by Shaun Lawton
For the purposes of this illuminated manuscript, it needs to be stated up front that what we modern hominids consider to be "God", can at least be mutually accepted to a significant extent as a "Placeholder" for something we don't fully comprehend. All uses of that three-letter term in this essay are intended to be taken in that manner. Our inherent lack of total understanding is a perfectly natural thing, a state of innocence we are all born into, and only slowly and partially emerge from, as we grow into adulthood. The premise behind this essay posits that as a race, we have merely emerged too far from that state for our own good.
Consider the importance of receiving a message as it was intended. If we move to a strange land and begin building our own home by hand, and our new neighbors inform us that we best build a 9-foot-tall fence around our abode, in order to be protected from a species of aggressive Grizzly bear that will clamber over anything shorter, it would certainly behoove us to get that information correctly; imagine our dismay if we misunderstood our neighbors to mean six feet somehow—and built the fence too short—thus subjecting ourselves to the predation of the bears.
"Thou Shalt Not Eat From The Tree Of Knowledge"—what does that really mean? Allow me to suggest the following explanation. The key word in that phrase, is eat, and its original intended meaning must have been more accurately described as digest, or perhaps even better—to consume entirely; i.e, another metaphor that gets the spirit of the same message across, would be better served with breathing: We all know that one must perforce breathe out before one may draw in a subsequent breath. That is to suggest that the original intention of the command to not "eat" from that tree over there—may have been to specifically suggest that "It's OK to taste and sample knowledge—but DO NOT make the mistake of holding that knowledge as immutable or static; for all knowledge is, by definition, transitory and fleeting at best; and furthermore, it is only significant as it relates to the specific situation and personages involved, i.e, a relative matter entirely."
Truth itself is fleeting; this can be observed easily enough. Because even our own planet earth itself will eventually overheat and expire, it can be known how "fleeting" the truth of our own existence actually is—no more than a few billion years or so. Although we don't normally think of billions of years as "fleeting", when the totality of this universe if factored in, even billions of years is but a brief fraction of the whole—anyone should be able to accept that. And make no mistake about it—it is the very totality of this universe that we are all inherently parts of. The inescapable conclusion is that all truth is fleeting by definition. This is why it has been stated that "Nothing is true; everything is permitted".
Which brings us to a renewed perspective of what the original intended meaning behind the tree of knowledge myth was supposed to be. What I am trying to explain here couldn't be refuted by believers any more than it could by atheists. The very dichotomy created from the divide between these two camps' differing perspectives was itself brought into existence from the lack of having grasped the intended meaning of our creation myths handed down over the generations and getting lost in the translations along the way.
Which is to say, that what is by all means necessary now is for us to unlearn the falsities we've been fed over the generations; and furthermore, to unteach this unlearning to all whose ears and eyes and minds are open to the new understanding. To recap the events in our creation myth, which although both "understood" and "misunderstood" to be "the word of God", we can forage a pathway out of this maze by admitting to ourselves that it was really just fellow men who scribed these stories, and regardless of whether one believes that such scribes were or were not in fact "messengers of God", it nonetheless remains clear that, were we to apply our aforementioned comprehension that the label "God" is just another word in the long list of labels engendered originally by the alleged act of our forefather having "eaten" of the "forbidden tree of knowledge"—then it follows quite logically and even indisputably, that if the term "God" applies itself through every constituent and aspect of this entire universe, then the idea that "we are God" follows naturally, lending a significance to our early creation myths, as they were scribed by men such as ourselves, from stories passed down orally. We may think of such handed down stories as poetry or art that strives to make sense of the ordered chaos surrounding our primitive beginnings, and in that respect, may function optimally as genuine transmissions of real information, i.e, that "fleeting truth" often referred to.
Recall for a moment that another detail of this creation myth, was the necessity for Adam to wander about labelling everything that formerly had no name; and that after he ate of the tree of knowledge, he named his "Woman" Eve. Which may be a quaint way of illustrating how language came to be invented. If all these significant details are kept in mind, it becomes easier to understand the bigger picture laid out for us by our ancestors. Because if we want to fathom the significance behind these various allegations of "the fall of man", it would behoove us to keep in mind the cohesive and organic whole which these creation myth details weave together. What is "original sin"? Tied in with "the fall of man", I propose that the answer is obvious, and there for anyone to grasp, be they atheist or believer. Our original sin was merely symbolized by the myth of having been deceived into eating from the "tree of knowledge"; to cut to the raw and naked heart of the matter, it becomes necessary for us to separate the less-significant details of the story from the burning hot signifier. In other words, perhaps the curious detail that one of our original pair of ancestors was "fashioned from the rib" of the other, is merely "dressing" for a story whose core message lies within other, more telling, details. The same could be said for the "serpent" which deceived one of the pair into urging the other to "eat" the forbidden fruit. If we separate all the details in myths such as this one, we then put ourselves in a much better position to work out the actual spirit of the meaning presented by said myth. It tells of the collusion between man and woman—i.e, two people—in having, perhaps accidentally but certainly erroneously—conspired to follow through with the "serpent's suggestion"; that is, to be infected by knowledge itself. And what is knowledge? One archaic definition is sexual intercourse; today, generally, it is understood to be cognition, or understanding facts through reasoning. But after a thousand generations of meaning being lost in the translation, it's easy to see how unsound reasoning might eventually come to be accepted as sound. In fact it's still ringing in our ears, from having been shouted down to us in perpetuity, as it were.
Allow me to suggest that we look at the word "knowledge" in a new light. Think of it as a ledge of knowing. There is a limit to the platform of knowledge. If we make the mistake of cementing such knowledge as immutable (in an evolving universe), then we effectively step off that "ledge"—and into the realm of fantasy. This is how such a simple misunderstanding—a misappropriation of the intended meaning behind our handed-down story—has resulted in a fixed methodology which subsequently roots religion firmly into the ground. It is my deeper view that such a rooted establishment as that (which we call religion) appears to be the very forbidden TREE OF KNOWLEDGE which our own ancestor's story refers to. The original story was intended to convey the significance behind "God" (that placeholder for what we cannot understand) having "commanded" our fore-parents to avoid "eating from"...religion itself.