Fall From Grace or Call to Adventure?

Adam and Eve's Fall From Grace
Ignorance is bliss!

The fall from grace has been taught as a myth that depicts humanity's virtue of innocence and transformation into guilt and disobedience, and ultimately rejection and expulsion from paradise. This myth is so often taught as a cautionary tale warning of disobedience to God, and the consequences of it. So, what the hell happened to get Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise?

When we first read of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, they are hanging out with god in The Garden of Eden, and it is paradise. All they could ever want or need is there at their fingertips, and they spend their days not wanting. God, being the proper host, inquired to the two guests, and asked about their happiness. Both Adam and Eve assured God they were happy. So then God asked if it was their intentions to stay in paradise, and both enthusiastically responded yes. Satisfied, God told them they were most welcome, and they were welcome to anything in The Garden of Eden, but that if they wanted to stay, they could not eat from Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Of course, Adam and Eve agree to this condition, after all, who wouldn't. Even so, them fruit there on that tree sure look juicy...demons, demons, demons...why shouldn't these two eat from The Tree of Knowledge of Good of Evil? After all, knowledge is power! "Why", Eve suggested to Adam, "I'll bet God eats from that tree! Why shouldn't we know what God knows?" Slippery slopes, like slippery serpents, lead to downward spirals or upward struggles depending upon your point of view, and what seemed like a simple idea, to eat from this Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and to know what God knows, started with just a bite. So, with a choice to gain more knowledge, they filled their stomachs with forbidden fruit.

God, reportedly was very angry. Angry or not, they resided in paradise, The Garden of Eden where only good is known. They were offered the choice to stay or leave but the two, while speaking out of one side of their mouths and claimed they chose to stay, their actions reveal something entirely different, and what they chose was to Know Good AND Evil. This choice meant they must necessarily leave the Garden, and can no longer know the eternal place that is solely good, and now must now a life of good and evil, and a pain filled life that one day finally ends.

This myth, in my humble opinion, was not about punishment, but it was about consequences. The choice to know more came with dire consequences, but consider what was chosen. Are these two prototypical humans to blamed for "original sin", or should they be viewed as iconic heroes, who did not disobey God at all, and fully understood his message. If they wanted to stay, then they could not know evil, so they should avoid eating the fruit that would demand that knowledge. Adam and Eve chose this knowledge anyway, and in doing so, they lifted us as humanity out of ignorance and on to our great journey towards truth.

Perhaps this journey of truth will lead to the knowledge that there is no Good and Evil in reality, but they are merely concepts we invented after eating from the fruit. The knowledge of good and evil became our invention of polarities where we would measure our journey. Perhaps, there was neither good nor evil in paradise, and such a place was simply a stasis, but bored with stasis, we chose this game, this journey of good and evil, and perhaps in the end, we'll have come full circle, and abandon those concepts for a different game, but that this myth is told as a fall from grace and expulsion from paradise, seems to miss the point. Myths are life lessons intended to help guide us in this life, and most of us are fortunate to have family and some sort of comfortable stasis, but at some point its time to eat the forbidden fruit, and say goodbye to those in the Garden, and make your own way, in a world where knowledge is preferred over ignorance.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

*bumped*

This myth, in my humble opinion, was not about punishment, but it was about consequences. The choice to know more came with dire consequences, but consider what was chosen. Are these two prototypical humans to blamed for "original sin", or should they be viewed as iconic heroes, who did not disobey God at all, and fully understood his message. If they wanted to stay, then they could not know evil, so they should avoid eating the fruit that would demand that knowledge. Adam and Eve chose this knowledge anyway, and in doing so, they lifted us as humanity out of ignorance and on to our great journey towards truth.

Reinforcing our collective memory by such myths, as though if we were to start afresh without such memory would be such a horrific notion is not totally irrational, but rather fills me with an increasingly profound belief that we have failed somewhat in our effort to refresh and make vast incremental improvements. (You chose the example, and even reinforced the myth with the Eve dialogue, so I will play along.)

If your argument is presented to contemplate the meaning of denying ignorance then it suits the purpose nicely. However I bristle at this dismissal of punishment altogether and reallocating the effects of expulsion to the notion of consequences only.

Presenting the pre-expulsion couple as a unit fits well into your presentation but from the moment of that expulsion the unit is under attack and this is where the dichotomy of humanity's progression and stagnation begins. I submit that punishment and consequences are not independent of each other. For at the moment of expulsion the couple suffered different fates. They are indicative of punishment if viewed from the perspective of the ones whose reality over time means to be treated as the culpable, and to this day receive reinforced reminders, strong and loud signals that they are to blame.
To wit:

The new rules issued by the Vatican puts attempts at ordaining women among the “most serious crimes” alongside paedophilia and will be handled by investigators from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), considered the successor to the Inquisition.

Source

Although I have no interest in encouraging women to join this oldest of exclusive boys' club, for women to read that their inclusion would be on a par with pedophilia is nothing less than the continued blame – punishment scenario, and an intentionally evil statement, imo. Since I personally regard pedophilia as the lowest level of human behavior, on a par with murder and deliberate destruction of the human spirit, this message is both clear and loathesomely evil to me. The Vatican's reply to your thread title would therefore be obvious.

On the other hand, if we use this ability to learn as an adventure and progressively learn while shedding our collective and cultural memory, choosing to keep only those things that do not hinder our progress forward, then we are the just inheritors of knowledge. We must drop such myths and the application of such myths if they do not help us progress, just as humanity decided to drop human sacrifice.