Adam/Eve shown the Garden Exit Door

[_Jersey Girl]

Doesn't anyone see the flaw in the LDS reasoning? charity is correct that they were in a garden where everything grew on it's own yet she misses the salient point which I will now address and that is that Adam and Eve were begining to develop their own occupation as fruit pickers and then what, hurled out of the garden due to unemployment?

[_moksha]

Was it really a door, or more of a space-time conduit from Missouri to the fertile cresent?

[_Jersey Girl]

pirate

I was joking. Maybe their currency was the fruit of the tree of life afterall it was very precious.

I will get back to you tomorow on what I think. I think much of my idea's stem from my mum and things from her studies. But it might be legnthy and so I would like to reply in a logical order.

You may have been joking, pirate, but charity specifically pinpointed unemployment as a reason for their banishment from the garden. Logical order would be great.

I seek clarity.

[_Imwashingmypirate]

Logical order is what I intend to give. You know me and so you should know that what I give may be logical to me but might still not make sense and so I might be a while. Also I need to dig out some stuff. If that's what Charity gives then good on her, but may I ask who were Adam and Eve's employers and to whom did they sell their fruit?

I think I will end up talking about symbolism.

[_The Nehor]

I have no idea why the Fall had to be brought about by human choice.

[_moksha]

They would not have learned much in the Garden where everything just grew on its own.

Jersey Girl, why assume it was unemployment and not simply a need for horticultural knowledge under a variety of climatic and geographic settings? Could not being fruitful and multiplying be an end in itself?

[_evolving]

the existence of adam and eve as parents of human kind, their sin and expulsion from the garden of eden are a well crafted myth - those who hold the story as a real historical possibility have to suspend reality, and insert interaction with God on just about every level to maintain this belief.

there are so many reasons I accept adam and eve as mythological.

- There is no archaeological evidence anywhere that they existed - but tons and tons of evidence contrary to the theory..
- Human bodies are not built to live 900+ years period. hunter gatherers as A&E would have been lived a hard life - teeth, cartilage, bones, eyes, internal organs- all evidence available from this time period(4000 BC-ish) place the mean life expectancy of human beings around 30-35 years max.
- DNA evidence leads me to believe the human race is traceable to a few small groups of people back 10's of thousands of years - no evidence at all to point to one set of parents at 4004 BC - none whatsoever -
- the Chinese and Australian aborigines had well established, recorded cultures, with calendars for 1000's of years before they(A&E) were supposed to have existed.
- Many Biblical scholars regardless of religious leanings do not hold the belief that A&E were real physical first parents.. David P. Wright, Margaret Barker, David Bokovoy
- I no longer believe in talking snakes, cherubs guarding trees with flaming swords etc cetera..
- then there is the whole theory of Evolution -- Dinosaurs, Cave Men, fossilized clam shells I have in my office that date to say 20,000,000 years ago -

[_CaliforniaKid]

I ran across this short little piece by Erik Hare the other day that I thought summed things up pretty well:
-----------

One day, God had an idea. It was one of those off-beat ideas that simply wouldn't go away, and so He mused over it for a while. Before long, it was a plan. Being God and all, He decided that it was worth putting into action.

He went into His almighty workshop and got busy. First, he created light. It took a day, but he had it up and running. After a good rest, he went back to the shop and made water, and found that in the light it made a realm of waters above and then fell back to the waters below. It was a neat trick, and he tinkered with it for a day. The next day, he made dry land apart from the waters to watch the rain fall and puddle and collect. He put small plants on the land to hold the water back. The next day after that, he turned the lights on and off to watch the water play and move. This was getting fun.

In a bold departure, he then set loose animals everywhere to frolic in the puddles. Finally, on the sixth day, he created something called "Man" to run the whole operation. It was a difficult procedure involving working up a rib, but a hobbyist has to make do with what he has sometimes. With an autopilot in place, God figured he was pretty much done with it and took a break.

About a month later, the electric company sent him the bill for all that light. God was puzzled by this, and set it in his "to-do" pile. Then came the bill for all that water. Later, he was notified by the city that all of these animals running around without permits were going to produce some steep fines. Just as God was about to do something about it, he got the bill from His health insurance for the complicated birthing procedure and ribectomy. God was simply furious.

