The Bible does not hide the reality of human suffering or evil, actually highlighting some of the grocer varieties from our human history: rape, incest, human sacrifice, torture, it’s all in there, and described in a manner worthy of an NC-17 rating.
The story of Genesis - Adam and Eve in particular - was meant to communicate fundamental truths about the human condition: why it is as it is, and not as it should.
The story encapsulates general principles: Man was a special creation endowed with the thumbprint of a Creator, which was manifest among other ways in our free will; God created something good, man and woman, and something equally good, free will.
By its nature, free will allows a person to freely choose to love you, as opposed to being programmed to do so, and they could choose to reject, even hate or murder you.
If it’s any reflection of the downward spiral of evil, theologians place the actual location of the Garden somewhere near Falluja, Iraq. Mankind sinned and evil entered into Creation.
Genesis tells us evil was not part of God’s original design, but a consequence of human sin. The relationship between man and God was severed. Like links in a chain it ruptured every relationship contingent to it.
The negative experience of these severed relationships is what we refer to as "suffering". Like a broken DNA sequence, it has produced all manner of deformity and suffering.
The physics of evil seems to corroborate the biblical sequence of events, as there is no original evil.
Try as we might, evil is always a parasite of good. You cannot have bulimia without something good to pervert, like eating. You cannot have destruction without something of value to destroy. Evil is always a bent good.
In other words, good must have been prior to evil.
Something of the physics of our own experience corroborates it as well. The greatest portion of evil and suffering in the world is the result of human choices.
As of today, I count 26 wars going on in the world, and on a personal level I have envied, lied, hated, lusted and spent $13.50 on lunch and Starbucks that could have saved a child from starving, and that’s just since 9 a.m.
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