The Consequence of Our Choices

Why did God forbid Adam to have knowledge by forbidding him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge? The answer is, God did not forbid Adam to have knowledge, he/she was just pointing out the repercussions of having it. There are, indeed, serious consequences to having knowledge. With knowledge comes sorrow (Eccls 1:18) For one thing, it only comes by experience. Does one really want to have the knowledge of being a warrior? Well, step right up and if that is the ride you want to go on we’ll strap you right in. Hope the smell of burning flesh doesn’t make you sick. How about the smell of acres of sour blood up to your ankles? Is one sickened at the site of birds picking out the eyeballs of fallen comrades that one drank beer with the night before? You want to be a corporate lawyer instead? Really? That’s even worse. A sold out politician, maybe? That’s the worst of the worst!

God told Adam there would be serious consequences for his choice. It is all part of growing up. When one gives up their teddybear one must face the demons alone. Adam wanted to move out of the house. He was not a fallen being. He was trying to improve himself.

For thousands of years the Church has said the entire human race is damned because Adam made an evil choice (because of that woman!) and was punished by God. Personally, I think God rejoiced when Adam made the choice and aspired to be a higher being. What parent doesn’t rejoice when their child starts to walk even though they know they will probably lose some heirloom china plates and cups?

Adam wanted to be a farmer and now he was faced with the reality of weeds and poor soil fertility. Who doesn’t go to business school and then find “thistles” in every corner of the real world? For thousands of years this common place situation has been turned against us for the purpose of manufacturing guilt, generating church income, and making people willing to go to war for the war-profiteering oligarchs to do their so called “duty”. They could redeem themselves in war from all the Adam induced sin by dying for the oligarchs who caused the entire mess to begin with (e.g. the invasion of Iraq based on a lie).

It’s worth noting that Adam didn’t say a word until after he ate of the Tree of Knowledge. When Adam was lonely, God did his talking for him. When he was at the tree with Eve, he did not say, ‘Honey, we should not be here”. The first time we hear Adam actually say anything was when he was blaming God for the situation and then he barked and howled like a snake bit hound. At least he found his voice! His first recorded words were blaming someone else. He denied all wrong doing. We are, most definitely, descendants of Adam!

Did eating of the Tree of Knowledge make Adam a bit feisty? Was his faculty of reason greatly improved? He pointed out the obvious fact that it was the woman that God made to be with him that made him eat it (Hint: she did not actually make him eat it). It has been assumed for thousands of years that Adam was merely justifying himself. Nevertheless, Adam’s perception and logic were perfect, and he was correct. God did not deny it. God followed Adams pointing finger and asked Eve if Adam’s accusation was true. Of course, Eve said it was the snake that made her do it (Hint: The snake didn’t make her eat it either). God also patiently followed her line of logic and went to the snake but didn’t ask a question.

Why didn’t God ask the snake if he did what they said? The answer is obvious, but it has never been asked for over two thousand years. The snake could have said only one thing: “I did it because you made me a snake!” God gave the snake the ability to do such things. It says so in the very first sentence of the chapter,  “Of all the beasts of the field, the serpent was the most subtle (or crafty) that the Lord God had made.” It was God that “did” it! This is what Gods do, although, they use a lot of negative psychology sometimes. For whom does the buck stop?

I would also like to point out that the snake was described as being “subtle”, not “evil” (Gen 3:1). This is a quantum leap difference. Yet, for all these thousands of years poor snakes have been accused of being evil and have been burnt and stomped on even though all they want to do is eat rats which is good so the rats won’t eat us.

What is the most subtle creature of all? Is it hard physical matter? A rock is not very subtle, we can trip over it and break our leg. A camouflaged insect is pretty subtle but then it will bite, sting, or stink if it is discovered. Atoms are kind of subtle but they still make their “point”. Subatomic particles are pretty much the same. If we want to talk about subtle we are talking about something that looks like one thing but could be another. Even worse, it is something that could be anything. Now that’s pretty darn subtle!

