The Eden Story

by choosing life 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  choosing life

  In the garden of Eden, God supposedly didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. He preferred they remain innocent and incapable of deciding for themselves what is right or wrong.

  Along comes Satan who wants them to eat of this tree and says they will become like God, knowing good and bad for themselves. He says they will be like God.

  As we all know, they chose to eat and find out what they were missing. Then they instantly became ashamed because they were naked. God discovers their behavior and knows they have eaten from this tree. He states. "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad." Then he throws them out of the garden so they are unable to eat from the tree of life and live forever.

  My question is, why did God not want his earthly children to be like him? Isn't he perfect? Were they not made in his image? Are we not judged today on how we behave and what we decide is good and bad? First he doesn't want it and now we are judged eternally on our perceptions of good and bad.

  Can't have it both ways.
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  snarf

  In my opinion, to have knowledge is to have power. God does not want us to have power. Another bible example is the tower of Babel. The people were becoming too knowledgable, so he divided them and spread them throughout with different languages, so they could no longer communicate, thus ending their increase of knowledge as a group.
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  choosing life

  Good point Snarf,

  When I apply this to my own situation, though, I wonder If that is fair. What would others think of me if I decided I never wanted my children to grow up and make their own decisions in life? I think my kids would have rebelled in a major way.

  So does God not want us to have knowledge so we won't have any power? I know that many abuse the power they have over others. But does this in itself make power bad?
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  nvrgnbk

  Yes to snarf and choosing life.

  Hence, Satan's claims, speaking allegorically of course, were true.
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  snarf

  I don't think power is ever a bad thing, unless it is abused. I think this is where free-will comes in. Once their eyes were opened, then they had a choice, a choice they had all along but were never aware of until eating the forbidden fruit. Now that their eyes were opened, they could do good or bad, free will. As parents we give our children choices...sometimes the choices are good, sometimes bad. We teach them there are consequences to their actions wther good or bad, just as , God was giving Adam and Eve the consequence for their actions. By gaining knowledge they now had power. Power to do good deeds, or power to do bad deeds.....example...Cain and Abel.

  Am I making sense here?...lol I think I just confused my self
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  choosing life

  That's where I get confused. If they really had free will, they had the power to choose between good and bad all along. So why did eating a fruit make things go so bad so quickly? The very first human born killed his brother. Where did he get such a bad idea so quickly?

  Shouldn't God have taught his children to progressively learn to make decisions like we do our children? And why would he allow them to be exposed to a creature that was much more experienced and bound to be able to fool them. The Bible does say that Eve was fooled.
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  Shawn10538

  Reality check people! This is a myth. A Summerian one in fact that pre-dates the Semitic people. I'm not saying it's not fun to talk about, but as adults let's keep our wits about us and speak about it in context of myth.
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  Sheepish

  Don't mean to sound harsh here, but I tried to answer your questions in a brief manner:

  "In the garden of Eden, God supposedly didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. He preferred they remain innocent and incapable of deciding for themselves what is right or wrong."

  I think he preferred they OBEY him firstly.

  "Along comes Satan who wants them to eat of this tree and says they will become like God, knowing good and bad for themselves. He says they will be like God."

  And in a sideways way they did become like God...but NOT God.They made the leap to "Knowing" good and bad or rather deciding it for themselves, rather than following him.

  "As we all know, they chose to eat and find out what they were missing. Then they instantly became ashamed because they were naked. God discovers their behavior and knows they have eaten from this tree. He states. "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad." Then he throws them out of the garden so they are unable to eat from the tree of life and live forever."

  uh-huh.

  "My question is, why did God not want his earthly children to be like him? Isn't he perfect? Were they not made in his image? Are we not judged today on how we behave and what we decide is good and bad? First he doesn't want it and now we are judged eternally on our perceptions of good and bad."

  You may want your child to be like you, but you don't want a baby driving a car, having sex or even taking a glass of wine.(All things morally fine by the way) You, as the older, wiser one, decides when the child will have certain things. This is not unreasonable. Today,we are eternally judged on whether we have admitted our sinful state, and accepted the sacrifice of Jesus for it, and our relationship is restored with God. The standard for good and evil are still God's. It isn't necessary to make our own.

  "Can't have it both ways."

  It isn't.
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  choosing life

  I realize it is a story, but it is interesting to dissect it and find the contradictions in it. There are a lot of people who never really think about the nonsensibleness of the entire story.
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  snarf

  I am with ya choosing life. Besides, some people don't believe it to be a story. Afterall it is in the Bible, and as we know, alot of people take the Bible as only true, except for the few parrables Jesus told.