[agent327]

I've always thought that being cast out of Eden was not so much a punishment, as merely an unavoidable consequence: having eaten from the tree of knowledge, we now also have the ability to appreciate suffering, and thus no longer experience paradise. That would make paradise a state of mind, rather than a place.

After eating the fruit God lists a number of consequences, which sounds somewhat like a punishment, but that could just as easily be interpreted as "well, I didn't want this to happen to you, but now that you got to this point, you'll have to deal with the following". That includes increased pain in giving birth (a consequence of having larger brains), and the rise of agriculture. Eve is also only named after eating the fruit, not before.

The snake gets cursed for what it did, and so does the ground, but not Man. God even goes so far to provide them with clothes, and acknowledges their growth.

[anonporridge]

Yes.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil is basically just the spark of consciousness. Humans are unique in our ability to consciously foresee and plan for the future.

On the one hand, that's a blessing because we've made tons of progress towards alleviating objective suffering and scarcity.

On the other hand, it's a curse, because we always have to be aware of the impending inevitability of our death. We can't ever completely live in peace and paradise ever again, because we have become conscious of our existence and the context our life experience exists within.

Would it be better to not have gained that spark of consciousness and live the paradise of ignorance as animals in the wildreness? Lives at peace except for occasional bursts of pain and terror.

[yakubin]

The snake always seemed to me to be a Promethean figure in this story. It brought us knowledge, like Prometheus brought us fire, and got punished for it by a god.

[antiatheist]

Thats why should use electricity to free all camels from the servitude of the desert plains.