Snakes are one of the most camouflaged and mesmerizing creatures and is a good allegory for the concept. The reality of the allegory is quantum fluctuations. It is the transition from the Zero Point Field to manifested physical reality. It can be anything we think it is. That is the most subtle beast of the “field”; indeed, in an electromagnetic “field” sense. The DNA molecule is also shaped like a serpent and new science has shown that not only does DNA engage in epigenetics but DNA has direct contact with the entire universe through quantum mechanics. (Lipton, McTaggert)

I think when Adam and Eve stated their case, God chuckled with a certain smugness as parents chuckle at precocious children and then say, “Don’t say things like that!”. At the same time, Adam and Eve were highly perplexed at the strange enigmatic nature of the situation. They thought to themselves, “We are cursed because of the snake and God made it. Next time he comes around I am ducking for the bushes!” They used to run to God like puppies but like any puppy that has been slapped, they’re suspicious. They don’t know what to make of this “God Dude” anymore. Sounds like growing up to me. Things get complicated. Who among us thought life would be so hard?

Arguing with God

Is it ill advised to talk back to God? I hope not, I do it every day, although, I did get struck by lighting once. Abraham debated with the angels that were sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorra. Jacob wrestled with the angel he met and overcame, although the angel retaliated with a cheap shot and ripped out Jacob’s hamstring. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force. (Mt 11:12)  Unfortunately, many have taken this as a justification for violence and crusades. Bad interpretation. It is about pushing back on the God of inertia.

Trees grown in a “perfect” world without wind, fall by their own weight and die. We need the resistance of adversity to make us strong. Adam did not fall with the wind. He chose to make the decision of incarnation even though he knew it was going to be a long, long slog. He rose and overcame his first battle of epistemology, pushing back when he argued and fought with God. Yet, Adam agreed to go down there to the four dimensional world even though he would have to suffer physical death along with Eve and all their children.

It is for this very reason that Paul said that “Adam was a figure (type) of him that was to come” (Rom 5:14). What did Adam typify, allegorically? A disobedient loser who got thrown out of his own house? He went staggering out of the Garden into a field full of brambles and blackberries and thistles and passed out? No! Adam knowingly and willfully took upon himself the repercussions of eating of the tree even though he knew it would result in his own death. This may be the real reason Adam said nothing to Eve. He had already made his mind up about taking the plunge. This is what made him just like the one who was to come—Jesus.  Adam was a hero, not a loser. Adam was the precursor of Jesus. Isn’t that what Paul said or am I making it up?

Many people think the Tree of Knowledge was the gateway to linear, self-conscious thinking and the downfall of Hominids, or at least one of them. This is not the case. The fact is, Adam already had done that before Eve even existed. Adam gave names to all the animals because he was lonely as per God’s advice. To give a name to something is to first recognize that it is different from one’s self: “I am not that thing. I will call it a ‘turkey’.” To be able to distinguish one thing from another and classify them is what ninety percent of our left hemisphere does according to McGilchrist. It has always been taught that Adam had to eat of the Tree of Knowledge to have this kind of knowledge. Obviously, this is not the case. He already had all that when he gave names to the animals.

Unfortunately, Adam was still unhappy, or at least felt alone after giving names to the animals. Being alone is very unhappy. The desire for knowledge that drives humans is for a sense of unity and to lose the sense of being alone. Alone in a meaningless, accidental universe that is nothing but a fluke, a red herring, a monstrosity. Many people seek for unity and the freedom from loneliness in external things to nullify the feeling of being alone but they are not successful so they ask: “Food is good. Sex is good. Money is good. Why am I still unhappy because I feel so alone?”

Adam felt the same way after naming all the animals. He brilliantly trotted out his neocortex and did a complete taxonomic breakdown of everything yet, he was still lonely (Gen 2:20). The idea that Adam was in a state of perfected bliss of paradise here is not correct.

Basically, at this point Adam was still a reptilian brain. He could identify predators and food and mates, the basic essentials, but Adam still had a long way to go. The discussion of Eve being allegorical for the unconscious mind of Adam was discussed in Part One.

