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Aug. 26th, 2005 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danuvYesterday I got sidetracked from John Cage by the Gnostics again. I keep coming back to them because they interest me but I can only take in so much before it is overwhelming so I'm chipping away at it a bit at a time.
The Gnostics got me to thinking about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. This whole topic has been interesting to me since I was young.
I was taught that God created man because he wanted companionship that would chose of their own free will to commune with him, something the angels could not do. So why did God create men without free will to begin with. Why did their have to be this entire set up? Tomas argues that he did it intentionally knowing that man would sin and it wouldn't be his fault. Pfft, that still makes it his fault. The entire thing makes no sense to me.
I was taught that God was good. That he was a God of love. I believed growing up that bad things happened on the earth because of sin and mans bad choices and that because of Original Sin we were in need of salvation which God provided though Jesus. The more I think about it though, the more completely cruel the entire thing seems. What a game to play.
It makes more sense to me to believe in a god removed completely, a god who created but has no emotional involvement or involvement at all with his creation. Or maybe to believe in a god who is more like us or more like other gods in other religions, complicated and neither good nor evil. The Christian idea of god just confuses me right now.
In addition to that, are there things that we are born believing are right and wrong? Is everything taught to us? Are good and evil ideas entirely constructed by men?
My head hurts.
The Gnostics got me to thinking about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. This whole topic has been interesting to me since I was young.
I was taught that God created man because he wanted companionship that would chose of their own free will to commune with him, something the angels could not do. So why did God create men without free will to begin with. Why did their have to be this entire set up? Tomas argues that he did it intentionally knowing that man would sin and it wouldn't be his fault. Pfft, that still makes it his fault. The entire thing makes no sense to me.
I was taught that God was good. That he was a God of love. I believed growing up that bad things happened on the earth because of sin and mans bad choices and that because of Original Sin we were in need of salvation which God provided though Jesus. The more I think about it though, the more completely cruel the entire thing seems. What a game to play.
It makes more sense to me to believe in a god removed completely, a god who created but has no emotional involvement or involvement at all with his creation. Or maybe to believe in a god who is more like us or more like other gods in other religions, complicated and neither good nor evil. The Christian idea of god just confuses me right now.
In addition to that, are there things that we are born believing are right and wrong? Is everything taught to us? Are good and evil ideas entirely constructed by men?
My head hurts.
