Now I'm talking about the general story. Not if the snake was an actual talking snake or if this is a metaphor for an insidious being, stuff like that.

rib women to be taken literally?

Well it's more a question about the fall of man.

Logically it follows that this story must be at least mostly true because otherwise sin doesn't enter the world or has no reason to enter the world and thus god has no reason to send himself to be sacrificed to absolve us of sin.

Of course the other option is that god created a world which inherently had sin which destroys the idea that god is morally good (which I'm happy to elaborate on if a theist needs to know why).

It's an extension of the problem of evil which no theist has ever been able to deal with effectively which is why widow comes up with his Disney/anime quote whenever someone brings it up. There's just no way to rationally dismiss it so he mocks it instead. Although I'm open to being proven wrong on that point. It's all about learning for me and hopefully getting a couple of theists to think critically in the process.

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 09:33pm

I'll edit this to be nice. Sorry for spam.

This post was edited by kyle_lowry2 on Jan 18 2015 09:46pm

If you have a valid point to add to the discussion I couldn't care less if you're nice about it or not.

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 09:56pm

Every story is a metaphor in the bible.

For example:

The story of Abraham in which he was supposed to sacrifice his son Isaac, but instead was provided with a suitable lamb tangled in thorns.

The sacrifice is the atonement for sins. Isaac represents mankind which is about to be punished for sins. Abraham represents God as the "father of nations." Jesus is the perfect lamb which takes the place of mankind. See?

Now for the subject at hand:

The knowledge of good and evil is the "law." Yes this is the same law that moses delivers to the Israelites, the same law mankind is punished for. The tree of life is immortality with God.

When man breaks the law he is cast from "the garden," and given to "the earth." Solomon calls this the "spiritual man" and the "natural man" respectively.

Conclusion:

It is both a metaphor of the reality depicted by the bible and (possibly) an actual occurrence

Being that God is all powerful, it is possible that he could set up real events which play out like metaphors in order to convey meaning to his creation.

This post was edited by PixileDust on Jan 18 2015 10:15pm

That is definitely an interesting response...

Can I ask you how this interpretation affects your response to the problem of evil and what that response is?

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 10:20pm

Adam and Eve could not commit evil until they knew what evil was -- the law. It is like how a lion does not commit evil by eating a gazelle.

Once they ate of the tree they were like god, able to discern between good and evil; and thus responsible for every action from then on, including the sin (aka disobeying of the law which they now knew) of eating from the tree itself (being given the knowledge of the law).

So two questions instantly come to mind -

1) if they had no knowledge of good or evil before they ate from the tree of knowledge then how could they know that eating from the tree was an evil act?

2) if God is omniscient and knew that they would eat from the tree then did they even have the choice not to do so?

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 18 2015 10:36pm

1) God told Adam and Eve that eating from the tree was not permitted or they would "surely die that day."

It also says in various other texts "the wages of sin is death," therefore this commandment was the one and only piece of law; and there inability to follow it was sin.

2) Yes, he knew they would eat from the tree by definition. In fact, why would he even create the law or even place a tree with good-looking fruit in a garden if he didn't want them to commit the sin?

He also would have done all this knowing of everything in the future, including the atonement of Jesus.

The obtaining of the knowledge of good and evil made man like God; I think that was the plan all along. As it says in Genesis, "let us make man in our likeness and our image, so God made man in his likeness and image."

This post was edited by PixileDust on Jan 18 2015 10:45pm