The Nature of Reality and the Reality of Nature

The Catholic church basically stole the Jewish Septuagint and other Judaic writings and then persecuted the Jews and made God a conglomeration of their own projected and sublimated ideas of perfection for the purpose of causing guilt. God can only do good and nice things they say, but anyone who has read any of the Old Testament knows that the Old Testament God can be quite brutal. Reality is brutal. People have been in church and swept away by tornadoes. Children have been sucked into sewer pipes and drowned. Plaques of diseases have ravaged untold millions. Is not reality the ripping and tearing Old Testament God? People like the companions of Job have said these things are punishments from God for Job having done bad things. People have been blamed by other people for being witches and causing adversity. Witch hunts have resulted in the deaths of untold millions. Inquisitions, crusades, wars have all been engaged to fight the infidel, the gentile, the communist, the socialist, the capitalist, the terrorist, because they are supposedly the cause of everything bad in the world. Evil is projected from evil people unto other people who are then persecuted and killed. All in all, it’s just an attempt to find a cause for acausality and loneliness.

The fact is, God is the cause of everything bad in the world. God says: “I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things”. (Isa 45:7) The reality of nature is the nature of reality. I didn’t make these Bible verses up. Jesus said concerning God, “I say unto you, fear him!” (Lk 12:5). Reality is a consuming fire. Before someone decides to get me stoned for saying that God creates evil (even though I didn’t say it, God did) I should reiterate what good and evil is. Good or evil is relative in our limited time frame. Winning the lottery might be really good, but if one can’t handle wealth and then becomes a drug addict and one’s whole family is destroyed, than that is bad. Losing one’s job and house is really bad but, if one comes to discover the true value of life, than, that is good.

So what defines good and evil is entirely relativistic to our own viewpoint, our view point as a particle being stuck in a body with its verbal limitations. This is why it is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We think we know what good and evil is but we don’t have a clue. Yet, this is exactly what we must do—figure it out. A whole lot of people in the world have not figured it out and they are destroying the world as the result.

Many things are the “acausal billiard balls” that are thrown our way to change our trajectory of motion yet we call it “evil”. This brings us to the discussion of inertia. Inertia is demonstrated by pushing a car. When it’s sitting still, it is hard to get it going, but once it is moving, it’s hard to stop it. Whenever we want to make changes we face inertia. This is equivalent to God saying, “you can’t do this”. The essence of mass is resistance to change but, it is all negative psychology to make us try.

This same inertia is also what makes complexity possible. Complexity requires divisions within divisions. Cells need membranes. Animals need skins. It is the membranes and skins that “say” to their contents, “Halt, you shall not go henceforth”. Thus, mass, inertia, gravity, and “God” are all closely related, at least in creative matters. This is demonstrated in Genesis by the formation of stars by gravity and the separation of the firmaments from other firmaments. Every increase in the scale of complexity requires another boundary, but only in the right place and the right time. Excessive boundaries result in a cancer of one kind or another.

The question of why is God inertial can be retranslated like a mathematical equation to, “Is God reality?” which can be retranslated to “is reality God?’ This equation would not compute for literalist creationists or reductionist scientists. To literalists, God is outside of reality and is something “special”. In this regard I totally agree with Richard Dawkins who says that the fundamentalist’s God is a delusion.

I propose that reality is God and that the reality of nature is the nature of reality. The reality of nature and the nature of reality says that inertia, darkness, friction, entropy, gravity and other opposing forces are as an important part of reality as are the more “happy and fun” aspects of nature such as tea and kittens.

It’s important to point out that all these forces are limiting and inhibitory. Without these limiting forces all hell breaks out and there is nothing but violent chaos. One can understand the history of the universe to being subject to more limitations which makes fragile living carbon units possible to exist.

