homogenous genesis

so reading genesis is kind of difficult in that i've grown up hearing the creation story, so it's a little easy to just skim over. first day, watery expense, day, night, done. second day water seperates, land's here, done.

so it was all kind of run of the mill until i hit on something i honest to god do not remember ever reading. i am going to look like such an idiot for this, but turns out in the creation story there are two trees. TWO TREES! A tree of life and a tree of knowledge. Crazy. CRAZY. also turns out that the tree of life, i believe, makes a guest appearance in revelation.

a couple of observations: first the bible i'm using has turned out to be perfect for me as its little study guide is relatively progressive (which i am too), essentially folding in that evolution and creationism (or the idea that there is a creator) are not mutually exclusive.

also, and this is what i really appreciated, they emphasize that god created man in his own image. meaning that both genders possess the characteristics of the creator and that neither gender should be held in higher esteem than the other (this likewise applies to different races, etc). thus my title: homogenous genesis- we're pretty much all the same.

one of my favorite, kind of sad parts of the first chapter is when it says the lord was walking through the garden looking for adam and eve, after they've eaten the fruit. this presents such a juxtaposition to that all knowing, all seeing, retributive god that seems to appear shortly thereafter. i remember growing up and thinking how cool that would be, like the supreme being wants to hang out and watch monday night football or something. but it turns out adam and eve already tucked into the buffalo wings. so the big man is betrayed. he's hurt. and retribution must follow.

i also like that this story seems to definitively answers the question of free will. following it we see that god gave adam and eve the choice to hang blissfully in the garden, or to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. i mean, he asked them not to, but the choice was always there.

this is something i feel that i identify with strongly. maybe all of us do. i have some serious, serious vices. food and men are the chief ones. and i kind of always feel like i know what's best, indulging in those vices when i've been warned against them. the parameters are there. i just choose to ignore them. wah, wah.

the hardest part for me to accept, and i think i will always struggle with this, is this idea of satan. satan's there, tempting eve. if i'm being totally honest i have a really hard time believing in satan. that's right, i said it. evil, i can see, i mean you only have to turn on the news to see that there is pure, unaldulturated evil out there (poor jaycee lee duggard and elizabeth smart can provide firsthand accounts). but as for this chief evil being?

i think i grew paranoid because as a child my parents painted this picture of beealzabub (how can you take that name seriously?) tugging at my strings and causing me (and them) to do bad things. as i've grown i just find that harder and harder to believe. but maybe it should actually be easy for me to believe because then i could write off the depravity of man. after all, wouldn't it be nicer to blame satan for the things that happened to jaycee lee and elizabeth smart than beings that are the same species as i am?

homogenous. that's scary.

alright, more later. off to dinner.