Saturday, August 11, 2012

In the Beginning II

Scott Bradley


After God created the world, he decided to create man in his own image — self-aware. But just as God was not happy without someone to play with, he saw that Adam was similarly lonely; so he created Eve. But whereas Adam was created ex nihilo, Eve was created from Adam's rib. Woman is merely derived, and thus subordinate to Man.

Then God put them in the Garden where they had everything they could possibly want (except an I-pad). But there were two trees in the Garden whose fruit they were forbidden to eat, namely, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. But Satan, in the form of a serpent, was also in the Garden and he convinced Eve that God had no right to keep her from these fruits. Unfortunately, she then partook of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and not of the Tree of Life. She then gave of the fruit to Adam. God was pissed-off and kicked them out of the Garden with all manner of curses laid upon them, but chiefly that they should "surely die". An angel with a sword made sure they couldn't access the Tree of Life.

"I suffer not a woman to teach," wrote our beloved St. Paul. Why? Because the source of Man's misery was caused by Woman, who is weak and easily deceived. She is man's moral and intellectual inferior, and requires close supervision. And just as she was tempted by Satan, and then tempted Adam, so she continues to tempt Man to sin with her body which she will certainly flaunt, given the opportunity. For this reason, she must be forced to cover all her tempting bits if allowed to be seen in public, though it is much better that she be kept in seclusion.

Now tell me that religion and philosophy don't matter. The Genesis myth was, of course, a creation of Man and thus only a reflection of opinions already deeply ingrained. The real negative impact, therefore, is not so much in the telling, but in the canonization of the myth so that it becomes an inalterable template by which to live throughout the ages. Fortunately, humanity has further morally and intellectually evolved, and continues to slowly do so; the liberation of Woman, though far from complete, is well underway. This evolution requires an abandonment of or radical re-reading of the myth. Conservative forces within the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, clinging as they do to a literal and fixed interpretation of their respective Books, are unfortunately unable to follow along with the ever-transforming nature of Reality.

Every interpretive religion or philosophy is necessarily a reflection of the individual and collective opinions of the time. It is our hunger for Truth, for a sure and fixed anchor for our lives, that first causes us to explain Reality and then to reify that opinion; Truth does not change. But what if we could understand Truth as ever-changing and ever-unfixed? What if Truth is endless transformation and thus something never truly known or fixed?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

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