What can we gather from Genesis?

[marco]

Can we extract anything good from the Genesis account of creation? God apparently told Adam, the first human: "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." He didn't say why he had planted poisonous berries in a perfect orchard. Adam seems to have lived on, having escaped the dangerous garden.


We can extract beautiful meanings from the tales of Hans Andersen, such as the Little Mermaid who learns that pleasure comes at a great price. From the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in Greek mythology we can understand that a man can enter his dark psyche to find something precious, only to have it snatched away.


Can we learn anything useful from the Genesis creation story?

If we accept the existence of Neanderthal man do we simply throw Genesis in the bucket?

[marco]

Can we learn anything useful from the Genesis creation story?

We don't have Christ telling us Adam was a fiction. Instead some people call Christ "a second Adam", the wise Cardinal Newman among them.

It is hard to read Genesis and not laugh loudly, but because many people go to that text and find something sacred in it, we owe it to them not to laugh but to try to see a meaning.

The best one can do, perhaps, is to extract a warning: don't eat to excess, don't place your life in danger, think before you act. But the Church through the ages has grabbed hold of the primitive Adam and built a theology on his fig-leaf. I wonder why.

[Thomas123]

The self awareness of man, or the cliched fig-leaf is surely worth considering seriously, Marco.You correctly state that religions have been stretched out on this piece of foliage.
Do you believe in evolution ,Marco?
Can you imagine a significant moment in our early evolutionary journey that was a complete game changer. If so, then please tell the thread what you think that was. I look forward to your answers, if they come.
Thank You

[Willum]

If we take it as a "Holy Religious Story," then very little, actually, except that people always blame themselves instead of authority.

If we take it as the Sumerian intended, it is a story about leaving the happiness and security of childhood for adulthood.

Children are unashamed of being naked.
Women, hence Eve, matured first.
She was seduced by a snake, a phallic symbol.
It was an act of rebellion that got daddy-god mad.
And he threw them out of the house/paradise.

It isn't complicated, if you aren't religious.

[Difflugia]

Can we learn anything useful from the Genesis creation story?

• If you ever fall asleep in a room with God, but a weird girl you don't know wakes you up instead, count your ribs.
• If you find out God lied about something, it's probably best to just pretend you don't know.
• If you're going out looting, make sure the friends you take won't roll over on you. I started to feel sorry for Eve, but then she totally dropped on the snake. Dude!

[Difflugia]

Can you imagine a significant moment in our early evolutionary journey that was a complete game changer. If so, then please tell the thread what you think that was.

Notochords were a super big deal.

[marco]

Can you imagine a significant moment in our early evolutionary journey that was a complete game changer. If so, then please tell the thread what you think that was. I look forward to your answers, if they come.
Thank You

The creation story wasn't a game changer but a game starter as far as humanity is concerned. In the course of man's evolution we have certainly changed our lives significantly as a result of man's ingenuity and inventiveness.

We are discussing Genesis. I've no idea whether you take the tale literally or impose your own metaphorical interpretation. Of course our own ideas, however clever, might be several light years from anything resembling truth. It is ironic that a book that purports to sell truth requires the reader to imagine and invent.

[marco]

If we take it as a "Holy Religious Story," then very little, actually, except that people always blame themselves instead of authority.

If we take it as the Sumerian intended, it is a story about leaving the happiness and security of childhood for adulthood.

Children are unashamed of being naked.
Women, hence Eve, matured first.
She was seduced by a snake, a phallic symbol.
It was an act of rebellion that got daddy-god mad.
And he threw them out of the house/paradise.

It isn't complicated, if you aren't religious.

We can build a thesis on Cinderella. The Christian preoccupation with nakedness and sex is possibly an extrapolation from Adam's nakedness. Then we have the absurd reaction of Noah's sons to dad's drunken nakedness. As you say the snake is possibly a phallic symbol but prudery would possibly require it to be a talking devil, fully clothed.
One wonders how a religion has survived, being built on this stuff. But man requires his walking stick.

[amortalman]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

I'm sure you are aware of the "good" biblical literalists get from the creation story. To them, it explains the origin of mankind and how "sin" entered into the world. What is truly dumbfounding is how anyone in modern times can still believe this nonsense. Especially when many of them are otherwise rational, intelligent people. It would be an interesting study in psychology.

I think some just buy into it as part of the total package, as I once did. They are taught these things in Sunday School as young children, believe it, but don't hear it taught or preached much after that. Most evangelical pastors don't want to go there and for good reason.

[Thomas123]

What a start for a book, what a creation myth!
I cannot say for certain whether there is wisdom in it or whether I have extracted wisdom from it. Perhaps neither.
I have been instructed with this story since childhood like many others.
I could not possibly disagree more with the shallow presentation of this story's merits that I see here on this debate.
This is not a scientific journal explaining man's early evolvement from his primate origins. Can you explain how this happened, to me in simple terms. Are we more or similar to other primates. If more then, in what way. Adam in primate oblivion emerges to the glare of conscious awareness on a journey out of Eden away from Yahweh, the Eden God.That is the Genesis explanation of our distant past. What is yours?