Saturday, July 9, 2011

Men Suck: Sin Entered the World Because Adam Didn't Give a Flip

I've been flummoxed by the hyper-fundie principle of why women are supposed to be subject to men. It has nothing to do with the prooftexted verses they pick out of their favorite Bible passages or the eisegetical reading of the Bible. It is all about their view of The Fall. The claim that a woman deceived the man and caused him to eat the cumquat and thus needs to pay penance until the end of the age.


So, let's assume for arguments sake that everything that was written about the fall of man in the Garden of Eden is factually correct. We have to do that for this argument because a fundie would have it no other way. Of course, even if you came at them with proof from their hallowed, inerrant, infallible, OMG!...you let your Bawble touch the floor!!!!, written magically by the hand of God book, that their arguments are false, they will hang onto the fact that you don't worship the Bible and thus, your proof is biased and ignorant, and can be summarily dismissed.


That being said, I am not writing this for a fundie. I don't care about them. Sure, I want them to change, don't get me wrong, but its the people who are negatively affected by this crap – namely women and children (and men that desire to love women for how God created them) that I write for. My audience, I hope, are those who feel so strongly that the fundie principles are wrong but cannot get past the “fact” that they can seem so right.


These people – patriarchalists, hyper-fundamentalists, chauvinists, devout and proud women, abusive men, manipulative wives, etc. - have perfected their craft and, most importantly, their arguments. The problem for them is that, most of the time, their baloney sausage can be ripped to shreds quite easily. Usually, all it takes is a person on the outside raising one eyebrow, furling the brow irreparably, and uttering a strong “Huh!!!!!?”


Ok. Back to the subject at hand.


In Genesis 2:15, God was giving directions to Adam (Eve had not been created yet) about what he could and couldn't eat. According to God, Adam was allowed to eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.


Now, I have no way of knowing what this tree was, but I'm pretty sure it was a a crab apple tree. Crab apples are so delicious that, once you eat one, you have to eat a hundred. Eating a hundred crab apples does a little number to a person's bowels and you learn quickly the knowledge of good and evil, if you catch my drift, but I digress.


Right after God told Adam to not eat the cumquats from the tree, he put him to sleep and made woman from his rib. We won't get into the stupid logic about women being subservient to man because woman came from man. It was just the weird way that God decided to create the two peeps. Any conclusion from that is simply conjecture and is most likely from the ignorant people groups of the early world, trying to make heads or tails about the nature of things. Not to mention that the curse came AFTER the eating of the cumquat and thus, the order of creation to prove roles for the sexes is simply retroactive application and is thus false.


So, the snake comes to Eve and asks her if what God really told them about the naughty tree was correct. He debated with her about the fact that God would kill them if they ate the cumquat, finally convincing her that God didn't really mean that he would kill them but that men and women would know good and evil just like God did. So, Eve, who had not been told directly by God (anyone who says otherwise is not basing their argument on their hallowed book) that the tree was naughty, ate it.


Then, after the debate with the snake (which we see only took up five verses, but I think, in reality, Eve likely debated the slithery vermin for hours, knowing everything I know about women) we get a one liner. “Eve ate, then gave it to Adam, and Adam ate it.”


Really? Adam ate the fruit with no arguments? Why didn't Adam ask Eve why she would eat and then offer it to him? Why didn't Adam require convincing from the snake or Eve that what God actually said wasn't really what He meant? Why was there no protest but just a shoulder shrug and a biting into the juicy flesh?


Eve didn't have to force feed Adam. Adam WASN'T deceived, no matter how you look at it. He was irresponsible, untrustworthy, disobedient, stupid, asinine, and most of all, NOT OFF THE HOOK by any means.


The Bible's narrative is that Adam caused sin to enter into the world. Why doesn't it state that Eve did? Why do women have to mentally flog themselves over the fact that they caused Adam to sin when in fact Eve debated with the snake and Adam didn't give a crap?


Are women smarter than men so the serpent knew he had to convince Eve, and then Adam, the dumb idiot, would just follow?


As you may suspect, there is a thread of sarcasm through all of my questions and rightly so. The fact is, God gave directions to Adam and it is possible Adam told Eve, though we don't know that – just the fact that Eve knew about the order from God. And, with the knowledge, they both ate the fruit. Eve, after losing a debate, and Adam, after – um....well....nothing. He just ate it.


And women need to be hidden in the home doing wifely duties and letting the men lead because they caused the first man to sin?


Both ate. Both sinned. Both are equally at fault for what they did, regardless of how they got there. Eve was just smarter about it. Thus, being that the curse of Adam has been lifted since Christ's sacrifice, BOTH should be subservient to one another, treating each other with the respect, grace, mercy, and tolerance that every individual human being on this earth deserves.


Women. Lose your chains! You are free from guilt! Live as God intended and go out and be successful in everything you put your hand to.


And to the men that preach the slavery of women as being God's proper way and the women that regurgitate it as if it is the right and proper idea, shame on you! Go ahead and stay in your stupid formulaic rut of life, never realizing YOUR fullest potential, or the potential of the blindly accepting followers you control.



