“On what level is the Garden of Eden tale to be understood? Did the first man and woman (Adam and Eve) determine the course of untold billions? Was my destiny chartered by one one or two primitives?”
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-Questions posed by David Birnbaum in “Summa Metaphysica 1” page 90
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A Brief commentary on David Birnbaum’s “Theory of Potentialism”
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The question of “On what level is the Garden of Eden tale to be understood” summarizes a major fault line that exists today in American society.
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The far right of both Christianity and Judaism would answer this question with great confidence and a certain smugness: “We (in contrast to the unbelievers in our midst) understand it (this tale and the whole Bible) AS it is written.”
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In contrast, the “unbelievers” symbolized by the secular left in today’s political terms, would, because they are on the defensive, respond with a somewhat longer answer:
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“The story of the Garden of Eden, the entire bible, and god him/herself (to be politically correct) are all fairy tales that no longer need to be or should be read or thought about, much less venerated….because if one begins to take the bible seriously on any level (including as philosophy or literature much less, god forbid, as a religious or spiritual guide) one risks the very serious possibility of sliding down the proverbial slippery slope where pure fanaticism, intolerance, and dangerous behavior toward others awaits.”
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For most people, mainly concerned with day to day life of surviving and prospering within a rapidly changing and at times disorienting world, philosophic arguments over the bible outlined above is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
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Proof of this is the continued decline of church and synagogue attendance by all ages but most pronounced by the young. The exception to this rule is in the most fundamental religious groups who feel increasing isolated and therefore all that more determined to preserve their religious points of view.
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For more liberal churches and synagogues swept up in our culture’s scientifically correct understanding of evolution, and based on the new god known as Random Selection with no context, it is very hard for these religious leaders to present any kind of acceptable religious philosophy other than “Be nice; Be kind; Be considerate, and Be tolerant”…which while is important and valuable advice is not a sufficiently enough deep philosophy to bring people coming back to the pews or to convince them to contribute to or publicly identify with any particular religion.
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And as the gap between left and right grows, the opportunity to find common meeting places decreases with unfortunate consequences for America.
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But even though “religious” people think they have ALL the answers, and more secular people think that because the universe unfolds ONLY through random selection, as is well known in the halls of academia, there, therefore, are NO answers; it is still nonetheless true that all human beings continue to ask and struggle with the questions of
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“Why is there evil in the world?” and the even deeper question of “What is our life all about?”
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With regard to the first question as to “Why is there evil?” the answers are not so hard to come by.
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Freud has taught us that all human beings, from Adam and Eve going forward, have an Id, Ego and Superego. And that when young innocent children are traumatized, brutalized, abused and neglected that their later ability to contain the selfishness, wish for revenge, rage, lust, disregard for others may know no boundaries; and the resulting weakness of their ego’s and superegos to regulate, contain and transform the raw and now traumatized energy of their Ids can sometimes result in massive acts of self destructive and destructive behavior that can cause great pain and suffering in ever growing concentric circles.
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With regard to natural evil..the pain and suffering caused by nature being nature…with shifts in weather patterns causing floods or droughts, not to mention the earth shaking due to the violent movement of fault lines that criss cross the world; and thereby making a huge proportion of human beings vulnerable to massive acts of natural destruction …which we can try to remedy with good building codes, but which are not sufficient to protect against the instant damage that major earthquakes have and will continue to inflict on both minor and major population centers.
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Given Freud, and our understanding of how nature works one does not need fancy or complicated philosophical or religious theories to account for man made and natural disasters.
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But one does need a good philosophical theory to even begin to discuss, much less wrap our arms around the harder question of “What exactly is the meaning of our lives?”
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It is to reflect on this question that David Birnbaum in his book “God and Evil Summa Metaphysica 1” postulates his theory of “Potentialism”…a theory that gives space for a religiously oriented person to accept evolution and randomness within evolution as part of a larger context going back to what ignited the big bang in the first place; and space for more secular inclined individuals to begin to understand that the recognition of evolution within the context of “Potentialism” provides the context which allows for continued intellectual, emotional and spiritual contemplation of a major philosophical question that our scientific theories cannot by definition answer.
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In this light, Adam and Eve were not two primitive who on a whim or by poor judgement or ignorance or by seduction by a snake, or the malicious advice of Satan gave up for themselves and for all future generations the comforts and security of the Garden of Eden.
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And if one adopts a more nuanced view of Adam and Eve one might indeed begin to see them as the first conscious philosophers and religious leaders in recorded human history.
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And within this philosophical framework there is the understanding that Life was/is/and will continue to be about Potential expressing itself through opposites, balance, and the continued expression of potentiality in every aspect of the Universe.
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Adam and Eve’s great realization was that if they accepted the opportunity to continue to live in the static but comfortable womb of the mythical Garden of Eden it would be to opt to return Life (their own particular lives as well as the full Potential of the Life Force of which they felt themselves to be an integrable part) to the static moment before the big bang…before Potentiality first expressed itself; and before they as individuals had a chance to connect their potentiality (small p) to the larger Potentiality (large P) that created the Universe and against all statistical odds brought Life and later human consciousness into being.
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Michael Papo
mapapo44@gmail.com
www.PapoBlogSumma.com
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