Real freedom

One particularly telling representation of the fundamental relation between man and freedom is offered in the biblical myth of man's expulsion from paradise.

The myth identifies the beginning of human history with an act of choice, but it puts all emphasis on the sinfulness of this first act of freedom and the suffering resulting from it. Man and woman live in the Garden of Eden in complete harmony with each other and with nature. There is peace and no necessity to work; there is no choice, no freedom, no thinking either. Man is forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He acts against God's command, he breaks through the state of harmony with nature of which he is a part without transcending it. From the standpoint of the Church which represented authority, this is essentially sin. From the standpoint of man, however, this is the beginning of human freedom. Acting against God's orders means freeing himself from coercion, emerging from the unconscious existence of prehuman life to the level of man. Acting against the command of authority, committing a sin, is in its positive human aspect the first act of freedom, that is, the first human act. In the myth the sin in its formal aspect is the acting against God's command; in its material aspect it is the eating of the tree of knowledge. The act of disobedience as an act of freedom is the beginning of reason. The myth speaks of other consequences of the first act of freedom. The original harmony between man and nature is broken. God proclaims war between man and woman, and war between nature and man. Man has become separate from nature, he has taken the first step towards becoming an 'individual'. He has committed the first act of freedom. The myth emphasizes the suffering resulting from this act. To transcend nature, to be alienated from nature and from another human being, finds man naked, ashamed. He is alone and free, yet powerless and afraid. The newly won freedom appears as a curse; he is free from the sweet bondage of paradise, but he is not free to govern himself, to realize his individuality[...]

There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all me and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.

Erich Fromm, The Fear of Freedom

I knew a church long ago in which one of the funcions of the authority was trying to control our thoughts and actions. Some people would call it a sect, but since it doesn't appear in the introductory books about sects, then it escapes the name. I remember the fear to think for myself, to question, to criticize what I thought was going wrong with these people: in fact the fear to even think that something was going wrong. Any question, any doubt, any criticism was sin, sin against the leaders of the church, and therefore sin against God. The myth of creation works and continues working today in the minds of many Christians.

However, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Jews of the first century held together many different myths about creation, not only the one in Genesis 1-2. In another book, 1 Enoch, the myth of creation and the fall is not related to acquiring knowledge, as if knowing and thinking was in itself a sin. Rather, knowledge in itself is good, and what is bad is its misuse. This fits better with what I think... I wonder why these other texts and myths haven't continued being read along with all the other 'inspired' books of the canon. I wonder if the leaders of the church had anything to do with that... Hmm...