Sunday, December 1, 2013

The Stupidity of Adam and Eve

In his New Republic piece, "Scientists Try to Reconcile Adam and Eve Story, Whiff. Again.", Jerry Coyne does an excellent job dismantling the Adam and Eve narrative. He not only points out a variety of reasons why the "literal" story is idiotic crap but also shows why it is just as stupid in symbolic/metaphoric terms. Unfortunately, many theists will never fully give up on such fucking ridiculous garbage. To some degree Christians can never fully distance themselves form that type of supernatural superstitious absurdity. All the basic doctrines that make Christians an identifiable religious group rely on them. Adam and Eve are so intimately bound to original sin and therefore Christ's "sacrifice" and "resurrection" that there is very little to salvage without it. The only possible work-around I can think of is to focus entirely on Jesus as a symbol of ethics and morality stripped of all the supernatural elements. Of course, that would rely on a whole other set of delusions to make it work (unique ethics, historicity, single figure).

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