15 comments:

  1. The irony is that this passage has been used by the Church for thousands of years to show that women are weak minded and lesser vessels. I've even heard it argued that Adam ate the fruit because he saw Eve had and couldn't bare to be without her, and so decided to join her in whatever punishment she would receive!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My former bff has a blog you may enjoy/hate. You'll enjoy her woman is evil post, and really love the modesty stuff.

    www.becauseofhim.blogspot.com

    Thanks for writing the above. It's good stuff. Women need this. Your wife is blessed. And dang it, this'll put you over the top of our contest for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you so much for this post. I've recently found your blog through Lewis' blog and enjoy reading it as I re-evaluate just what it means to be a Christian.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Welcome! I am very interested in your input, as well. I do not have all the answers and love to discuss things with all who desire to talk.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I see people being treated differently as a proof of our sinfulness. God did not intend it to be that way but it became that way because of sin. We are never going to become totally equal in this life like god intended us to be just like we cannot be without sin in this life but we can try to not sin. I agree with the general thinking that women should try to submit to their husband but to me that does not mean that the wife should be a doormat or anything like that but to just try to help and support her husband. I definitely do not think it is OK for the husband to make decisions without asking his wife and discussing it with her. I do not believe in either total leadership or total submission because I don't think that we as people can do that without doing it wrong because we are too sinful and therefore we should not strive to totally submit to anyone but god.

    I also don't believe that sin is because of women but because of both sexes. I agree, if Adam was so much better at withstanding sin, why did he go and eat the fruit god told him not to eat just because his wife said so? It is like when teenagers want to do stuff just because everybody else is doing it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I.C.:"Both ate. Both sinned. Both are equally at fault for what they did, regardless of how they got there. Eve was just smarter about it. Thus, being that the curse of Adam has been lifted since Christ's sacrifice, BOTH should be subservient to one another, treating each other with the respect, grace, mercy, and tolerance that every individual human being on this earth deserves."

    My favorite paragraph, and the one that keeps me from feeling like I need to caution you about feeling the need to hate your gender in order to be a friend of mine.

    Divide and conquor is a battle strategy that has won many wars. Fundamentalism dives head long into that by dividing men and women and causing fear and mistrust. Men are taught to fear and mistrust women and women are taught to hate themselves for weaknesses that they supposedly have more of than men. Patriarchy and fundamentalism are my enemies. Not most men.

    I so appreciate your push back against off-balanced teachings and toward what Jesus tried to teach us while He walked on this earth.
    "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and love your neighbor (including women, duh.) as yourself."

    ReplyDelete
  7. I remember coming back at the fundies after hearing this 'stand' about how Eve is just so, and woman must pay for that forever. Sigh.

    I asked them what it said about Adam? He basically blamed God and Eve for the trouble he was in. So does that label all men blame shifters?

    Their response was shift off the subject! Giggles!

    I don't believe all men are - or all women are...

    Its silly.

    It is strange how they read the text about him shifting the blame to others, but can't deal with that. Yet its okay to add all these assumptions to woman forever, and they are to be proof.

    Double standards are used by cowards that I think at times fear the truth. The truth maybe to hard for them to handle.

    Jesus changed things as you mentioned, but I think some men look at it as 'rights' taken away from them. They don't wish to go from top dog to a level playing field. I feel most humans struggle with pride, but some aspects are more enabled than others. Its sad really.

    It breeds fear, mistrust, contempt, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Another thing: The two of them were together.

    "Gen 3:6 ... she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."
    Adam was WITH HER when this happened. He was not misled and she was, according to a hard passage in 1 Tim 2. She did not seduce him, he knew it's wrong and she did not - 1 Timothy 2 and her noticing the orange as good.

    (My theory - and this is as much conjuncture as many complementarian ideas - is that he regarded her as an experimental subject: If she eat and nothing happens immediately, he will too!)

    Retha

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think what Jesus (and God, really, in the Torah) was all about was taking people out the boxes that we like to sort into--Jew, Gentile; Christian, heathen, liberal Christian, nominal Christian; gay, people who like the right kind of sex; men, women, children--because those boxes always make demands that are ridiculous the closer you look at them. Jesus said, "love people" How does that get parsed into "get into this box, dammit, you rebellious Jezebel"?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Have you read this yet?:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20050221185710/http://equalitycentral.com/eca/humor/Recovering.html

    It's pretty funny and a great example of how people can read whatever they want to into the Bible account.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mara Reid. Thank you! And I guess I must qualify my purpose in this article.

    I don't hate the gender of men. I despise those men that design to put themselves above women and hold them subservient and lesser human beings. I also despise the type of feminist women who purport that men are meaningless and unnecessary to society. I put them both in the same camp.

    I'm trying to move the pendulum to the middle of the argument where man and women are equal and I figured the words "Men Suck" would do that quickly.

    Anyway, thanks for your words. They do mean a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Libby Anne mentioned a possibility that Adam chose to take whatever potential punishment that would be served to Eve. I heard that first in a show called Children of Eden, a powerful and moving Steven Schwartz musical based on the book of Genesis. I'd recommend that for your cultural pleasure.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Good food for thought.

    ReplyDelete