I had been thinking about the Creation story that I grew up with. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it could only be interpreted metaphorically. It is a symbolic story attempting to explain how we came to be and why we are here.
I was taught, like so many, that God knows everything, God even knows what we are going to do before we actually do it. As a child, I incorporated that into my belief system. I did not question it.
I did not question the creation story either. However, as I grew older, I did begin to question, in an effort to better understand. This is when I came to realize that if I believed the Bible literally, then the God of my youth must have an apple fetish and that he is cruel.
God knew what Adam and Eve were going to do in the Garden of Eden. He hard wired them to be curious. Why did he waste his time giving them a command that he knew they would not and could not keep? And, if he really did not want them to eat his precious apples, why did he put Adam and Eve in the same garden with his delicious apple tree?
He set them up for failure. He hardwired them for failure.
As I thought about this, I came to realize that God, as he is portrayed in the creation story is cruel.
He knew that Adam and Eve could not obey his command to not to eat his precious apples. And yet, not only did he kick Adam and Eve out of his garden, he punished them and all of their descendants. God's rage did not stop there. God was so upset that Adam and Eve ate his precious apples that he demanded that Adam and Eve's descendants torture his only son and kill him.
And God's son was willing to suffer and die a horrible death because he knew that God loved his precious apples more than his own son.
That sounds pretty sick to me. I could not worship a god that would be so cruel to his own creation, his own people who ate his apples, especially when he knew they were going to eat his apples before he put them in the garden.
I could not worship a god that demands suffering of all humans and the torture and death of his own son in payment for what two duped people did at the beginning of humanity.
The creation story and the idea that Jesus died in payment for what Adam and Eve did holds no truth for me, if I take it literally.
And because the creation story cannot be taken literally, perhaps none of the big story can be taken literally. Where does that leave me then, regarding my belief in the God of Moses?
It leaves me with the ability to think things through.
What if the apple tree were not a forbidden fruit? What if it were a required fruit? What if the snake were not a deceiver, but a healer? I see the Apple tree as a symbol for our intelligence and ability to think and create. The snake, as healer, came to Eve, not to deceive her, but to heal her ignorance and to help her evolve. What if an angel, in snake form, came to inspire and bless Adam and Eve with curiosity and intelligence so that they could evolve?
The problem came when humans erroneously imagined that they were separate from their creator. As such, they struggled to regain what they lost.
Throughout our history many came to remind us who we really are. Now it is up to each one of us to remember. We are all Godlike, made out of the very fabric of what God is.
God does not really have an apple fetish and Jesus did not die to appease a god that loved apples more than his own son.
