The Original Sin Was Committed by God, Not Man

When debating someone who believes in the fundamental components of the
Christian narrative, i.e. the choice by man to eat the apple, the fall,
original sin, and the subsequent return to God, I choose to focus not on the
specifics but rather on the first and most important events. These are the
creation of man, and man’s choice to eat of the tree of knowledge.
-
Why did God create man? Why does an omnipotent and omniscient
being create us in the first place? Did he want companionship? Was he
bored? Was he curious as to the limits of his own powers? None of these
explanations fit with an all-knowing and all-powerful being. Something
there has to be missing in order to desire to create such a lowly and
fragile life form in the first place. -
Why create man with a desire for anything other than God? Quite
simply, if the purpose of man is to love God, then why not create him
just to do that, and with no desire to do something else? -
Even worse than creating man to desire something else (step 2), why
create an perfect source of that which he desires (the tree of
knowledge) and then create a third actor (Lucifer) to taunt him into
making the wrong choice?
Is this not the very definition of “set up for failure”?
The Free Will Gambit
Seeing that this is horribly illogical, all Christians are trained to fall
back on the specious argument of
free will
>. The idea is that despite the fact that God put everything in place for
man to fail, he also gave man free will. So he had the option to
choose correctly, and he should therefore have made the right choice.
This is absurd.
Let’s try another, scaled-down version of this experiment that will prove
how silly this concept really is. Sit a two-year-old in a high chair with
candy on one side of their tray and spinach on the other side, and stand
back with an open hand.
If the baby reaches for the candy, slap the hell out of it.
Ah, but that’s not fair because…..why? Because babies are programmed by
evolution to prefer sweet tastes, so it’s unfair to ask them to choose the
right one because it’s not as pleasurable?
Ok, here’s a better question: who determines what tastes good and what
doesn’t?
Right, God does. And who determined how attractive the tree of knowledge was
to man in the garden? Right, God did. And who decides how attractive “loving
God instead”, i.e. “spinach” was to man at that very moment in the garden?
Right again–God.
So if God controls all the variables, where’s the free will?
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Desires > Free Will: The Well Scenario
Free will is subservient to the strength of natural desires. If I just spent
three days in a well, with no food or water, when I get rescued I have the
choice to a) drink water and eat food, or b) go ride a bike.
Are those equal choices for your supposedly “free” will?
Or how about you have the same well scenario, but this time you have two
options when you get out: a) consume food and water, or b) go
help the homeless at your local shelter. Oh, you’d choose food and water?
Selfish. You had the option–help others or indulge your own dark desires.
You chose wrong.
It’s the same in the garden. Here’s what God essentially offered:
It’s the choice at the well all over again. God determines the strength of
every single one of your desires. Is it your “choice”, as a man, to find
platinum blonde women attractive? Is it your “choice” to like the taste of
steak or beer?
Or, even better, assuming you’re a heterosexual male, could you
decide to be gay right now? Could you exercise your free will and
simply choose to like men instead of women? No, not really. So how much of a
choice is it, really, when you’re asked whether you want to have sex with an
attractive woman or an attractive man? Where is your free will when the
directions and strengths of your desires are determined for you?
So I ask again: if God controlled all of the following in the garden…
-
The attractiveness of staying with God
-
The attractiveness of the tree of knowledge
-
The seductiveness of Lucifer
-
The gullibility of Eve
-
How likely Adam would be to do what Eve had already done
…and we all agree that God did control these things…how did man really make
a choice at all?
Simple answer: he didn’t.
Lucky for us the story isn’t true at all. It’s nothing more than one of
thousands of these highly similar narratives
>
created by man throughout history. 99% of the world accepts that 99% of the
other nearly identical stories are completely untrue, so it’s only a matter
of time before we clear up that last 1%.:
Links
[
Fiction Based on Fiction | danielmiessler.com
>
][
Free Will: The Necessary Delusion | danielmiessler.com
>
]
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