Originally posted by 667joeLooking at this whole issue metaphorically makes so much more sense.
We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. – Gene Roddenberry
The quest for perfection, embodied by God, is a uniquely human delusion. No other animal worries about being perfect.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents the curse brought on by our evolved intelligence: the awareness of the perfection ideal that brings us so much misery, because we have no hope of attaining it, yet can't stop trying to do so.
Our being cast from the garden of eden represents our self-imposed isolation from the natural world brought on by our evolved differences with the rest of life on the planet.
The struggle with religion represents the restlessness of humanity's current position: we don't want to re-integrate with nature, because life was very difficult for us in that state, and yet it was that very difficulty that gave us a sense of integration with the natural world. Our lives are easy, prosperous, and sheltered; but we as a species feel alone and isolated and spiritually void.
I am not sure where we're supposed to go from here.
Sorry for derailing the thread somewhat on only the 2nd post; I feel like some floating thoughts just congealed a bit as a result of reading this post. Whether or not they actually make much sense [and not just seem to, as per the first sentence], I have yet to decide. 🙂