahweh a bad "parent"? Who knows? Certainly debatable. Again so much can be read into the bare scaffold of the story that would depend of your preconceptions. It can be read as a commentary about man's state of nature and what prevents us from going back. Or a tale, like many others, about how humanity rebels against God (or gods) while stealing that which is divine (fire or knowledge) leading to punishment. And again the time in which the interpreter lives matters. For what is "good" parenting?

You use the term "sustenance".

What does eating have to do with learning?

Tree of Knowledge. Knowledge is learned. Not eaten.

You are correct that it is all about your perception.

Would you deny your children knowledge and an education the way Yahweh is shown as doing?

Would you keep your children as blind as Yahweh said A & E were before having their eyes opened by knowledge.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The Socratic definition of good and evil is exact opposite to the biblical one.

Knowledge is good, ignorance is evil.

It seems that many mistakes people make,
all stem from a lack of understanding.

Also there is the idea that truth is good, and lies are bad.
This is even better than the Socratic.
At least a little bit.

You forget the duality of both good and evil lies and truth and knowledgeable and ignorance.

Explain your strange first statement. I do not recall Socrates calling evil good.

That is a Christian forte, given their genocidal Yahweh.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The Socratic definition of good and evil is exact opposite to the biblical one.

Knowledge is good, ignorance is evil.

It seems that many mistakes people make,
all stem from a lack of understanding.

Also there is the idea that truth is good, and lies are bad.
This is even better than the Socratic.
At least a little bit.

I think that biblical writers qualified knowledge, so that it is not that they are against knowledge itself but qualify it as knowledge of God. Knowledge of God and ignorance of God is evil.
Another theme that colors the Biblical stories is fidelity towards an anthropomorphic God. That personalization of God (rather than the impersonal Mover) adds the personal relationship as decisive. Understanding, under such preconceptions, becomes of secondary importance.

Would you buddy up to Hitler or Stalin?

If not, what about Yahweh?

Regards
DL

[MagsJ]

_
Can I buddy up to a cute male model? I ain’t feeling those other guys.. I think they’d lead me astray.. very, very, astray.

[Ecmandu]

_
Can I buddy up to a cute male model? I ain’t feeling those other guys.. I think they’d lead me astray.. very, very, astray.

The less attractive you are, the more you have to try upstairs. Interesting that you chose the former instead of BOTH.

[MagsJ]

Interesting that you chose the former instead of BOTH.

Not really..

[omar]

Hello Greatest

You use the term "sustenance".
What does eating have to do with learning?
Tree of Knowledge. Knowledge is learned. Not eaten.

God told Adam not to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (yet no such rule was made about the tree of life). The serpent's does not ask about the rule about a tree of knowledge but whether God had told them not to eat from the trees in the garden. When she corrects the serpent she reveals that she is aware of the location of the prohibited tree, but not of the name/magical quality of the tree. Let's remember that she was not present in the conversation God had with Adam, but was aware of the consequences of eating from that tree at the center. This could be interpreted as what she remembered from what Adam told her (her mistake), or as what Adam remembered from what God told him (his mistake). Probably the latter. But moving on, the serpent informed them that they would not die but would gain knowledge of yada, yada. This is the second time that they have been told about the magical powers of the tree's fruit and yet (Gen 3:6) Eve is more impressed by the fruit as fruit than by the fruit as a magical fruit ("and also").
Adam and Eve, in my opinion, like you, never quite made the connection between learning and eating, not in the way that God and the serpent knew. Now remember that this is a mythical story so are normal-thinking objections are not applicable.

You are correct that it is all about your perception.
Would you deny your children knowledge and an education the way Yahweh is shown as doing?

The question I find more interesting is why wasn't the tree of life also off-limits? Consumption of that became problematic after the pair gained knowledge of God and Evil. Does that mean that it is an either/or situation? Is our childlike innocence necessary to enjoy utopia? Wouldn't be the first time I heard that. After the resurrection, in heaven, will we retain our knowledge? Do angels know of good and evil? I think that knowledge of good and evil would have no place in Heaven, the New Garden of Eden.

Would you keep your children as blind as Yahweh said A & E were before having their eyes opened by knowledge.

That is a good question. I guess it depends on the maturity of the child. Having "the talk" with a 3 year old seems cruel to me. All things in all seasons. Let a child be a child when they are a child.

Would you buddy up to Hitler or Stalin?
If not, what about Yahweh?

Is there really a distinction to be made or is it really the same phenomenon? I wouldn't but for my own reasons. That still does not deny that pleasant people did buddy up to Hilter, Stalin, Trumpy... could go on. Yahweh is the least problematic if you ask me. Without God, Job had nothing. He swallowed his moral high ground to capture the power his fidelity to God would procure, and this scenario has played out in the history of christian theology.

[Greatest I am]

Omar

Adam and Eve, as you and I would do, rejected the tree of life, as we would know that life without knowledge of everything is not worth living. We would be ever so stupid.

That is why the scribes ignore it.

You seem to think A & E were children, which means you have ignored Yahweh telling them to reproduce way back in Gen 1.

As to Job, in Job 2;3 you have Yahweh saying that the devil made him do it, thus admitting that he is also under Satan's control.

She move Yahweh to do harm, as Yahweh admits, without a just cause.

We sort of took off in a number of directions. Choose your poison.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Omar

This old O.P. will show my views and notionsl

Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by putting forward their free will argument and placing all the blame on mankind.
That usually sounds like ----God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy. Such statements simply avoid God's culpability as the author and creator of human nature.

Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all do evil/sin by nature then, the evil/sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not do evil/sin. Can we then help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?

Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil and sin is all human generated and in this sense, I agree with Christians, but for completely different reasons. Evil is mankind’s responsibility and not some imaginary God’s. Free will is something that can only be taken. Free will cannot be given not even by a God unless it has been forcibly withheld.

Much has been written to explain evil and sin but I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created. Without intent to do evil, no act should be called evil.
In secular courts, this is called mens rea. Latin for an evil mind or intent and without it, the court will not find someone guilty even if they know that they are the perpetrator of the act.

Evil then is only human to human when they know they are doing evil and intend harm.

As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil, at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, you should see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us. Wherever it came from, God or nature, without evolution we would go extinct. We must do good and evil.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

This link speak to theistic evolution.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... 66/?no-ist

If theistic evolution is true, then the myth of Eden should be read as a myth and there is not really any original sin.

Doing evil then is actually forced on us by evolution and the need to survive. Our default position is to cooperate or to do good. I offer this clip as proof of this. You will note that we default to good as it is better for survival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBW5vdhr_PA

Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Regards
DL

[Ecmandu]

Greatest I Am,

You’re insane. The Bible doesn’t mean shit to this cosmos, Christ doesn’t mean shit to this cosmos, god doesn’t mean shit to this cosmos (at least not like you think it does).

I’m going to tell you the perfect fucking truth right now, and you can choose to ignore it:

None of us were ever born and none of us will never die. This entire reality that we’re currently in took trillions of years to plan, and all of us as souls living FOREVER said, “sure, why the fuck not? We have nothing better to do with FOREVER! We’ll try a different plan later if we like it.”

You are so fucking misinformed about existence.