Monday, May 07, 2007

Genesis 3:21-24

21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.


Oh yeah, I was right about the tree of life after all, I just forgot where the reference is. So yes, Adam and Eve were always fated to die, unless they ate from the fruit of the tree of life. God seems a bit dazed and confused -- he evidently neglected to warn the people not to eat from the tree of life before, but now it occurs to him that not only did he not want them to know good from evil, he did not want them to live forever either, so only now does he take the trouble to do something about it.

So again, why does God put the two trees in the garden in the first place? He doesn't want us to be "like Gods," knowing good from evil, and living forever, but why create the risk? And God lied to the people -- he said if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they would surely die, but they were going to die anyway -- and Adam lives for another 900+ years, as it turns out.

God is disappointed in his creation, so he punishes us. But hey -- he made us. If he's unhappy with the quality of the product, whose fault is that? And furthermore God is a liar. If he could lie to us about the tree of knowledge, why should we believe anything he says? I'm really starting to dislike this guy -- he's incredibly arrogant, incapable of acknowledging his own mistakes, he's vindictive, and he's a liar. Even if he did exist, I sure wouldn't worship him. He doesn't deserve it.

For biblical literalists, obviously, this passage would appear to be a major embarassment. Today, we have thoroughly surveyed and visited every square inch of the earth's surface, and uhh, no cherubim, no flaming sword, no secret garden with a tree of life. Nowhere, no way, nohow. Okay, maybe it all got wiped out in the flood -- but if destroying it was an option, why not just do it immediately?