Of course, there is a real evil that consists of mindless greed that can start wars and kill millions of people for profit. There are many mentally demented people in prison but the worst criminals are the ones that make the laws justifying genocide and ecocide and they live in houses of royalty and splendor. This is why Jesus said whatsoever is highly esteemed by men (greedy psychopathic men and women) is an abomination in the sight of God (Lk 16:15). Yet, is a demented person “evil” because they were abandoned by their parents or brutalized with physical abuse? All “evil” leaders are pathetic and a tragic in their own right. They are just projecting and sublimating their own trauma. On the other, other, hand, how does one deal with war criminals and serial killers and psychopaths in the absolute sense (i.e,. heaven or hell)? I have no idea. It’s beyond my pay grade. All I can do is write books, protest, vote, and reach out to other people of like mind to expand my own understanding of what I know.

Arguing with God Again

Again, I ask the question, “Why would God forbid Adam to have knowledge by forbidding him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge in the first place?” For thousands of years it has been assumed that Adam and Eve were punished for their evil choices. Even advocates of extra terrestrials have included this idea in their nefarious plots. Everybody has always assumed for the last two thousand years the statement, “For in the day you eat of it you will surely die” was an active restriction rather than a logical deduction of cause and effect. This same logic says God made gravity so we can’t have fun jumping off of tall buildings. We all know that Old Testament God doesn’t like people to have fun. This logic is rather silly, however. What God said was more like saying, “If you play with fire and gasoline, and accidentally set yourself on fire, that’s really going to suck, Adam!”

Informing one of the consequences of their choices is not giving an active restriction with penal retributions. Who has not discussed “choices” and their consequences with their own children? If one wants to grow up, one should know what the ramifications are. There is car insurance, there are ponzi scammers, there is rent, taxes etc. “Dear child, in the day that you move out of the house, you shall surely have to pay all of these expenses.” God was merely telling the Adam the obvious results of living in a particulate Earth bound state. The text plainly says, “Have you eaten of the tree that you should not have eaten from?”(Gen 3:11) It does not say, “have you eaten of the tree that I tempted you with and forbade you to eat from and threatened to destroy your soul, and all your children forever, if you did?” It was more like saying, “Are you sure you really want to go down there to that weed infested planet, Adam?”

 

The Importance of Communication–Huh?

Later in the same chapter after the interrogation and indictment against the snake, the woman and the man, the charges become much more serious. The first charge is that Adam’s biggest fault was that he listened to his wife…What? Adam’s sin was that he listened to his wife? Really? The statement condemning women who talk is the most obvious “symptom” that this story was used to suppress and oppress woman as part of the patriarchal takeover as Pagles has written. Even though I agree with her, I think there is some higher level truth embedded in this “noise” that can be filtered out.

We need to “zoom out” and analyze this story from a higher level (of allegory). As we have seen (in Part One), Eve didn’t know anything about the restriction to eat of the Tree of Knowledge because she did not even exist at the time. Adam’s real failure was informing her to not eat of the tree. It all comes down to a lack of communication. Ring any bells! He listened to Eve but did not provide any feed back such as: “don’t eat that, dear!”  The unconscious mind wants and needs feedback from the conscious mind. All relationships, especially mental, are reciprocal and this is where Adam failed. He was still trying to figure out how to be a reptile with a limbic system.

Obviously, Eve knew something about the restriction given to Adam based on what she said to the snake, “God did not say etc.” but her understanding was not clear as she added the statement about not being able to touch it. Yet, Adam was standing right there and said nothing to clarify the issue. Again, I suggest that this story is not about uppity women who should be condemned but about wimpy men much to the contrary of church doctrine in the last two thousand years. Well, it’s not about wimpy men either. It’s really about evolution, biology, neurobiology, psychology, and the manipulation of human minds by domineering human governing powers. A downtrodden Adam victimized by women and fear is what plutocratic governments use all the time to keep the masses in control. It works every time and is still working!

The fact is, there is a highly reciprocal relationship between the conscious mind and unconscious mind. With our conscious mind we tell our unconscious mind things about our self that are either negative or positive. Our social environment also plays a huge role in this. Children get bullied and they start telling themselves they are no good and the unconscious mind acts accordingly and self-hatred becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is exactly why there are so many mass murder-suicide events these days along with the absurd availability of guns of mass destruction.

