The Fall
The fall of man, the eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, is central to the Christian religion. Christianity operates on the basic premise that man is fundamentally flawed, and has been since the first sin was committed by Adam and Eve in the beginning of Genesis. In eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command, and thus permanently tainted man with sin. This flaw necessitates some kind of savior, a martyr to pay the price for man's sin. Many religions believe in the same concept of sin and savior and have their own messiahs. In Christianity's case, the messiah is Jesus. Without original sin, there is no need for Jesus, and Christianity's most important pillar collapses.
Here, I will be citing and explaining the primary flaws of what will be called the Fall. This article alone should be enough to provoke Christians to seriously question their faith, but then again, theists' actions never cease to amaze me. Let's begin.
Firstly, we should consider the fact that God is omniscient. As I've stated in many previous articles, this means that he is all knowing, in possession of all that there is to be known -- including knowledge of what will happen in the future. God, then, knew that man would sin before he even created the universe. He knew perfectly well of the implications of this, that he would be forced to expel man from the paradise known as Eden, that he would have to flood the entire planet with water to rid the land of sinners, that most of the human population would be doomed to hell, and that he would have to send his only begotten son to be a martyr. God went ahead and created man nevertheless. Any sane person would question why such an allegedly benevolent being would perform an act as sadistic as this. Surely, God, being omnipotent and omniscient, could have found a way to achieve his goals that didn't involve as much suffering as this. Unless, of course, God's goal is to cause suffering.
The argument is often made that such trials and tribulations were necessary to make man who he is today, and to make him worthy of the journey that is ahead. Again, God, being omnipotent, by definition, could have found literally countless other ways to bring this about with little or no suffering involved. If God is omnibenevolent, then certainly, he would have chosen a more humane alternative, but the Bible claims that man is indeed flawed, so we know what path God chose for us. The only conceivable reason God would choose such a path for us is that he wanted us to suffer, plain and simple. The more likely explanation, of course, is that God simply doesn't exist.
Man isn't the only one that suffered because of sin. Almost every species on this planet has been negatively affected by man. That's an understatement. Thousands of species have been destroyed by us, simply wiped off the planet. It happened because man is greedy, with an unquenchable thirst for land, oil, water, lumber, money, and most of everything else. God saw this coming as well, but he did nothing to stop it. The animal rights activists should be all over God for this one. God knew damn well that man would grow to be sinful, and he knew damn well that every other species would suffer, but for whatever divine reason, he went along with his plans anyway.
I am, of course, only joking. The destruction we have caused is our fault alone, and blaming anything on an evasive deity would only be avoiding responsibility. I should stay on topic, however. Either the Christian god is wicked, or he doesn't exist. You make the call.
Another major problem with the fall is that of morality. Man was punished for disobeying God. We can clearly see why such an act was punishable: it was immoral. Betraying someone's trust, especially your god's, is immoral. Adam and Eve, being sentient beings, knew the difference between right and wrong, made the wrong choice, and were punished for it. Wait, stop there.
Adam and Eve, at the time, didn't know the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. To have such knowledge, one had to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Before they ate from the tree, Adam and Eve didn't know the difference between good and bad, and like a newborn baby, couldn't be blamed for their crime! This statement is of such importance, let me repeat it: when Adam and Eve first sinned, they did not know the difference between good and evil because they hadn't eaten from the tree yet, and therefore could not have been justly blamed for their crimes. They were ignorant of morality, of the value of trust.
One could argue that, while they didn't know the difference between good and bad, Adam and Eve still should have obeyed God for fear of dying. First of all, Adam and Eve had never experienced death before. They had hardly even experienced life. The term "death" most likely meant nothing to them. They weren't, after all, omniscient, like God. Secondly, is fear a good reason to do something? Women in sexist cultures should wear veils over their faces because they'll be beaten if they don't. Followers of religions other than the state's in the middle ages should abandon their beliefs because they'll be burned if they don't. Making a punishment for an act doesn't make it immoral. Submitting to such a threat would only be in their self interest.
Adam and Eve were incapable of seeing the moral problems with betraying their god, and they were also unaware of the implications of death. They should have been blameless for their crime, but God cursed their entire species for it.
I'm surprised that Christians never question why the sins of Adam and Eve carried on to their sons and daughters for all future generations. The number of people that were cursed because of two people's mistakes is simply staggering. The extent and intensity of the punishment hardly seems fair for the crime committed, and that's assuming that it can even be considered a crime, and given what I just discussed, it really shouldn't be. How, exactly, is it fair for people who were born hundreds of years after Adam's death to be punished for his crimes? Think about it: does this sound fair to you? Two people commit a crime, and their entire species is permanently cursed for it. Does this sound like the work of a benevolent god?
I hope this sheds some light on the subject of the Fall. Its problems are some of the most devastating to Christianity, and they're important to understand.
