I know that what i wrote may challenge conventional christian thought. But its not heresy. Neither is it meant to do harm. It is just a perspective. My perspective. So bear with me and hear me out,We Live In a Sinful World
We live in a sinful world. And we don't seem to be able to rid ourselves of sin. But why? In Genesis, sin entered our world, when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, and the history of the human race has been tinted ever since. The consumption of this Fruit has brought sin onto mankind. Yes, it is the "fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". But why is this tree so special? When all other trees in the Garden of Eden are named apple trees, orange trees, durian trees and so on. Why does this "tree" have a name that is such a mouthful? I mean, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is more like a description than a name! Any Christian should be able to tell the story from Genesis about the serpent, the forbidden "fruit", Adam & Eve. And it really is an incredible story! However, I believe that we should not take this story literally. I believe that this story is a parable. A parable that describes something else. Something that explains why we sin and why we need salvation.
To understand the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, let us look at the symptoms of eating its fruit. Firstly, immediately after eating the fruit, Adam and Eve felt naked. Then their eyes were open, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves- Genesis 3:7. And we their descendents have had to clothe ourselves ever since. In fact, this feeling of nakedness is a unique trait of us humans. Only we humans, and no other creature on earth, wear clothes to hide our nakedness. But clothes do not just hide our nakedness, we wear clothes to look good too! Fashion, cosmetics, beauty salons are multi-billion dollar industries! We need clothes!!! And we have needed them ever since Adam and Eve ate that fateful fruit.
Secondly, upon eating the fruit, Adam and Eve began to blame one another for their wrongdoings and disobedience to God. When God asked them why they disobeyed and ate the fruit, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. They did not admit their mistakes and seek forgiveness; instead they tried to reason and explain their way to push their blame and wrongdoings. Today, we humans still push blames and try to deceive one another. This is a distinct trait that we have inherited from Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit. The moment we could speak, we learn to lie. "Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?" "Not me!!" We humans lie, we deceive, we indulge in politics and propaganda. Even games like chess and poker uses skills based on deception and counter-deception!
Last and most unfortunately, we have lost our innocence and sin has crept into our lives ever since that fruit was eaten. All of us have sinned and have done wrong. We know that what we are going to do is wrong and yet we do it. All of us have done something that we feel guilty about. We have a conscience. Most importantly and sadly, we will be judged by God for our sins. We can not claim innocence for our wrongdoings now that we understand good from evil.
Most of us would think that eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil would give us just that: the knowledge of good and evil. But if that were the case, then why are we plagued with moral dilemmas and so many grey areas when it comes to good and evil, right and wrong? If we all have the same knowledge of good and evil, shouldn't we all be unanimous about ethical and moral decisions, crime and punishment, right and wrong? However, the truth is that we many-a-times disagree on what is right and wrong, what is good or evil. We even have a complicated judiciary system with judges, juries and money-sucking lawyers! Hence, I believe that eating this forbidden fruit does not give us the knowledge of good and evil directly. I believe it is indirect...
So what is this fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Why do we humans inherit these symptoms of the forbidden fruit from Adam and Eve? Like I said, this well known story is a parable and is not literal. It is a parable about why we are human and why we sin. This tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not just a tree, it is a description. It describes an innate ability unique to humans and the consumption of this fruit is a parable about us humans acquiring this unique ability. An ability that I believe is called "Empathy". Yes, Empathy.
Empathy: the ability to imagine how another person is feeling and so understand him/her (Oxford Wordpower Dictionary). This gift, empathy, can explain every symptom that Adam and Eve (and we humans too) experience. Empathy "opens our eyes" so that we are now able to see the world in not just our own perspective but in other people's perspectives as well! When Adam and Eve ate the fruit and gained the gift of empathy, their eyes were opened and they saw themselves through the eyes of each other and hence realized their nakedness. They now understand other people's perception about themselves and therefore cared about how they look and how they are perceived by others. We humans also care about how we look and about our self-image; we hide and clothe our nakedness and shamefulness while we dress up to look and feel good about ourselves. No other creature/animal except humans is capable of such an understanding. That is why only we humans wear clothes. And we spend a lot of time and money doing so!!!
