First thing’s first: I am not a Christian. I just like overthinking things, and cannot wait to find out just how wrong I am.
My thoughts on the passion of Christ are an extension of Youtube channel Big Joel’s thoughts on Adam and Eve. You should watch the whole original video to get his complete argument, but I’ll summarize it here briefly.
Basically, Adam and Eve is not a story about God punishing humans for disobeying him, but rather an explanation for why there is suffering in the world. God tells Adam and Eve: You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die. This sounds more like a threat as a warning, similar to a parent telling their child: You shall not touch the stove, or you shall be burnt.
Additionally, since the fruit is from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it implies that Adam and Eve didn’t have knowledge of morality before they ate it. How could God punish them for disobeying when they had no way to know that following his commands was a good thing to do?
Big Joel’s answer is that death and suffering are a natural result of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not a punishment. After all, morality is meaningless unless we live in a world where our actions have severe consequences. There’s no point in…
