Philosophy Now Forum

Seems to me that passage about Eve being convinced to eat the fruit can be interpreted as saying that women have more curiosity than men?

Any thoughts on this?

PhilX

Curiosity is something natural and good.
Small children are craving experience as such, they are motivated naturally.
Later on they are taught to achieve goals and so exprience and curiosity have to be restrained.

Sometimes curiosity is motivated by unhealthy passions though. Then it should be tamed.

Adam was probably just as curious as Eve, men usually are.

duszek wrote:Curiosity is something natural and good.
Small children are craving experience as such, they are motivated naturally.
Later on they are taught to achieve goals and so exprience and curiosity have to be restrained.

Sometimes curiosity is motivated by unhealthy passions though. Then it should be tamed.

Adam was probably just as curious as Eve, men usually are.

But it was Eve who was beguiled by the snake. Why not Adam and Eve at the same time?

PhilX

Because the story was told and passed on for centuries by (Jewish) men !

I see no difference at all between the curiosity of men and women, no matter what age.

Curiosity implies a certain risk. It is expressed in the English saying: Curiosity killed the cat.
But dogs are just as curious.

duszek wrote:Because the story was told and passed on for centuries by (Jewish) men !

I see no difference at all between the curiosity of men and women, no matter what age.

Curiosity implies a certain risk. It is expressed in the English saying: Curiosity killed the cat.
But dogs are just as curious.

Except at the time of the Garden of Eden, there were no Jews (Abraham was said to be the first Jew).

PhilX

The story was TOLD by Jewish men. And later on put down in writing.

Did anyone else tell the same story about the first people on earth ? Chinese ? Red Indians ? Inkas ? I thought it was only in the Jewish Bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve

I have avoided picking up a Bible for some time and had forgotten the details of the Eve story. The wiki article opened my eyes a little to other interpretations.

It is disturbing to think that some prevailing negative attitudes to women might be based on such stories. So many take these religious stories literally or according to their personal tastes/culture.

I'm fairly sure the story was referring to enlightenment and the snake of ego. And the fruit represented materialism, de-enlightening all the people who crave earthly social treasures. "Look how silly they are, they are embarrassed of their natural bodies. They toil in the fields all day, believe in sin, yet kill each other and no longer feel satisfied from vegan food (the garden was described as vegan before the Fall of Adam.) Such a bunch of unenlightened dweebs."

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Seems to me that passage about Eve being convinced to eat the fruit can be interpreted as saying that women have more curiosity than men?

Any thoughts on this?

Just that it's a stereotype, and a bad one at that. I've yet to notice any more or less curiosity among women than men. Individuals? Certainly. Groups? Definitely not.

The only thing that story and a lot of religious stories like that say to men's that men had a good understanding of how it worked centuries ago and yet we still haven't figured out how to stop women having all the power lol. Here's the bit of dialogue left out of the bible.

Eve " Adam if you don't try this apple I'm gunna with hold sex for a week"
Adam "give me the damn apple"

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:I'm fairly sure the story was referring to enlightenment and the snake of ego. And the fruit represented materialism, de-enlightening all the people who crave earthly social treasures. "Look how silly they are, they are embarrassed of their natural bodies. They toil in the fields all day, believe in sin, yet kill each other and no longer feel satisfied from vegan food (the garden was described as vegan before the Fall of Adam.) Such a bunch of unenlightened dweebs."

Pretty much nailed it there. When you are right you are right.


Although it was not vegan or vegitarian as such.

It is of course a parable on free will, when any person chooses to eat from the tree of knowledge or "tree of good and evil" and gain mortality, he thus has free will hence forth, realises he is naked, although that is figurative speech as well as being literally true; although all part of allegory; he or she then loses immortality, loses the right to be perfect, and understands hence good an evil and the choices a man or woman might have; such as Angels and God possess the knowledge of it but are perfect and hence have no need to have or gain free will such a state no Angel needs or has.

For all it is worth, that is pretty much what the story is about. God telling x not to do something y or x exercising hence their ability to chose to defy it under the influence of the serpent, often portrayed wrongly in fact as Satan by Christians, the serpent is simply an allegorical premise in a story that shows the will and its freedom and the temptation all freely willed people might feel, in a parable that is not strictly true or factual.

It simply says, man was given free will, by God's will, if not by the serpents will, or else how does God create a world that is sensible or sensitive to logic?

It is simply an allegory, it is not meant to be taken literally like any Jewish allegory, it is meant merely to iterate a point.

