Genesis, take #1

[laconicsax]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY6Dn0_hBOY

Here's what I suspect happened. Yahweh secretly had a practice run. It didn't work out, it bored him to tears, and He decided to try again.

Well, you tell ME - why did it have to be a delicious, attractive fruit? Could the knowledge of good and evil NOT be magically stored in something else? Wouldn't it have been wise to NOT place the thing that's going to fuck up the entire universe IN THE MIDDLE OF A GARDEN, DISGUISED AS A FUCKING FRUIT?

3 minute video by NonStampCollector. The description is a bit incorrect--the practice run worked beautifully, and that's what caused the boredom.

[struggle4progress]

1. Who said it was a delicious, attractive fruit? You never saw people

do destructive things for the sheer hell of it?

I remember as a kid seeing other kids do stuff like stroll down the street breaking off auto radio antennas

I once read through the entire criminology collection in a major university library. Some of the details were quite interesting. For example, in the case of burglaries, it's rather common for the burglar to do something deliberately offensive in the house, like taking a dump on the living room floor. I later met some folk whose house was burgled the day before a party and listened to their list of what a nuisance it had been -- apparently, they had all the catered desserts together on a table to take to the reception, and the uninvited guest had taken a small bite out of every single cupcake, in addition to taking a dump in the kitchen

Bad behavior for the sake of bad behavior is just not rare

[laconicsax]

2. Huh?

So a case of people with no concept of right and wrong being easily tempted into the 'wrong' action is analogous to people deliberately doing what they know to be wrong for fun?

I think you should re-read the bizarre story your Bible opens with. The deterrent to the 'bad behavior' was either a lie, or a metaphor for something, the consequences of which they wouldn't likely understand. The temptation was a statement of fact (subject to interpretation) coupled with another statement of fact--that eating the fruit would provide knowledge of good and evil. It was pure extrinsic motivation: Do this and you'll get a reward.

The 'bad behavior' wasn't for the sake of bad behavior--it wasn't understood what constituted bad behavior, and the motivation was extrinsic.

Simply put, your analogy is terribly constructed. It's so bad, I'm almost tempted to call it a straw man, but I'm willing to just call it amazingly inept.