Welcome login | signup
Language en es fr
OccupyForum

Forum Post: Genesis, Chapters 1-3

Posted 7 years ago on Jan. 4, 2017, 6:54 p.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

"... And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done." [Genesis 1:26]

When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, the human race, nature and the economy were in perfect balance. All that was consumed was recycled and so life continued without dissipation or degradation of God's natural system. No one lived but by the fruits they hunted or gathered with their own wit and work. No one worked for another, which we rationalize facilely though it implies the sloth of employers. We have no respect for the lazy ... unless they're rich or demonstrate their royal credentials. Apparently not all are created equal. Just ask your local prince or princess.

In the Garden, no produce of the population was squandered by financialization, trade, advertising or debt service. Any matter that nature produced in excess of what Eve and her man wanted or needed was automatically recycled and returned to the earth where it produces more and better products. (Our masters claim that efficiency for investment but I don't believe them.) Then the first couple ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Is it the knowledge of evil to have learned to have others work for one or to do work for the profit of another?

"And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken." [Genesis 3:23]

Chapter 3 of Genesis concludes with the eviction from the Garden and guarding against any return. What exactly is it about the "knowledge of good and evil" that makes return to the simpler and naturally more egalitarian hunter gatherer economy impossible for Abraham's ancestors and progeny? It says in the bible that women are constrained to submit to men for having first eaten that fruit. Are we all constrained to work for ruling elites because we're forced into debt bondage as punishment for "original sin?" Or was the sin really abandoning the ancient way of life and teaching ourselves to exploit the work of others. Have we chosen banishment from paradise of our own free [but unenlightened] will? Is the gate really guarded by a Cherubim with a flaming sword or are have we simply evicted ourselves by inventing foolish beliefs and a self destructive culture?

No, of course we can't all be hunter gatherers. But we can do a lot better than the failed and dead end market, dominated by banksters and billionaires, that threatens our existence today.

8 Comments

8 Comments


Read the Rules
[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 7 years ago

Apparently not all are created equal. Just ask your local prince or princess.

Just ask your local state or federal politician!

Or your domestic Wealthy Few!

Or even your lowly local general manager & staff!

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

If you keep on only thinking about wealth that is produced by others, you are messed up if you don't have control over that. Very few people have ever really taken a good look at or tried to understand what money is, where it came from, where it is going, and who could create it out of thin air.

True wealth for me is good clean air, water, health, and pleasures of both mind and body. Note that I didn't mention money which is only one means of possibly obtaining these in some cases. Clean air and water require community action so I'm absolutely a socialist. Health is largely achievable through individual effort so I'm an individualist mostly on health. Pleasures of both mind and body span the space between individualist and socialist. The simplest and best case for achieving many pleasures is to get a soulmate. I learnt that from my parents. They went through many years of involuntary separations(stupid wars, blockades, sanctions, regulations, and -ism's) but they had always got back together. I never saw them fight but that was probably why I got to watch (vacate-children-from-home parents-paid-for theatre) movies with my much older elder brother, some probably overaged for me as "I didn't get it!"(especially some foreign-language films)

duos parentes, ergo sum

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 7 years ago

eye C that u r comfortably ensconced in some sort of weird twilight zone episode - again & perpetually.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

Yes, I love the Twilight Zone episodes. I was absolutely amazed by what they could do with so few props, no computer graphics, no special effects, no exposed bodies, no violence, just tons of "connecting the dots." Decades later, I'm still wondering about when a stranger will visit me with an infinite-power-source suitcase! My, my, it was just a suitcase. I suppose that my kitty will never be a fan of the Twilight Zone due to her lack of imagination. You've got to be intelligent to be fooled and enjoy it afterwards as a good magic show!

Magician is an occupation in which one can be paid for pulling the wool over others' eyes and they love being fooled to the point of paying for it. I could fool a puppy but not a kitty when I pretend to throw a ball. Which is more intelligent? The puppy, of course! Being Man's best friend - dogs are like three-years-old babies eager to play a game but kitty knows how to enjoy life taking everything easy as a wise retired old lady who can see through tricks in an instant.

Here's the "Eye of the Beholder" show. It reminds me of the social disapproval I'd encountered looking for a hotel on a Friday evening when a woman (who could be a prostitute, I concede, but isn't that potentially true of just about anyone, especially the more attractive ones?) who was seemingly lost asked for my help.

Trans-truth to the rescue, "male and female he created them."

duos parentes, ergo sum

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

"we simply evicted ourselves by inventing foolish beliefs and a self destructive culture"

The Garden of Eden was the pre-civilized human culture that sustained us for hundreds of thousands of years, before the recent ten thousand sun circuits of self destruction.

Our time in the Garden worked. What we've built since we left, by our choice, doesn't work! Just as no god or hero will save us, no god or devil caused us to leave Paradise for this hell we've created. If we wish to live, we must save ourselves.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

Good! The Bible cannot be read and interpreted literally. In modern Computerese, "It yields many compilation errors." For it to be held in worthy honors, it must be read metaphorically(much like the gamma "variation-of-parameters" factor bridging relativistic physics with Newtonian classical physics) or limited to its domain of application in the similar way as Newtonian physics may still be used knowing fully well that it's only a good-enough approximation.

In the beginning, there was God. Then there was No God when God was sought for. Then there IS God because we've Found God within ourselves through Faith("If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you." - Luke 17:6) and so we can, of course, "walk with God," for God has been carrying us all along. God Is a figment of our imagination but is just as real as our imaginings made real. The God/No God dichotomy yields NO contradiction. Nature has never had any contradictions and never will, very unlike our "zero" - the "Something" standing for Nothing.

Analogous to the "phlogiston" theory of Chemistry or ancient Greek myths, the Bible should be interpreted as the culmination of millennia of human wisdom and morality sprung from the deep recesses of human psyches. Do phlogistons exist? Not now. Are they useful? Not quite nowadays but they were at one time. Are they less true now? Sort of but not necessarily if the history of science is being discussed.

People sympathize with others by giving them what is "from the bottom of their hearts." I looked in hearts and there was NOTHING at the bottom of the hearts! Hearts are pumps with voids in them. Did these (transcended over their falsehood by Love) lies told by these people help? Yes, definitely!!!

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

The dichotomy of the Good and Evil was the curse of the Tree of Knowledge's fruit. Before Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, they were both naked and felt no shame. After they had eaten the fruit, their eyes were opened and they saw themselves naked and felt shame. The problem was not nakedness per se but viewing God's handiwork as being ugly and shameful. The eyes and minds had been corrupted(a boundary had been crossed). As I had learnt too well from my babysitter experience(the broad strips and the bright stares, the subsequent stripping crossed a boundary), she helped set me on a path that was painful and eventually regretful.

Adam, made in the image of God, was complete but he felt sad not being like the animals with male and female so God cleaved Eve from him and made her female. Then both Adam and Eve became Incomplete. God couldn't take back the "You will surely die." penalty of eating the forbidden fruit because God is just. Nonetheless, eternal life is still possible if they become one and complete with generative power, through their offspring, though painful and hard.

Dichotomy breeds discontent so re-integration dissolves the discontent. It's both mind and body work (painful and hard at times) so yes, marriage being re-integration, is the most fundamental social bond on which all enduring human societies are founded upon. Minds need adjustments, first.

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

We can do a lot better than the failed and dead end market, dominated by banksters and billionaires, that threatens our existence today.