GARDEN OF EDEN
We are entering a new millenium. We have an opportunity to create a new paradigms new world view. Let's create a more workable model.
Let's strike a match and burn down The Garden of Eden. It doesn't work. It has held much of the world hostage for thousands of years. You remember, don't you, how God was apparently bored one day and decided to build a project called humanity. He took some dirt and molded a man (that's why we sometimes feel like dirt). Then he made him a partner, a helpmate to be subordinate to him. He called them Adam and Eve. Sort of like the first Barbie and Ken. Eve didn't have a rib, so God took one from Adam and gave it to her. She's been taking a ribbing ever since.
God then built them a magnificent garden and placed them in it. The garden had everything they could want or need for their survival as they set about parenting humanity. They could eat everything in the garden ... except the apples. All the other fruits and vegetables, but not the apples.
Well, you know the story. Right away Eve gets craving for apples. "An old snake-in-the-grass appeared and double dared her to eat one. So, of course she did. Then she tempted poor, old, innocent Adam into taking a bite. Immediately all havoc broke loose in the garden. God appeared in a terrible mood, screams at them and dooms humanity forever.
Forever is a very long time in terms of eternity. And here at the end of the second millenium C.E., and God knows how long before Jesus was born, we have been a doomed, blighted race-imperfect from the word go. Helpless and hopeless until "one pure and without blemish" would sacrifice himself for us.
All of us were tainted so God sent his only son down to live among us for thirty-three years and then to die as a sacrifice for our sins. I wonder what Mrs.God thought about him sending their only, beloved son to be killed. I bet she was madder than heck. Anyway, their son, Jesus, came down and like a good son, did as his father asked. And we've had him nailed to the tree for two- thousand years. Let's take him down and set him free. Then, let's toss the cross into the garden and burn the whole myth.