I knew there would come a day when almost a decade of mandatory bible classes in private school would pay off.
(That’s not true, I’ve generally written it off as a really depressing waste of my mental resources… still)
You’ve got the order of events in the Garden of Eden backwards. After God finished up and took off for Miller Time, Adam and Eve had nothing to do. They didn’t need clothes or shelter, all animals were obedient and gentle, they had to live of fruit for eternity which would get old, the weather and season (singular) was always the same and they were the only those two people in existence with no concept of there ever being any more. Sure, they would have lived forever, but there was no challenge, inspiration, reason or stimulation.
Only AFTER the forbidden fruit and the knowledge of good and evil does God start up Eve’s biological clock and issue the ‘be fruitful and multiply’ command, society starts to develop, there’s a ton of implicit incest (er… bonus?) and they can cook up a nice lamb shank to break up the monotony.
Once again, the literal interpretation of the bible leaves a lot to be desired in a literary sense, because the Garden of Eden is one of the most depressing ‘paradises’ ever devised.
Also, here I go again responding to many-years-cold comments.
and they can cook up a nice lamb shank to break up the monotony.
Well, no. That’s not until Noah is issued permission to eat meat after the Flood.
because the Garden of Eden is one of the most depressing ‘paradises’ ever devised
It’s not that depressing. It’s just a park. The depressing part is that God gets angry and says, “Oh, you don’t want to spend 100% of all your existence in this park for all eternity with literally nothing else? FUCK YOU AND LITERALLY DIE.” A good God would have allowed much larger portions of possible life-space to be explored with fewer or even no penalties.
Eden is indeed more interesting for having the Apple, but damnation is so totally uninteresting that religious people had to go and invent Redemption, which is the simpering and undignified version of having your cake and eating it too.
I knew there would come a day when almost a decade of mandatory bible classes in private school would pay off. (That’s not true, I’ve generally written it off as a really depressing waste of my mental resources… still) You’ve got the order of events in the Garden of Eden backwards. After God finished up and took off for Miller Time, Adam and Eve had nothing to do. They didn’t need clothes or shelter, all animals were obedient and gentle, they had to live of fruit for eternity which would get old, the weather and season (singular) was always the same and they were the only those two people in existence with no concept of there ever being any more. Sure, they would have lived forever, but there was no challenge, inspiration, reason or stimulation. Only AFTER the forbidden fruit and the knowledge of good and evil does God start up Eve’s biological clock and issue the ‘be fruitful and multiply’ command, society starts to develop, there’s a ton of implicit incest (er… bonus?) and they can cook up a nice lamb shank to break up the monotony. Once again, the literal interpretation of the bible leaves a lot to be desired in a literary sense, because the Garden of Eden is one of the most depressing ‘paradises’ ever devised. Also, here I go again responding to many-years-cold comments.
Well, no. That’s not until Noah is issued permission to eat meat after the Flood.
It’s not that depressing. It’s just a park. The depressing part is that God gets angry and says, “Oh, you don’t want to spend 100% of all your existence in this park for all eternity with literally nothing else? FUCK YOU AND LITERALLY DIE.” A good God would have allowed much larger portions of possible life-space to be explored with fewer or even no penalties.
Eden is indeed more interesting for having the Apple, but damnation is so totally uninteresting that religious people had to go and invent Redemption, which is the simpering and undignified version of having your cake and eating it too.