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Adam And Eve Were First Apes With God's Spirit

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Posted by John Morgan Powell on February 13, 2001 20:48:00 UTC

S.H. Le and Richard made some good arguments about Adam, original sin, and God's nature.

In the LDS church (the one whose doctrine I know the best) they partially deal with these problems by teaching it something like this:

God wanted Adam and Eve to transgress the law (not technically sin) so that He would have an excuse to eject them from the garden of Eden and begin sending His spirit children down to Earth and have a reason to send His Son Jesus Christ. Eve was deceived by the serpent and was going to be ejected from the Garden, but Adam, realizing that he was supposed to remain with Eve and in order to fulfill the purposes of God to have children also partook of the forbidden fruit. This makes the chauvinistic implication that men (represented by Adam) are better than women (represented by Eve). It also makes the Fall and Atonement incredibly contrived, rather than really necessary.

The LDS church teaches that God knew what Adam and Eve would do and what each of us will do. God's testing us so we know where we stand, not for His benefit.

I've argued with believers of God's omniscience that if God really knew the future, not just predicting it, then there would be no free agency.

I'm somewhat surprised that modern religions don't teach that God just started sending God-like spirits once the bodies of our ape ancestors became advanced enough. Some of the more scientifically-inclined LDS believe this. I suspect that religions merging evolution with the Genesis story of Adam and Eve will teach something like this "Adam and Eve were the first apes with a God-like spirit" idea. Some argue that without the Fall there would be no need for the Atonement. If you change somewhat the meanings of the Fall and the Atonement you might be able to rationalize these to the satisfaction of most religious people.

However, in my view, this reinterpretation of scriptures is wrong. If you want to know how things really are, don't assume the Bible is the Word of God and then reinterprete it as science expands our knowledge. It's wiser to go to the best source of knowledge (science) and discard the outdated beliefs of our ancestors.

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