Women's curiosity is also exemplified in the Pandora myth. Very odd, really, deciding that's a negative trait for which females should be punished, and then, a millennium or so later, barring those same over-inquisitive females from the practice of science.

Really, the bible story is about the start of agriculture. Women probably planted the first recurrent - eventually to become permanent - gardens, which then anchored hunter-gatherer societies to a single locality and sentenced men to "earn their bread by the sweat of their brow". Men had been having it all their own way until then: hunt when you feel like it, dance, brag and relax the rest of the time, while the women and kids would grub around for roots and berries and serve men. Men couldn't quite get over having to work regular hours - they still haven't.

Skip wrote:Women's curiosity is also exemplified in the Pandora myth. Very odd, really, deciding that's a negative trait for which females should be punished, and then, a millennium or so later, barring those same over-inquisitive females from the practice of science.

Curiosity as a negative trait punished by having to bear children and being labelled 'evil'!
What a great first message.

So, right away we have the writers warning everyone against exploring the real world for answers not found in the so-called Divine Word. Way to go.

Knowledge is power indeed. Yet still there is the danger that educated young females are 'powerless' in the face of abductors or seducers. What book can advise...what education is needed...

Time for a re-write. Perhaps King Charles ( defender of the faiths) will have thoughts on this...
Heaven help us all.

Skip wrote: Really, the bible story is about the start of agriculture. Women probably planted the first recurrent - eventually to become permanent - gardens, which then anchored hunter-gatherer societies to a single locality and sentenced men to "earn their bread by the sweat of their brow". Men had been having it all their own way until then: hunt when you feel like it, dance, brag and relax the rest of the time, while the women and kids would grub around for roots and berries and serve men. Men couldn't quite get over having to work regular hours - they still haven't.

Sounds good but I have one minor point:

Unemployed men suffer from lack of structure in their lives.
Working regular hours seems to be a blessing for many people.

That is why many of us suffer when we are on vacation and the familier routine is not there.

Blaggard wrote:

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:I'm fairly sure the story was referring to enlightenment and the snake of ego. And the fruit represented materialism, de-enlightening all the people who crave earthly social treasures. "Look how silly they are, they are embarrassed of their natural bodies. They toil in the fields all day, believe in sin, yet kill each other and no longer feel satisfied from vegan food (the garden was described as vegan before the Fall of Adam.) Such a bunch of unenlightened dweebs."

Pretty much nailed it there. When you are right you are right.


Although it was not vegan or vegitarian as such.

It is of course a parable on free will, when any person chooses to eat from the tree of knowledge or "tree of good and evil" and gain mortality, he thus has free will hence forth, realises he is naked, although that is figurative speech as well as being literally true; although all part of allegory; he or she then loses immortality, loses the right to be perfect, and understands hence good an evil and the choices a man or woman might have; such as Angels and God possess the knowledge of it but are perfect and hence have no need to have or gain free will such a state no Angel needs or has.

For all it is worth, that is pretty much what the story is about. God telling x not to do something y or x exercising hence their ability to chose to defy it under the influence of the serpent, often portrayed wrongly in fact as Satan by Christians, the serpent is simply an allegorical premise in a story that shows the will and its freedom and the temptation all freely willed people might feel, in a parable that is not strictly true or factual.

It simply says, man was given free will, by God's will, if not by the serpents will, or else how does God create a world that is sensible or sensitive to logic?

It is simply an allegory, it is not meant to be taken literally like any Jewish allegory, it is meant merely to iterate a point.

Read it. Genesis chapter 1.

It is vegan. It's on the first page of the Bible, but it's not like most religious people bother to read, they just parrot what they hear in Sunday School. I knew a woman with an IQ of 176 who claimed to be Christian but didn't actually know what was in the Bible. This is the type of knowledge and ignorance they are talking about in the metaphor.

By knowledge they mean a type of delusion, the type of delusion the world has by perpetuating ignorance through knowledge, false knowledge. It is clear that adam and eve already had knowledge and intelligence because they were able to communicate with each other prior to the fruit. God made the world vegan. It's this same knowledge that causes Christians to go around on their little crusades, persecuting whomever they please, vegans, homosexuals, non-believers, Jews, transsexuals, poor-people, sinners, intelligent people, socially awkward people, heretics, whomever the Christian wishes to antagonize with their so called knowledge. To be Christian means to be not Christian. To be religious means to be not-spiritual.