In His wrath, God wanted to smite someone bad. And so, there was a lot of smiting and terrible almighty get-back. He even cranked up the water pumps for a while just to show that he still could, drowning everyone except another hobbyist who had a big boat ready "just in case".

When He was done, he looked around. The smiting continued without stop. God realized he had made a terrible mistake, and so he made one more being that He called his son. This new creation told everyone that smiting was wrong, and that God wanted it to all stop. That was when "Man" killed his son in the most brutal way they could think of.

God realized it was hopeless, and retired to become an Amish farmer. He never did pay any of the bills, leaving them to be passed on to later generations. No one sees much of him anymore, except occasionally in the details of some very fine furniture He works up when He needs some cash.

The moral of the story is that life is all about hobbies run amok - and debt.
-------

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewSho ... 1&id=27434

[_Gazelam]

2 Nephi chp.2
22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.

Standing alone, these verses would justify the eternal worth of the Book of Mormon. The most transcendent event in all history was the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The Atonement came in answer to the Fall. Without an understanding of the Fall there can be no meaningful understanding of the Atonement. In turn, to understand the Fall one must understand the nature of the Creation, for it is from the original state in which things were created that they have fallen, and to which, through the Atonement, they are in large measure intended to return. These three principles - the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement - are inseparable and have properly been called the three pillars of eternity.

Withen the covers of the Bible we can read an account of the Creation, of Adam's fall, and of the events that surrounded Christ's atoning sacrifice. yet it is to the Book of Mormon that we must turn to learn why things were created as they were, why it was essential to the eternal plan for the salvation of man that Adam fall, and why the blood of Christ needed to be shed in an infinate sacrifice. To this end, few verses have ever been penned that are more instructive than those here written by father Lehi. First, he told us that if Adam had not fallen, all created things - that is , Adam, Eve, plants, animals, and even the earth itself - would have remained forever in the paradisiacal state in which they had been created. None would know death, none would know corruption or change of any kind, and none could produce after their own kind. All must have remained forever as they existed at the completion of the creative act.

The Book of Moses, which is the Joseph Smith Translation account of the Creation, sustains the testimony of Lehi. In it we are told that all things were "spiritual" in the day in which they were created, meaning that they were not subject to death or change. The full implication of this account will be missed by those who have not understood the manner in which the scriptures use the word spiritual. For instance, Amulek defined the resurrection as a state in which body and spirit are united "never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal, that they can no more see corruption" (Alma 11:45, italics added). Thus the physical body in its ressurected or deathless state is said to be a spiritual body. This same terminology was used by Paul. "It is sown a natural body," he said, "it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:44.) those without the understanding that the ressurection is the inseperable reunion of body and spirit have supposed that Paul was saying that in the world to come we will exist only as spirits. Our own revelations are consistent with the manner in which the ancients used the word spiritual. "For notwithstanding they die, they also shall rise again, a spiritual body. They who are of a celestial spirit shall receive the same body which was a natural body," stated the Lord," ... and your glory shall be that glory by which your bodies are quickened." (D&C 88:27-28)

Thus, when the Lord describes the Creation by saying that it was "spiritual in the day that I created it; for it remaineth in the sphere in which I, God, created it, yea, even all things which I prepared for the use of man" (Moses 3:9), we understand the Lord to be saying that there was no death or corruption among God's creations. We would hardly expect God to create things in a state in which they are to die, decay, and dissolve. It was from this state - in which none of God's creations were subject to death, corruption, or change - that Adam fell. Further, Lehi told us that in this state no living thing could enjoy the privilege of procreation. Thus Lehi brought us to the understanding that Adam fell to keep the great commandment of God that he and Eve have posterity. In so doing they introduced death to all things - temporal death or the seperation of body and spirit, and a spiritual death in that they no longer lived in the divine presence. The Fall thus created the need for a redemption from death and from the seperation of man from God. Lehi testified that such a Redeemer would come in the fulness of time.

Mother Eve gave a most perfect expression of the doctrine of the Fall, saying: "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient" (Moses 5:11).

[_Jason Bourne]

Hello All,

I'd like to hear from LDS or ex-LDS just what you believe about Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden. In your belief, why did God cast them out?

Please explain in your own words. Serious replies only, thanks.

Jersey Girl

For transgression. disobedience, etc.