Society as the Death of Innocence

I’ve yet to come to a complete decision regarding the Bible as literal or metaphorical. I believe it includes both, but there are many specific passages that I haven’t made up my mind about. I think the fundamental plot is based in reality. So if you tell me there was a group of people called Israelites who descended from a man named Abraham, I’ll agree. If you tell me Jesus was an actual human who traveled the ancient Middle East teaching about what love is and about the realities of God, that's just fine with me. But then again, if you tell me that a man named John ascended to heaven and got a personal tour of the place, I might play the devil’s advocate and tell you it’s metaphorical. It’s one of those passages that might make more sense if we take it as symbolism. I’m not in the mood to solve the great debate, I’m just looking into some of the lessons we can learn if we view some Bible stories with new eyes.

Society as the Death of Innocence

Genesis 3: 1-7
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’"
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Enlightenment… Industry… The battle of man versus nature… Science… Society… Call it what you want, it’s all about discovery and fighting the battle against ignorance. In this passage, Adam and Eve have a desire to understand more, but of course, we all know their motives don't make their disobedience the right thing to do. God told them not to eat the fruit, and the command alone makes their actions wrong. But imagine for a moment that there was no rule against eating the fruit from this tree. Imagine you have the choice between eating a fruit that tastes good and satisfies your hunger and eating a fruit that does the same, but also provides some new bit of information, like some applicable fortune cookie. If the rule wasn't there, none of us would hesitate to make that same decision. We have a desire to know things... what's wrong with that?

Every child goes through the "Why?" phase at some point. It’s practically a never-ending sequence, but parents have figured out how to trump the question "Why?" Their answer… "Because I said so." Eventually, they start skipping steps and the "Because I said so" shows up after the first "Why?" I remember questioning the reasoning behind so many little things my parents wouldn’t let me do. But just because I had questions doesn’t mean I was missing out. I was looking out for myself and so I wanted to know what was going on, but it all made sense to them because they were looking out for me in a way that went above and beyond all my three-year-old questions.

If Adam and Eve had been in the "Why?" phase, would God have chosen to skip to "Because I said so," or would he have given them a reason? And if he had given a reason, what would it be?

Maybe he would say something like, "Because you’ll have a new understanding of some things, but knowledge is a double-edged sword."

Maybe God was just looking out for his children in a way that was superior to our notions of "what’s best for us." Maybe our pursuit of knowledge isn’t always the perfect product we see it as. Maybe knowing more has consequences that are both positive and negative.

The Age of Enlightenment established reason as the highest of authorities. Throughout this movement, freedom and democracy became important themes that saturated almost every culture around the globe, but this avenue of thought is also characterized by a worldwide faith deficiency and eventually led to societal unbalances like totalitarianism. The industrial revolution changed every aspect of life. The development of new technologies allowed business to drastically improve efficiency and allowed the world to be connected like never before. However, the technology for mass production resulted in a virtual mass production of humanity. No longer could individuals make a living expressing themselves through their chosen trade. On the contrary, they were plugged in to assembly lines where they tightened the same screw for the rest of their lives.

Humanity has an appetite for knowledge, and it takes only a small loss of ignorance for us to start losing our innocence. Ignorance and innocence: the two co-exist like bees and honey. Unless we put it in a jar, you won’t find honey unless there are bees close by, and visa versa.

I don't know what the point of all this is exactly. I don't know if we should just slow down and live simpler lives or make cell phones and sitcoms illegal so that people have nothing else to do but act human again. What I’m not saying is that humanity shouldn’t be working to cure diseases and figuring out ways to help people in need. We should be doing all that, but considering the innocence of Adam and Eve prior to the Fall and the humanity that we experience because of the Fall, I think there’s something to be grasped that I have found in my observations of children. My cousin has two boys. One is three and the other is six months. They are adorable, and since I get to give them back to their parents, I never get sick of them. But it doesn’t take long to see that three-year-olds get into trouble sometimes whereas six-month-olds just need to be loved and held and cared for.