Being Nocent

I don't believe for one moment that Adam and Eve existed.

I treat the Old Testament as a collection of fairy stories and national myths, to be frank.

But nevertheless, I do believe a huge part of what I see as having been my epiphany moment, was actually doing a thought experiment.

As in, how would Man have lived if the fall had never taken place?

What if we'd stayed in Eden? And multiplied and lived in Eden, Man unfallen?

Because if you call yourself a Christian, then a fundamental part of your belief is this. That God had to make himself man to rescue man from the error man had made. That God made himself man, so that through his own sacrifice to himself, Man could return to the purity of heart and mind that man had before man ate the apple and became sullied.

And the interesting point is, that theologians throughout the ages have kind of realised the implications of it. Realised what it really is that sin is rooted in. And the point is, that theologians throughout the ages have KNOWN in their heart of hearts that fundamentalists are wrong.

Because the whole point is- according to the myth- that Adam and Eve needed no Law. The Law was made because Man had changed. Man was no longer what God intended. Man had eaten the apple. Man had become 'nocent'.

Nocent is a real word. It's not used today, it has become obsolete. But we still use it's opposite. Innocent. But the opposite of innocent isn't in fact guilty. It's the root word, nocent. Which actually appears in 'Paradise Lost' ironically. It's where I first discovered that word that the English language surely misses, because the concept is so important.

Nocent doesn't mean guilty. It means knowing sin. Innocent means NOT knowing sin.

You can be nocent without being guilty. Since the fall, we're all nocent. That's the point. So, if you believe Christ came for anything, the real point is, to give us back our innocence.

If you believe Genesis, then really the point is that you believe there was a possible world that God envisaged where we never became nocent.



So.

If you follow the logic, had Adam and Eve never tasted the fruit, they'd just multiplied sinlessly, how would humanity have lived?

Think about it. The tree is the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The fruit taught them to covet. That's the point.
To covet.
To want to own bits of the Earth. And people.

Until they ate the fruit, they didn't want to do either.

Until they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve just wanted to bask in the sunshine, make love and enjoy God's bounty.
The fruit made them want to be God.

To OWN.

So, if you believe in a literal interpretation of the bible- which I actually don't- you believe Christ came to free us from that.

If you're a Christian fundamentalist and you really follow the logic, then I don't see how you have any other option than to admit that living in a State of Grace cannot be anything other than living in a state of Free Love and Communism.

You see, I don't believe in Genesis.

I'm a practising Roman Catholic.

My church accepted evolution in 1908. Do you know why? Because contrary to popular belief, aside from the Galileo fiasco, Catholicism is generally a faith friendly to Science. The father of generics was a Catholic Abbe, Gregor Mendel, and the Big Bang theory was first put forward by a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre.

And in 1908, once it was radioactivity became understood, it was realised it WAS actually possible for the Earth to be older than 60 million years therefore it WAS possible for evolution to have taken place by random mutation, the Catholic Church embraced it.

I'm a practising Catholic, but I don't believe in a personal deity and I don't believe in Genesis.



But I do believe that the universe is conscious and most of the surviving religions contain truth.

For example, I believe the Buddhist principle of Karma.

But what I'm sure of, what I passionately believe is the the only thing the Old Testament has to tell us, is that message hidden between the lines.

That mankind living in a State of Grace, is mankind living in a state of Free Love and Communism.

This I believe.

And I believe that really, this is what Christ believed too.