Imagine, that you were the first man or woman on earth. Imagine that there really is a God who has the power to create life. He snaps his fingers and creates a Man, Adam. Then, so the man will not be lonely, God creates a woman, Eve. Imagine that God places you in a huge tropical garden, filled with all kinds of fruit trees and succulent plants that are good for food. Imagine that everything was designed for your benefit. Imagine that there was nothing hostile about this place. You can talk to the animals and they talk back and you understand them. They are all your friends or pets. From the largest dinosaur, to the smallest frog, they are friendly. You know nothing about fire or cooking. Do you think that God would have created a frying pan, showed you how to build a fire, and told you to cook everything you eat? I don't think so. In fact I don't think mankind knew what fire was in the beginning. I am sure that Adam and Eve never saw fire before they were removed from the garden, and perhaps not in their lifetime. It is highly likely that mankind did not know anything about fire until after the worldwide flood, but that is another story. In my mind I see us walking around the garden to see what was ripe. I believe we were created with a sweet tooth. I believe that we instinctively new when something was ready to eat. In my mind I see us finding a tree with ripe fruit we like. I see us eating our fill of whatever fruit or plant we were walking past when we were hungry. Knowing what I know about health I would guess that the first man and woman would never have known what most humans think of as hunger today. If we did not like the taste of what we found, I can see us walking on without a care or worry, until we found something we liked, and making a meal of it. I can picture that, not everything would be ripe at the same time. From the evidence, and based on the fact that everything tends to get worse, I would guess that we were well over 7 feet tall and that our natural gait would move us at 5 to 6 miles per hour. I can see us playing like young horses in the grass. We could eat a meal of oranges in the morning and walk 10 or 20 miles before noon, and stop to eat some bananas for lunch. I can picture us having the energy of those young horses. I can see us running along side them just for the sheer joy of it. Then I see us sitting under a pear tree, eating our fill and sleeping the night through without a care of a fear. What I don't see as I imagine us in the garden, is us gathering up a large variety of foods to make up a meal. What I don't see is us, worrying about disease, or anything else. According to the Bible, that all changed with one act. In my mind I see us getting board with nothing to worry about. With nothing to fear and practically nothing to do beside roaming around from one meal to the next and enjoying the beauty all around us, I can see how we could get board and want to push the boundaries a little. I can imagine that when the serpent, who Eve had talked to many times in the past, started to reason with Eve, (She had never experienced pain or much in the way of consequences for her actions) telling her that it was really OK for her to eat the forbidden fruit, that she may not have had a basis to fear. She was nave. God had never done anything to them, but bless and encourage them, other than telling them not to eat from that tree. I can imagine Eve thinking, we spend most of our time playing with our animal friends, why should I fear what God says? So she listens to Satan. She plucks the forbidden fruit. She takes a bit, and nothing happens. It tastes good. She comes to me and says, Look Adam dear, I have eaten the forbidden fruit, and nothing has happened to me. Why don't you try some? So I take a bite. The parrot that was sitting on my shoulder talking to me flies away and will not listen to me as I call it. I see my friend the Lion grab my friend the dear, and kill her. He looks over at me and says, "you are next buster". Then he bellows out a terrible roar and I can no longer understand him. My friend, the horse I spent much of my time with, runs from me as I approach, and will not come at my call. We look down at ourselves and realize that we are naked, that we have really screwed up. We try to hide our nakedness as we hear God coming. God talks to us. We stare at our toes. God says that, because you disobeyed me, after today you will not be able to talk to me, or the animals I have created to share this world you, as you have in the past. As God spoke the world into existence he says let the earth bring forth briars and thistles. Let your favorite berries bring for the thorns. The animals will now fear you. You would now have to fight to gain the acceptance of any of my creatures. And even if you do gain their trust, it can now be lost easily, because they will not speak the same language as you. Many of them will now seek to kill you rather than running from you. You have made your choice. Now you will suffer the consequences. |