Sapoltsky has a comprehensive discussion on the influences of social pressures on the development and health of human brains and it’s not a pretty picture. One generation of stressed out survivors passes on their blood engorged amygdala and shrunken hippocampus to the next. At this point in time, ninety percent of the world is in complete state of maxed out stress. All of this leads to more violence and wars. Is it any surprise Jesus would say that the end of the world was indicated by wars and rumors of wars? At the time Jesus said this, Israel was occupied by Rome and, yet, it would get even worse? So it has and it is all the result of the insane greed of the ruling class that has become left hemisphere dominated as expounded by Mcgilchrist.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The corollary is that if you hate yourself, you will hate your neighbor too. It’s actually quite difficult to love one’s self. The entire realm of marketing, advertising, and fascist politics is to make us feel deficient and fearful. Not to mention what our family and “friends” can do to us. It should be noted that some people are fortunate enough to have real friends and they should be very much appreciated. But then there are some “friends” that are just psychopathic parasites that we fall prey to until we grow up and understand what real friendship is. Just say’in. Corrupt politicians use fear and hate to drive people into a stampede and jump off a cliff. It is what corrupt politics is really about. I’ve seen it time and time again in my lifetime and is still going on big time.

The personal unconscious mind does not negate. For example, when we think, “I don’t want this!” The personal unconscious mind does not recognize the word “don’t” and only hears “I want this!”. Fear is a negated desire. Fear says, “I don’t want this!” This is why it is written; “The fear of the wicked comes upon them.” (Prov 10:24)

Adam’s failure was not that he listened to his wife, it was that he failed to assert himself and utilize the information he had about not eating of the tree. This like going on a fatal airplane ride when the conscious mind can plainly see that the airplane is a piece of junk.

God’s Curse Upon the Ground

The main thing I would like to point out here is that contrary to what literalist religions claim, the entire Earth and its ecosystem was not cursed, not the oceans, not the sky, and not the forests. It says specifically, “the ground” and that ground related specifically to land used for agriculture, thus thorns and thistles etc. This indicates a major change of life style that is recorded in the historical record. That change being the adaptation of fixed agriculture from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

For hundreds of thousands of years, Homo Sapiens were hunter-gatherers. This condition was a form of Eden. This was when humans could hear the sound of God walking though the Garden in the cool of the day as the wind shifted and made the trees sing their songs. Granted, it was full of perils such as lions and tigers, and even talking snakes. Sapoltsky cites data that hunter gatherers did engage in warfare for territory and resources. But he acknowledges that when fixed agriculture became the norm, warfare reached a whole new high level.

It’s one thing skirmishing with neighbors over territory and quite another to amass huge armies to steal resources from another empire in order to amass wealth for the ruling royalty. The warriors, pirates, and mercenaries were all happy to do this for a bowl of beans, wine, some golden trinkets, and some physical remediation (i.e. enslaved women prostitutes). This was a small fee paid by the oligarchs and royalty to keep their ignorant mercenary masses happy and is still going on.

We’re all animals and it is “normal” to fight and scrabble over a few scraps of food to stuff in our alimentary canal. This is all fine. What has happened, however, is the ruling elites, beginning with the Babylonians and the earliest fixed agricultural systems used the abundance of food to breed people specifically for war. People were indoctrinated with ideas of “glory” in battle and to fear anything different than their own kind and see it as an enemy. This is what we have been taught to know. We have been brainwashed by the plutocrats and oligarchs to be fearful animals so we can be controlled by fear. This is the real “fall” of Adam and it wasn’t caused by God. Much to the contrary, this is what God saw coming and warned Adam about!

Hunter gatherers were also in the time of the matriarchal society where women were not just respected but revered. That is why Eve had power over Adam. But then, about the same time that fixed agriculture became the normal situation, the patriarchal society with its warrior male gods kicked in and kicked asses (donkeys). The ground was not only cursed with thorns and thistles, it was also cursed with the pounding of chariot wheels and the blood of agonized, dying people. In newly formed walled cities, men, women, and children were massacred for their storehouses of grain in the new patriarchal, agricultural society. This, indeed, was the fall of Adam and it is still with us today in the form of predatory politicians and corrupt world leaders who prey on and eat the poor by way of the industrial/military/petroleum/religion complex.

