I've actually never read the bible. My family was not especially religious - in fact, my mother's father would not allow his children to attend church or participate in religious activities, something I didn't know until later in life. My father dabbled in Buddhism and New Agey spirituality, but never really discussed it with us as children - something I have come to appreciate.
Of course, growing up in our society one cannot help but know something about the bible. Christianity is ubiquitious in North America, whether we like it or not. Mostly, I just think of it as this strange old tradition that just hangs around for no good reason, like dresses being for women only to wear. But, the other day I was kind of struck in a particular way by the story of the Garden of Eden, or the little I know of it anyways. And I realized that the people who wrote that story (for I am sure that it was people who told it, and then wrote it) had an astute and direct understanding of the human being.
Think of the story - of the first humans and their existence in the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which was forbidden to them. Animals, for the most part (perhaps there are exceptions) do not seem to dwell in the realms of good and evil. They do not seem to consider their actions in that way. What does it take to see good and evil, to live in good or evil? I believe that it is the ability to realize that another human's consciousness is like our own, and to then realize that it can be manipulated, for better or worse, to our own ends. Why would this knowledge be forbidden? Because it cannot be un-known. Once acquired, it forever alters the knower. Their actions thereafter can never be the same as before.
Perhaps the biblical story reaches back to some half-remembered point in the past, when human beings had not, as a species, acquired this knowledge. We may have been human in many ways, probably very much so in appearance, perhaps even in intelligence and all that it brings. But somewhere, sometime, somehow we acquired the knowledge - and it forever changed us. We can never return to the garden, where our actions were untainted by thoughts of good and evil. It is impossible. Only in our infant children can we see the potential of this, but it is lost so quickly as they capably learn to be just like the rest of us.
I don't say this with regret (much) - after all, there is nothing I can do about it. But it seems to me that whoever wrote that story understood all of this, and perhaps much more directly, as if they were closer in time to the actual events relating to the acquisition of that knowledge.
I know this post isn't directly art-related, and I would have put it on the Great Melee, but that blog doesn't seem to get much attention anymore T_T
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4 comments:
good stuff. i was raised ultra-religious, and attended seminary for two and a half years. and i've worn a dress the odd time, too, and think it's a pretty good garment--functional, and fashionable.
daniel quinn (and others) have theorized much the same thing as you have here-- their idea being that the Eden story, and "the Fall", represents the beginning of agriculture. it's the idea that, before we became civilization-builders, we lived in a healthier, more holistic way, and that the knowledge Adam and Eve gained was the knowledge of manipulating not just each other (as you've suggested) but also the world around them. and usually, that manipulation is for selfish, self-centred gain that comes at the expense of the larger community and the earth.
moses is credited with writing down those stories (told to him by God, the fundamentalists say, though i'm more of the belief, like you, that those stories had been around for thousands of years, and passed down orally). like most myths, they're actually very complex systems of symbology (?) revealing ideas, beliefs, and whole bodies of scientific and cultural knowledge.
"in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. and the earth was without form, and was void. and god said: 'let there be light.' and there was light."
sounds kinda like the big bang, no?
I was raised Catholic, with all but one year of my primary and secondary education being parochial, with most of the training at the hands of The Society of Jesus... damn I love those Jesuits.
We rarely went to Church as a family (although I did weekly in school), and when we would go, my father was always quick to tell us that it was all a myth, not true, but good educationally and for our personal development.
So my life has been steeped in religion.
My point is this: I think religion is a sociocultural (and I use this term very loosely) necessity; it has an anthropological function. Let's say that it is part of the (big S) structure; that which delimits what we do, but that which we also arguably change and produce. So it is not only part of the rules that we make up so as to socially interact (I too think the dress is functional and elegant), it is a rule (again, of the general Rule, or Structure).
That detail is important, as it helps me address your point; meaning that as you say, the garden story is an understanding of the paramount functional difference between an animal that does not treat behaviour as moral, and the pesky reality that faces us, of knowing a difference (or boundary or limit), between 'right' and 'wrong.'
So exactly in this way, morality, and here it comes Onosson... morality is a generative property of our cognation; meaning that as an animal, we have functionally developed so as to be able to observe, capture, and engage another aspect of the Structure.
Our congitively relational interactions give us the power to grasp a part of reality that is there, independent of us, but one that imminently delimits what we can and cannot do as a human being, which at one point, as you say, moved from not only physical limits (where am I gonna get my next meal? what will I hunt? what will I kill for food? where will I sleep? I need water), but to moral ones as well (I shouldn't steal, I shouldn't hit things, I shouldn't kill, I should pray and give thanks when I have to kill so that I can eat... hey, maybe I can just grow things?).
So what I'm saying really, is that genesis is a transendental realist argument for moral realism.
And I'm also saying that I'm glad you observe something interesting in my culture's holy book.
:)
And finally, as a father, can you more fully explain this:
My father dabbled in Buddhism and New Agey spirituality, but never really discussed it with us as children - something I have come to appreciate.
Keep these posts coming, super awesome stuff to think about, and they help the development of my arguments.
Oops, I'm so selfish!
Now I have to go and confess in a dark booth to a guy wearing a dress.
:)
Heh heh about the dress thing. I bet they don't call them dresses, either...
I agree, I think, with your point about where morality comes from, for the most part. What I find most perplexing is that morality seems to be its own cause and effect. That is, there can be no concept of morality until one begins to make choices on a moral basis - but, once you begin to do that, you cannot return to an a-moral state. It is a gift that cannot be returned.
I'm not quite sure why religion would be a necessity, at least from my own personal experience, but looking around the world that does appear to be the case...
As for that part about my dad, I would just say that I am glad he didn't present us with his own take on things, good or bad, at least not as children. I think it was far more fruitful for me to be able to have my own first impression and learn on my own.
go to the current ALFA show for enlightenment
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