Rant Time. The major reason I have never been able to go back to Christianity: Genesis
According to Christianity God is:
All Knowing (past present & future)
All Present (as in always everywhere)
SO. God creates a garden paradise [Gen 2:8]
In said garden he plants two trees the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life [Gen 2:8] which will make you immortal [Gen 3:22]
He then creates a human, a man, and puts him in the garden and then eventually makes a woman (well what order he made what differs between ch 1 & 2 but we'll go with this order) [Gen 2:15]
Then he tells the humans not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil because he will die if he does [Gen 2:17].
God didn't actually mean they'd die because when they do eat from the tree they don't die [Gen 3:6]; instead God punishes them. So The All Good God literally straight up lied...ok.
According to the snake that tempts Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will not kill you [Gen 3:4] ... and he was correct. But instead it will give you Knowledge like God hasâat least according to the snake [Gen 3:5]â later confirmed by God himself. [Gen 3:22]
The punishment for women: severe painful childbirth, desire for her husband, husband will rule over her. The punishment for man: hard labor to get food for his entire life from a formidable landscape. Punishment for snakes: crawling on belly among other shit. [Gen 3:14-19]
Then he was worried that the humans that just ate from a Tree and got a lot of knowledge would eat from the Tree of Life and "become like us," by having knowledge AND being immortal.
.........which definitely doesn't showcase Ancient Israelite religion being polytheistic its actually God The Father speaking to The Holy Spirt and Jesus (according to some Christians). /s
And the Lord God said, âThe 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.â So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. [Gen 3:22-23]
Anyways ignoring the polytheism side quest, to avoid humans becoming like us him he kicks the humans out of the garden and puts a sword and cherbim at the entrance so they can't get back in.
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.[Gen 3:24]
Like.....The All Good God was so worried that humans would become like him he puts a FLASHING FLAMING SWORD between humans and the tree that will make them immortal. Mind you The All Powerful God did not need to make the Tree of Life. As the All Powerful Gods, to avoid the humans from eating from the Tree of Life, could have just uprooted the single fucking tree. Instead he kicked humans out to have a worse life. Because, to The All Good God, humans having a worse life is better than them having an immortal life "like us."
God is All Knowing, including the future, which means God:
Knew humans would disobey him
Knew humans would gain the knowledge from the tree
Knew snakes he created would help facilitate the disobeying by tempting one of them
Knew exactly what punishments he was going to give to these humans ...and snakes.
Knew he would kick them out of the garden
Knew this would cause humanity to fall and suffer death, disease, misery, and separation from him in heaven
before any of it happened
and he still put the fucking tree in the fucking garden????
God set humans up to fail. "Free will" does not fucking erase any of this.
Now for this specific reasonâthe first humans sinningâwe need to be "saved," from the death, disease, misery, and separation that God already knew would happen. By:
Making himself be birthed by a virgin of the Tribe of Judah
Make himself go through a human life
Preach about "his father."
Be tortured and killed in a truly gruesome execution method
And with that humanity is saved! BUT WAIT THERES MORE!
The salvation only works if:
You believe Jesus died for the sins of humankind
The only evidence you are presented with is abunch of stories and letters compiled decades after Jesus' death.
Someone takes the time and effort to preach the salvation to you
Because if missionaries don't show up then you don't know, and if you don't know you can't be saved
If you don't do these things you go to hell (or more graciously purgatory) because you are not saved from the sin
THAT GOD ALREADY KNEW WOULD FUCKING HAPPEN BEFORE HE CREATED HUMANKIND ITSELF.
More than that, God is All Powerful so you know how he could have saved humanity?... just spoke it. One Sentence.
And God said, âLet there be light,â and there was light. [Gen 1:3]
Alternative to the whole incarnation as man, torture, die, return fiasco:
And God said, âLet humanity be saved,â and they were saved.
That seems pretty fucking easy.
Also can we just rewind to God kicking humans out of the Garden so they can't become immortal by eating from the Tree of Life so much so that he put a flaming fucking sword in the way.
Why did Jesus so vigorously promote the idea that his gift, salvation, means eternal life with God? If God had let us eat from the Tree of Life we would have had that exact gift from the fucking beginning.
Going back to the original post
If Genesis is not real. If Adam and Eve are not real. If a snake did not tempt Eve to eat From The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in direct disobedience to God.... when did The Fall of Man actually happen????? When... and what?
I'm so serious when I ask this.
If we need salvation from sin, the sin needs to exist, and if it didn't come from Snake/Adam/Eve, then where did it?
Why didn't The All Powerful All Knowing God stop it?
Fuck. Off. With the "Free Will" answer. That might explain why it happened (it doesn't in my opinion but I can see the argument). Free will does not explain when it happened or where it happened. Nor does it explain the need for the whole incarnation-torture-death-rebirth thing when God could just speak a sentence.
"But how would we know we are saved if God did not become flesh!"
Easy: God sends a very vivid dream to every human being at some point in their life explaining all of it...... significantly more effective than having the humans who met Jesus go forth and spread The Gospel and just really hope that all of their descendants do it for the rest of time until the End of Days.
Do not even get me started on how not-all-good "The Elect," is.
As a polytheist I believe Yahweh/El/Trinity. I simply cannot believe in an All Powerful, All Knowing, All Good, All Present, Creator Being; Yahweh and El were not widely regarded as such prior to Jewish monotheism after the Babylonian exile. Nor can I believe in this abstract need for salvation that has no clear origin. Nor can I believe that anyone needed to be tortured for me. If I somehow got over the all-everything bit of monotheism I still couldn't swallow the idea of needing salvation. So I'd probably end up in some other non-Christian monotheism route if I were to ever swing that way.
*big deep breath* Anyways
If you want to blame this rant on anyone you can blame it on Lindsey Nikole I'm binging her series "The Story of Us (That We Know Of)" Granted I have read/watched stuff about human evolution since I was like....14 I love it so much, so this isn't new BUT I had just watched some of Clint's Reptiles videos responding to creationism this one actually. Those two topics combined back to back made my brain malfunction.
Because I can't figure out how Christians who don't believe in Adam & Eve explain the need for salvation, but then I can't figure out those who do believe in Adam & Eve and also evolution explain Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc. I think it's normally they accept all evolution except humans, I think I remember meeting some Christians like that back in the day. Like the Earth cooked up for 4 billion years until the ecosystem was primed for a place like The Garden of Eden to exist and thats when the whole story starts and the "days" just sum up the 4 billion years which is why Genesis 1 and 2 don't match.... something like that. To some degree I've also given this rant in less detail and not as meanly to my mom when she asks why I'm not Christian.
It is slightly funny because family members think I missed my calling as a pastor. I know and can apply Christian teachings very well. I can even guide a Christian on which scriptures would be best for them to read to learn in general or passages for what life struggles they're dealing with in that moment. I'd be really good at it. But salvation..... that one I can't do.
