garden, eden, adam, eve, justice, genesis, bible, ray, comfort, god, yhwh, humor
Ray Comfort's latest post brings up the standard fundamentalist explanation for death, suffering, disease and the general uncomfortableness of life: it's your fault. Oh, it's my fault, too, well, it's really Adam and Eve's fault, and, yeah, let's let Ray explain it:
When God made Adam and Eve He made them perfect. There was no disease, suffering, pain and death. When they rebelled against Him, He cursed them and the earth, and we now live in what is commonly called a "fallen creation."
See, Yhwh put a tree in the center of the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Actually, it was two trees. He also put the Tree of Life in the center of Garden of Eden. Now, being omnipotent, if he didn't want anyone to eat of the fruit of either of those Trees, he could have put them outside of the Garden of Eden, or put them on top of a mountain, or put a fence around them, but no, he just leaves the Trees right there where anyone can get at them.
Then, Yhwh puts two people, two completely innocent people, who have been alive all of one day, who have no concept of right or wrong, who have never seen or heard of death, in the Garden with the Trees. The Trees he didn't want these two people to touch. Then he told them they would die if they ate the fruit.
Did I mention Yhwh is supposed to be omniscient?
Yhwh: You can eat anything you want, but don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
Eve: Why not?
Yhwh: Because I'll fjwuieruthf you if you do.
Adam: What?
Yhwh: I will fjwuieruthf you if you eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
*Adam and Eve look at one another*
Eve: Ummm . . . what's fjwuieruthf?
Yhwh: You know, I'll fjwuieruthf you if you do it.
Eve (to Adam): You've been around twice as long as me, what's fjwuieruthf?
Adam (shrugs): I dunno. Maybe it's one of those furry things I haven't named yet?
Yhwh: Look, you eat that fruit and I'll fjwuieruthf you! End of discussion.
Eve: That fruit looks pretty tasty. What do you call it again?
Adam: Snorg.
Eve: Snorg? Really? Are you sure you don't like apple better?
Adam: What's wrong with snorg?
Eve: I let you have platypus.
Adam: I guess apple's okay.
Eve: Well, that apple looks pretty tasty, and we don't know that fjwuieruthf is bad. Maybe it's not bad at all.
Yhwh: I can assure you that fjwuieruthf is very bad. Very, very bad.
Adam: Yeah, but what is it?
Eve: Maybe you could fjwuieruthf something else in the Garden and then we could decide if fjwuieruthf is bad enough to make us not try the apple.
Yhwh: I can't fjwuieruthf anything! This is the Garden of Eden, nothing ever fjwuieruthfs!
Adam: So, wait, will you or won't you fjwuieruthf us? We're in the Garden. Why can we be fjwuieruthfed?
Eve: Screw this, I'm eating the apple.
There you have it, the fundamentalist version of justice.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
11 comments:
Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?
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just as a total aside, with no relevance to anything whatsoever...
ReplyDeletei pretty much ascribe to the theory that eating the fruit? it was good. because if they HADN'T eaten the fruit, there would still be exactly two people on this planet. just two. unaging, unchanging, unprocreating (is that a word? oh well, this is why i subscribe to the Humpty Dumpty Law: i pay the words, they do what i want)
oh, how i get off track.
anyway, assuming that i bought into the first Genesis myth, the whole freaking point is that Adam and Eve (or Lilith, whatever) could either A) live forever or B) have lots o' babies.
or, there is option C, which i tend to like) they were SUPPOSED TO EAT THE FRUIT, its called REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY RayBoy.
but really - if no fruit was eaten, there would have been no anything else. no Jesus.
Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI'm crying. That was great.
ReplyDeleteThat was an amusing read!
ReplyDeleteBut then you'll always get the theist arguing that 'God was testing their faith by putting the tree in Eden' just like 'God is testing us, that is why there is suffering' or some crazy talk like that.
Bows.
ReplyDeleteI just picture god as my MIL, who seems to think that she can just tell my dog not to lie (lay?) on the rug (which admittedly, does furrify the rug), and he'll completely understand, and if he continues to lie/lay on the rug, he's being disobedient. Hello, he doesn't speak English.
Actually, Denelian, if you get a decent translation of the Book of Genesis (read: Jewish), you'll see that there were two trees: knowledge and eternal life. God wasn't pissed that A & E had disobeyed him, he was afraid that if they ate from the Tree of Life, they would (and this is an exact quote) "become as one of us."
I'm starting to ascribe to the Stargate theory of the bible.
This is hilarious. I thought, God made Eve perfect, Ray, and she ate the apple Ray, so...
ReplyDeleteeating it "made her like God, with knowledge of good and evil". SO after eating it and knowing whether or not it was evil, she gave it to Adam. Obviously, giving it to him to eat was the good and godlike thing to do, Ray.
ooooooooh... i forgot that. i mean, i know there was the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. i had always been of the impression that eating from one got rid of the other - so you could live forever or you could have knowledge. but what you say makes more sense - they now had knowledge, and if they ate from the other tree they would have knowledge AND be immortal, so yeah, effectively "gods"
ReplyDeletei love how the Bible is peppered with references to the fact that there are other gods :D
Ancient Israelites weren't monotheists- they were monolatrists. They clearly believed in other gods, they just figured they had picked the winning pony.
ReplyDeleteUzza: We were made in God's image, therefore . . . Yhwh was seriously flawed.
"We were made in God's image, therefore Yhwh was seriously flawed."
ReplyDelete...or else...
maybe there's nothing wrong with us. :-)
i like you, uzza!
ReplyDelete" monolatrists"
ReplyDeletei had never seen this word before.
i really like it.
YHWH was originally a minor Babalonian war god, and he made a deal with the Israelites. at least, according to this wonderful book i read last year that is downstairs in the box with all my religious books which is under two boxes of textbooks.
i will do my bestest to get Pete to move the boxes so i can get you the name of the book; i think you will enjoy it.