This “curse” upon the ground is what the literalists use to justify the rape of nature. “See!” they say, “the Earth was cursed by God, therefore, we can destroy it!”  This is bad logic. This is a Rorschach blot test and people see an opportunity to satiate their need for possessions and stuff.

The idea that God hates nature is refuted by the verse (somewhat paraphrased), “God shall destroy those that destroy the Earth” (Rev 11:18). Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.” and goes on to say that nature declares the knowledge of God which was reaffirmed by the Apostle Paul when he wrote, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” (Rom 1:20) Does this sound like we have been given the right to destroy nature? Nature is the expression of the invisible and unknowable God. By destroying nature we are defacing the presence of God! This is what we have been deluded into doing in the name of “God”.

Oligarch billionaire destroyers of nature are acting on over a hundred million years of unconscious programing based on the need to survive our evolution from pond scum. This programming is still the basis of the society of all cultures (at least,Western ones). This is the conscious mind dialog that has been given to the personal unconscious mind of the masses for the last ten thousand years. That conditioning says, no matter how much stuff we own, it’s never enough because we just never know what’s coming around the corner. It could be a pack of tigers with pythons on their back. We must store up stuff to survive!. This all happens because humans usually think we are only a half a century old when we are really millions, even billions of years old.

If a squirrel became a ruling oligarch it would demand that all trees except oak trees be cut down and it would build itself a castle made of acorns. Even if a squirrel had billions of acorns it would still seek more acorns. That’s what squirrels do. In humans it becomes tragic catastrophes. It doesn’t matter how many billion dollars a person has stored in a tree. They still want more acorns and will do anything for it. They haven’t figured out that the joy is in the process, not the goal. If they figured that out then they would realize the joy is in the journey, not the goal.

So, is the agricultural ground cursed? You bet it is! Weed seeds have been introduced by humans to environments where they never existed before and have no natural predators. Look at kudzu, Himalayan blackberries, reed canary grass. The list is endless; not to mention insects, diseases, and animals that have all been spread around the world. Shall I discuss the curse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals and plastics, in our water, food, and soil? This is the cause of the Anthropocene Extinction we’re now in. The bottom line is that when the text says, “God” did this or that, humans are always the mediating agent. Is that a hint? Okay. I will just tell you. What we bind on earth will be bound in heaven. What will  be loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven. The Earth is on fire and we are heading to extinction. We better change something! Forget about angels. We humans have to fix it and we can.

The Enmity Between the Snake and the Women

Among the other things that changed as the result of Adam and Eve choosing to be in a four dimensional world was that there would be “enmity” between the snake and the woman. (Gen 3:15) In view of the normal mode of thought transference where the snake brings information to the unconscious as typified by Eve who brings it to Adam, who typifies consciousness as discussed in Part One, where does this idea fit?

To reiterate, in the human mental world, the conscious mind rules over the unconscious and gives it instructions by what we think, either positive or negative. All these actions, which are mostly repressive, settle into our unconscious mind as the “shadow” which is the source of our feelings of separation comprised of feelings of guilt and remorse and regret.

All this is the force drilling into the fractal of darkness and separation. Eventually, we become so comfortable in our darkened state that we hate anything that is light. Thus it is written, “And light shines into the darkness but the darkness comprehend it not.” (Jn 1:5) This is also the basis of the enmity that the carnal mind has against God as the Apostle Paul wrote about. (Rom 8:7) It is this darkness and enmity that is bringing about the current extinction event. It’s all the result of brainwashing and propagandizing by the psychopathic rulers of the Earth to keep the masses in control. But there is hope: Quantum mechanics, the weak nuclear force, and neuroplasticity!

What it Really Means to be Created in the Image of God

Our similarity to God is primarily in the sense that we have the ability to create. This was the real message of Jesus. The Church says that Jesus is some divine being way above us scummy humans. In contrast, Jesus said, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (5.25) Why would Jesus say that if we didn’t really have that capacity? Was he mocking us? No. Jesus said we all have the same divine spark and it is time to grow up and start acting like it. Paul said that Jesus is not afraid to call us brothers and sisters.(Heb 2:11) In other words we are all equal. In other, other words, we are as divine as Jesus is (Jn:17). We should start treating each other better. It’s that simple.

