Understanding original sin


The story about Adam, Eve and the serpent in the Bible's book of Genesis is very important to Christians. This story, also known as "the fall of man" and "original sin," is so important because it explains a great many things about Christianity and the Christian God.

For example, the story of "original sin" explains why an omnipotent God allows so much suffering to occur on our planet. It also explains why Jesus needed to come to earth to be crucified. It explains why human childbirth is so painful. It explains why human nature can be, at times, so cruel and evil. It explains the sacrament of baptism. According to this page:

If you talk to Christians, you will find that a majority believe "the fall of man" to be literally true. It is not a fable or a myth in their minds. Christ's crucifixion and resurrection are the centerpiece of the Christian faith, and the story of "original sin" gives the crucifixion its ultimate meaning.

The question that we will explore in this article is a simple one: is the Bible's story of original sin valid? Does this story, whether it is literally true or not, have any importance to mankind? The goal is to help Christians to look at the story of original sin from a fresh perspective and analyze its meaning.

The Creation Story

"The fall of man" starts with the creation of man. Genesis 2:7 describes the actual creation process in this way:

At this point, many scientists already have a problem with the Bible. According to the Bible, God created Adam from a handful of dust in 4004 BCE. Science shows us, on the other hand, that humans have existed for tens of thousands of years and that we evolved from other species. Let's ignore this problem as a minor quibble -- it could be that the Bible's story is intended by God more as "literature" rather than "factual truth." It is a fact that the human body is formed of minerals (dust) and returns to minerals (dust), so the story is true in that sense.

After creating man, the Bible says that God moved man into the Garden of Eden:

God later creates Eve and we reach the meat of the story. The serpent convinces Eve to eat from the tree, and Eve convinces Adam.

Here we are faced with an enigma -- a talking snake. From a scientific standpoint this snake is impossible. There is no such thing as a talking snake. Snakes (and reptiles in general) have neither the physical structure nor the brain power to speak. There simply are not enough neurons in the reptile brain to process language.

Even in the context of the story, the talking snake is a bit hard to swallow. The story seems to be saying that God created not one but two sentient species -- humans and serpents. Yet the Bible makes no mention of the serpent's creation nor does God provide any warning to the serpent to stay away from the tree.

Let us ignore this as a quibble as well. Perhaps the serpent is God's way of personifying Satan in the story.

After Adam and Eve disobey God and eat from the fruit of the tree, here is what happens:

This passage is a bit odd for four reasons. Let's discuss them and dismiss them: Let us ignore all of these issues with the story, because there is one other issue that seems more important.

Programming Adam

When you read this story and really think about it, you realize that Adam and Eve are a very special case. Look at it this way. When normal people like you and me are born as babies, we know absolutely nothing. We have to learn about our native language, culture, rules, laws, history, etc. from our parents over the course of many years. Adam, on the other hand, is created from the dust of the earth. Like Frosty the snowman, Adam, "came to life one day." The instant that he is created in the Bible, Adam is an adult who can speak and think.

This raises a number of questions about Adam's state of mind:

The point is simple: God directly controlled every single thought in Adam's (and Eve's) head through this initial programming.

So why is God surprised in any way by the events that unfold in the garden, and why is there any need to punish mankind? Since God is the one who created and pre-programmed all of the actors, God made all of the decisions on what would happen in Eden. When God asks "Have you eaten from the tree that I told you not to eat from?", why bother asking? God programmed it to happen. God can see the full swath of history -- billions of years forward and backward down to the atomic level. That is what omniscience is all about. God created Adam and Eve, God pre-programmed Adam and Eve, so God knows exactly what Adam, Eve and the serpent will do together. Adam and Eve were doomed from the very beginning.

This is what makes the creation story and the notion of "original sin" seem so ridiculous to non-Christians. Adam did not "sin." For one thing, Adam would have no way to know what a sin is until he ate the fruit. For another, Adam had no control whatsoever over what he did and therefore it was not a "sin" to act that way.

Responding to God

If Adam was smart, what he would say to God in response to a question like, "What are you doing?" is something like this:

What is even more bizarre is God's response to Adam's "sin." Here's what an all-knowing, all-loving God might have said to Adam: That, unfortunately, is not what our all-knowing, all-loving God says. God decides instead to play the role of a total jerk. For her punishment, God says to Eve, This, of course, is torture. Inflicting excruciating pain on someone as punishment is the definition of torture. So God is the universe's all-powerful torturer. Great. This is just another thing to add to our long list of absurdity in this story. We all know that evolution created the pain of childbirth, not "god."

Adam is punished in a similar way -- God convicts Adam and gives him the death sentence. Post-fruit, God says:

God then banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden so that they and all their offspring can begin their sentences of toil, pain, suffering and death. This is mankind's first real encounter with the all-knowing, all-loving God of the universe.

It is hard to imagine the relationship with God getting any worse than this, but it does. Just three pages later, here is what God has to say about the human race:

Here God states his plan for the mass extermination and wholesale slaughter of nearly every human and animal on the face of the earth. God moves from "all-powerful torturer" to "demonic mass-murdering abomination" in the process. The mountain of absurdity grows. God makes Hitler look like an amateur. Instead of killing millions of people, wouldn't it be easier to offer some classes in good living? Or perhaps God could have created people the right way when he created Adam, since God is omniscient and perfect.

When you think about it like this, you cannot miss the huge problem with the Bible. The Bible is supposed to be the error-free product of a perfect, omniscient being. Everything you have been told since birth tells you that the Bible is the perfect word of God. However, your common sense tells you something far different. When you actually read the Bible, what you find is that it is ridiculous. None of this happened. None of it came from God. All of it is a fairy tale. The Bible, quite obviously, was written by primitive men rather than God. "Original sin" is completely meaningless because it is an ancient fable. With that realization you come to understand many other things as well, as discussed in detail in the book.

What I would ask you to do is simply think about the Bible and the creation story as a rational human being. Read the book to learn more.

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