In the beginning, there was nothing. No universe, no
planets, no life. Except there was; there was God. God is eternal, always was,
always will be. As well as eternal, God is also omniscient, omnipotent and
omnipresent. Supposedly.
At some point in his eternity, God decided he was fed up
being the only thing existing in eternal nothingness, so he created the
universe. It took him six days to create billions upon billions of stars, atoms
and sub-atomic particles. Actually, it took him only five days, because the
first day was taken up creating light.
During the first six days, God created mankind. Mankind was
made in God’s own image, even though God has no physical form and therefore no
image to copy. Man was given dominion over every living thing that God created
on a planet called Earth.
Having spent six busy days creating everything in the
universe, God decided he needed a rest. Why an eternal, all-powerful being that
has no physical form and therefore expends no energy needs to rest, nobody can
explain.
On the 8th day, God created mankind again, though
nobody can explain what happened to the mankind he’s previously made on day
four of Creation Week. Instead of magicking man out of nothing, as he had done with the rest of
the universe, God decided that Man#2 (henceforth to be called Adam (so that he
wouldn’t be mistaken for anybody else who didn’t exist at the time) should be made out of dust.
He also decided that Man#2 shouldn’t be alone.
But instead of taking more dust and creating another man, he would
remove one of Adam’s ribs to create something called Woman (or Eve), to
separate her out from any other Woman who at this point also didn’t exist). For
some reason, Man and Woman looked much the same, except woman had genitals on
the inside, had a lumpier chest, longer hair and no beard. There was also a
genetic difference, but as God wasn’t interested in science at this time, we
won’t go into that.
Now, Adam and Eve lived in a garden called Eden with all the
animals and plants (excluding all the ones that lived in the sea). Also in the
garden was a plant called ‘The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ which God
told Adam and Eve not to touch. He also told them that if they did eat the
fruit, they would die before the day was finished. Even though Adam and Eve had
no knowledge of what death was, they accepted this.
However, in the Garden of Eden there also lived a snake.
This particular snake was unique in that a) it had legs, and b) it could talk.
He was also quite villainous (despite the fact that never having eaten of the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (the TOKOGAE) he didn’t know that he was
evil) and he told Adam and Eve that God was wrong, and that if they did eat the
fruit from the TOKOGAE, they wouldn’t die. For some reason, Adam and Eve
decided that the snake knew more than all-knowing God did.
So Adam and Eve did eat the fruit. And low and behold,
neither of them died, thus proving that talking snakes with legs were highly
knowledgeable about these things, and that God had told a downright lie.
God, meanwhile, despite being omnipresent, was away, and
despite being omniscient, was unaware of what had been going on. And when he
came back and found out what had happened, he got very angry. The
truth-telling, multi-legged, talking snake was punished by having his legs
removed (and presumably also his ability to converse). Adam and Eve, meanwhile,
were also punished, which seems a bit cruel as all they had done was eaten a
bit of fruit and had learned everything that God knew about good and evil.
Well, I say everything, because nobody seems to know the following:
1. Why God had created good and evil in the first place, and
didn’t just stop at good,
2. How or why this knowledge was present in a piece of
fruit,
3. Why he planted this tree in the garden instead of
somewhere completely inaccessible,
4. Why Adam and Eve should be denied such knowledge in the
first place.
Despite all this, Eve and all women who followed were forced
to suffer labour pains while giving birth, and be entirely subjugate to men.
Adam and his male progeny, meanwhile, were forced to sweat and eat bread and
vegetables. Both were made to wear clothes, both were kicked out of the garden,
and both eventually died.
And that, children, is why you are a sinner. That is why you
are cursed. All because God lied to his favourite creation, Adam and Eve listened
to a walking, talking snake, and they, being entirely innocent, ate a piece of
fruit.
Nevertheless, God apparently loves you.