We also lie and deceive because we do not just empathize and know the perspectives of others; we also know how, and want, to manipulate other people's perspectives for our own agendas. With this gift of empathy, we also understand how to change other people's views about us and the world, and hence use reasoning to explain our wrongdoings. We abuse this gift of empathy to push the blame and to "right the wrong" for our benefit. We indulge in lies, politics and deception to achieve our agendas. We hide dark dirty secrets and boast our achievements to manipulate and give others a good (sometimes untrue) impression about ourselves. We abuse this gift of empathy to tweak and change the views of others and we do it on a regular basis.
It is also because of this gift of empathy that we are condemned to a life of sin. Now that we know and understand how others feel, we are held accountable, by God, for our actions and their consequences upon others. We can no longer be innocent for the selfish misdeeds of the flesh at the expense of others. We now, with the use of empathy, can understand and derive the knowledge of good and evil. With this intellectual gift of empathy, we are now able to comprehend the beneficial or harmful consequences of our deeds as well as the deeds of others. We can deduce for ourselves if a deed is good or evil, beneficial or harmful to others around us. We may not agree about what is good or evil and have formed many grey areas and dilemmas in the world, but the individual thought process used to come to our own individual conclusions of good and evil is the same. We use "empathy" to collect the many different perspectives of other people as well as our own to reach our views about the world; our views about right and wrong. Now that we know what is good and evil, we now have a conscience and we will be judge by it. We can no longer claim to be innocent, now that we do our deeds in the full knowledge and understanding of its consequence upon others.
Yes, we will be judged accordingly and are guilty of our sins. No good deed can right a wrong deed, no amount of money cannot buy back your innocence, no amount of punishment and retribution can forgive our guilt and sins, only the blood of Jesus can. We sin and are judged to the depth of hell, but Jesus has paid the price and died in place of us so that we can be saved. All you need is to accept Jesus and claim salvation.
Empathy: the ability to imagine how another person is feeling and so understand him/her (Oxford Wordpower Dictionary). This gift, empathy, can explain every symptom that Adam and Eve (and we humans too) experience. Empathy "opens our eyes" so that we are now able to see the world in not just our own perspective but in other people's perspectives as well! When Adam and Eve ate the fruit and gained the gift of empathy, their eyes were opened and they saw themselves through the eyes of each other and hence realized their nakedness. They now understand other people's perception about themselves and therefore cared about how they look and how they are perceived by others. We humans also care about how we look and about our self-image; we hide and clothe our nakedness and shamefulness while we dress up to look and feel good about ourselves. No other creature/animal except humans is capable of such an understanding. That is why only we humans wear clothes. And we spend a lot of time and money doing so!!!
We also lie and deceive because we do not just empathize and know the perspectives of others; we also know how, and want, to manipulate other people's perspectives for our own agendas. With this gift of empathy, we also understand how to change other people's views about us and the world, and hence use reasoning to explain our wrongdoings. We abuse this gift of empathy to push the blame and to "right the wrong" for our benefit. We indulge in lies, politics and deception to achieve our agendas. We hide dark dirty secrets and boast our achievements to manipulate and give others a good (sometimes untrue) impression about ourselves. We abuse this gift of empathy to tweak and change the views of others and we do it on a regular basis.
It is also because of this gift of empathy that we are condemned to a life of sin. Now that we know and understand how others feel, we are held accountable, by God, for our actions and their consequences upon others. We can no longer be innocent for the selfish misdeeds of the flesh at the expense of others. We now, with the use of empathy, can understand and derive the knowledge of good and evil. With this intellectual gift of empathy, we are now able to comprehend the beneficial or harmful consequences of our deeds as well as the deeds of others. We can deduce for ourselves if a deed is good or evil, beneficial or harmful to others around us. We may not agree about what is good or evil and have formed many grey areas and dilemmas in the world, but the individual thought process used to come to our own individual conclusions of good and evil is the same. We use "empathy" to collect the many different perspectives of other people as well as our own to reach our views about the world; our views about right and wrong. Now that we know what is good and evil, we now have a conscience and we will be judge by it. We can no longer claim to be innocent, now that we do our deeds in the full knowledge and understanding of its consequence upon others.
Yes, we will be judged accordingly and are guilty of our sins. No good deed can right a wrong deed, no amount of money cannot buy back your innocence, no amount of punishment and retribution can forgive our guilt and sins, only the blood of Jesus can. We sin and are judged to the depth of hell, but Jesus has paid the price and died in place of us so that we can be saved. All you need is to accept Jesus and claim salvation.
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