"You cannot know cold unless there is hot, up unless there is a down, left unless there is a right. Do not condemn the one and bless the other. To do so is to fail to understand."
E mail put in
Subject Line CELEBRATE EVE
joetarzan2012@gmail.com Thank You
https://www.facebook.com/joe.hillmml
My Thought is:
What Is FREEWILL Without
Knowledge? IT IS NOTHING!
Thank You EVE.
(continuing with the excerpt from Conversations with God)
"For centuries people have been condemning Eve. She was said to have committed Original Sin. I tell you this; It was the Original Blessing. For without this event, the partaking of the knowledge of Good and Evil, you would not even know the two possibilities existed! Indeed before the so called Fall of Adam, these two possibilities did not exist. There was no 'evil'. Everyone and everything in a state of constant perfection. It was , literally; paradise. Yet you didn't know it was paradise- could not experience it as perfection- because you knew nothing else. Shall you then condemn Eve, or THANK HER? "
Here below is an
Excerpt from "Conversations With God"
Author is Neale Donald Walsh and explains why we should Celebrate Eve. book 2 page 57
AUTHOR'S PERSONAL THOUGHTS
Where I disagree with the above excerpt is what is the definition of Paradise? My Paradise is probably not like another's Paradise. Walking around in ignorant bliss and nodding our heads blessing one another is not my idea of Paradise.
I like some action. Aggressive males vying for the lead Dog position.
Women on their knees (praying for us).
And me on my knees giving thanks knowing I am Blessed with a woman of that mindset.
Blessings without any toil or strife will lack a lot of substance, if they are not earned.
Give Thanks For ALL things. THAT is what the strife in this Physical existence is about. The Spirit has come back to experience 'The Bad' as well as 'The Good'.
Joe Hill says:
Embrace the Storm. (for I AM The Storm)
A very Good Video by the BBC about the Life of Jesus after the crucifixion. Both Lives depicted are Theories by the Director and shows what evidence there is or isn't supporting of them. A pretty Fair Documentary.
JIM PALMER SAYS:
I think we got the whole Eve and fall-of-humankind story really bad wrong. In the Genesis story, commonly referred to as "the Fall," I see it much differently from the traditional Christian interpretation.
Firstly, I believe the story was meant to be taken figuratively, not literally. The story contains several themes worth considering.
In my view, Eve is the daring and courageous one. God said don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She did it anyway.
Why? Let's digress momentarily to consider the context here.
If the Bible was a carefully crafted and plotted propagandist document to perpetuate Theism, it failed miserably. The picture it presents of God is one who is complicated, contradictory, capricious, and at times, evil.
Why would God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, knowing full well that Adam and Eve would do the very thing he told them not to? Put a bunch of people in a room with two windows and say to them, whatever you do just don't look through the window on the right. What do you think they will all do? They will do exactly that.
Why would God risk the well-being of his entire created order by telling Adam and Eve not to do something he knew they would? The way the story is framed, regardless of the role of the serpent, God is ultimately responsible and the one to blame for "the Fall." You can't set a building on fire and deny culpability when it burns to the ground.
In my mind, Eve is the hero in the story. Historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." Enter Eve. God said don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She did. The world often makes its greatest advances by disobedient people who break the rules. Eve was the was first rule-breaker, and we should honor her for this.
In the story, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit. However, they never promise they won't. Should they have been obedient? How obedient do you want your children to be? Or course you want them to be learn and operate with prudence and integrity. However, you also want them to be disobedient enough to go into the world and act with conviction and even defiance. Some rules are meant to be and should be broken.
Oscar Wilde wrote, "Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
Eve's decision made complete sense. According to the text, Eve chose to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree because:
(1) It was necessary for sustenance - it was "good for food"
(2) It resonated with her aesthetic sensibilities - it was "pleasing to the eye"
(3) It would contribute to her growth and maturity - "desirable for gaining wisdom."
If I came to you and said, "I want to offer you something - it's necessary to live, pleasing and satisfying, and will transform your entire way of being in the world. Are you interested?" My guess is that you would say, "Yes!" In addition to all that, Eve didn't selfishly claim it all for herself. She shared the fruit with her partner, Adam.
Meanwhile, notice that even though Adam didn't have the moxie to break the rules and risk taking the fruit himself, he had no problem gladly accepting it from Eve. And yet, Adam blames both God and Eve for the whole ordeal. Adam says, “The woman YOU PUT HERE with me—SHE gave me some fruit from the tree..." Adam plays the victim card and throws his partner under the bus to save his ass, which is quite unbecoming and disgracing.
Eve also played the blame-game by telling God, "The devil (serpent) made me do it." She has a point though; that serpent was quite crafty.
This is the only thing I wish Eve had done differently. I would have much preferred she have said to God:
"Okay, God. Here's the deal. Yes, I did it. I know you said not to eat from that tree. You also gave me a brain to use and I used it. I never promised I wouldn't. I was feeling it. So, I went for it. I put on my big-girl panties and ate the fruit. I didn't mean any disrespect to you. I was doing me. Actions have consequences. I get that now. Lesson learned."
Taking this account metaphorically, I think the idea was to construct a story that sets up the complexities of properly executing our freedom and agency in the world. God's edict not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is depicted as a safeguard to protect Adam and Eve from shouldering too heavy a burden of understanding the world and life in its most transparent terms. In other words, to know the world, particularly in its most frightening potentialities and possibilities, in which only God was capable of seeing. After eating the fruit we are told their eyes were opened, which means God initially had put blinders on them so they were not capable of seeing the whole deal.
The knowledge of good and evil can be seen in the story in two ways. On the one hand, you might say that ignorance is bliss. Not having this knowledge was a feature of the paradise and harmony that was depicted prior to eating the forbidden fruit/knowledge. On the other hand, Eve saw that eating the fruit would be "gaining wisdom." In other words, it's best to know what the reality truly is so you know how to respond accordingly. In this sense, it should be noted that Eve was the one who chose to gain the knowledge of what the deal of existence actually was, through and through.
The story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit is not about the coming of sin into the world, but the emergence of self-consciousness, and confronting the realities of the human situation.
One worthwhile theme to gain from this story is that all knowledge carries with it a certain responsibility. You can hardly be held responsible for what you don't know, but you are responsible for what you do know, including the realization that there is more to know.
Eve took all the risks in this story. It cost her - she lost something, she gained something. It's not easy living responsibly with the things we know. What we learn from Eve is that any paradise based upon ignorance or half the truth, is fool's gold.
When Jesus said the "kingdom of God is at hand," he was indicating that the "paradise" we associate with joy, peace and harmony can be experienced and manifested in a world where frightening potentialities and possibilities exist and are real. You might even say that the entire mission of Jesus was to make this point and live its truth.
Eve's disobedience is not what corrupted the human species, but is an invitation and challenge to lean into the totality of the lived human experience... even if it requires defiance against the voices that tell us what we can or cannot do.
We all need a little Eve in us to make it. Actually, we need a lot of her. It makes me sad that Eve got blamed for so much. Her place in the narrative of the universe is epic. If I'm putting together a team to be and do something legendary, the first person I'm looking for is Eve.
~Jim Palmer