When Adam, who represents consciousness, ate the fruit handed to him by Eve, who represents unconsciousness, after she talked to the snake, who represents the light beam of information, and ate of the Tree of Knowledge that represents the electromagnetic field, Adam completed the circuit of creativity. Our unconsciousness is the portal to the entire universe and we have access to unlimited power. That is what being a living soul means. It’s all about reflecting, breathing, and projecting our positive desires of unity which is love.

Does it not say in the first chapter of Genesis that Adam was made in the image of God? However, it was not until they ate of the Tree of Knowledge in the third chapter that God said, “They have become like us now” (Gen 3:22). This is another indication that the second and third chapters are further clarification of the first chapter in regard to the formation of human mentality and being.

Summary

In these two essays I have pointed out that the two trees of the Garden of Eden were both in the “midst” of the garden which means “the middle”, of which, there is only one. I have also equated these two trees to two ways of thinking. The thinking way of the Tree of Knowledge is the linear, particularizing form confused by paradox and nonlinear thinking. It is analytical, divisive (which is what analyses means), grasping, and utilitarian which was necessary for our evolutionary survival. It is the basis of literal thinking and is unable to understand allegory. The Tree of Knowledge way of thinking is experienced as the normal waking state consciousness and the small fearful, self conscious ego expressed as spoken and written words as well as verbal thought. The Tree of Knowledge thinking is based on the “law”. The law generated by linear thinking people with a desire to convict and prosecute with words that are effectively meaningless (e.g Moses).

In contrast, the Tree of Life is a holistic, ‘big picture”, way of thinking more concerned with social equity and the relationship of allegorical concepts also for survival. It’s the basis of understanding allegory as the only way to describe concepts too complex for limited words to express. It is the basis of  “unconscious” mind along with our entire body awareness. The Tree of Life way of thinking is based on parables, empathy, mercy, and death (i.e. loss of paradigms) (e.g Jesus).

I  also compared the dualistic nature of light, where light exists as both a localized particle state as well as a nonlocal electromagnetic wave state, to the two ways of thinking. I have equated this to the two tress of Eden and the knowledge they convey.

As it turns out, according to McGilchrist, this is exactly the difference between the left and right hemispheres of our own brain, generally speaking, and explains how psychopaths become psychopath. In a normal (maybe I shouldn’t say normal) healthy state the left and the right brain work together but in very different ways. However, the left brain can veer off lost in its own narcissistic evaluation of its own verbal abilities and ends up suppressing the right hemisphere which is the basis of our connection to body and nature. Ultimately, the left hemisphere becomes blinded by the light of its own glory and becomes a pathological liar and tyrant. Ring any bells? The two trees of the Garden of Eden are equivalent to the two hemispheres in our own brain!

This suggests that our own mind is the Garden of Eden. Imagine that! We are our own Adam and we are our own Eve and we are our own God trying to talk to ourselves. Again, according to McGilchrist, our deepest sense of self is anatomically below the two hemispheres of the cortex  This is yet another indication that our true self, our higher self, the soul, is deep within the Earth and all it came from. This is the Reptilian Brain. We are the snake of Eden and we must evolve to survive.

 

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Dawkins, Richard; The God Delusion; Houghton Mifflin Company; 2006

Lipton, Bruce; Spontaneous Evolution, Our Positive Future and How to Get There From Here; Bantam Books; 2010

McGilchrist, Iain; The Master and Hie Emissary; The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World; Yale University Press; 2009

McTaggert, Lynn; The Field, The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe; Harper Collins; 2008

Pagles, Elaine; Adam, Eve and the Serpent, Sex and Politics in Early Christianity; First Vintage Books; 1988

Sapoltsky, Robert; Behave, The Biology of Humans at their Best and Worst;  Penquin Books; 2017