I'm assuming that you've read the Bible and know that the Christian religion is based on the intervention of two men: Adam, who ruined us with the Curse and the Fall of Man, and Jesus, who came to redeem us from his dad's Curse.
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive", according to Paul, so obviously Jesus Christ and the Christian religion are inextricably bound to the historicity of the Garden of Eden, of Adam and Eve, the talking snake, the Curse and the Fall.
Also depending on these events is the divine mission of Jesus Christ, Son of God (or God Himself depending on which of the 34,000 Christian sects you belong to), sent by Him to redeem the world from the sin of Adam because it was the "original sin" of Adam which caused God to curse His creations and which, suppossedly, clings to every since-born human soul, until and unless "redeemed" by Jesus.
Forget for a moment that the historicity of the Garden of Eden, of Adam and Eve, a talking snake, etc. has no basis in reality and was lifted from the Babylonian Epic of Creation.
Forget for a moment that the historicity of Jesus depends on a few forged documents and the conflicting and contradictory accounts in the Gospels.
Forget also that we have none of the actual teachings of Christ, just those that have reported allegorically or anocdotally in the New Testament.
Open your bible and reread about the curse in Genesis chapter 3 and you'll see that the curse is principally against the ground itself, not the man and woman and there is not one word in the whole account regarding sin, death or damnation as a penalty against Adam himself, much less against his offspring and all humanity.
In fact, except for having to work for an honest living, the "curse" is against the ground itself, not the man.
If you look through the Old Testament you won't find any reference to "original sin" or the "curse and Fall," or of eternal damnation on account of that or of anything else.
Why do you think that is?
Even Moses, Gods' arch-terrorist and the suppossed writer of Genesis, never includes the "curse of Adam" in the catalogue of curses and threats he was so found of huring. Nor does any other OT priest or prophet even hint at Adam's curse, the Fall, or eternal damnation in hell fire.
Hell and its fire are totally non-existent in the entire Hebrew listings of penalties and punishments.
Why do you think that is?
Do you not think it very strange that neither JC, or any of the four writers of the so-called gospels, utters a word about Adam, the talking snake scene in the Garden of Eden, the curse, the Fall, or of "redemption" by Jesus Christ for any sin of Adam, who, incidentally, is only once - "Adam, which was the son of God" in Luke - remotely referred to throughout their gospels?
Open your bible again and you'll find it was Paul, who never met or knew Jesus and who admitted "lying to the glory of God", who took this childish fable of a talking snake and a muddled "curse", personal and temporal in it's original form, and warped and twisted Christianity into the priestly doctrine of eternal damnation in hell fire for all humanity.
It's been a good, long gig for the priests and promoters of Christianity, seeing how the doctrine contains the disease and the cure, the carrot and the stick: "Your loving Father has cursed you and only through us can you be saved!" "Follow us and get to heaven or you're going to burn!" and all the rest of the its dogmatic, self-contradictory and muddled propositions.
Some apologists claim that without the "original sin," mankind would have lived forever without death but this is also distinctly denied by the 'inspired' record. The statement about his death and return to dust was no part of the "curse" at all because man was never designed to live on the earth forever:
"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." 3-22/23
So, they were driven away from the Tree of Life, another magic tree with property of making earthly life everlasting, with the express purpose of preventing him from acquiring immunity from death.
There is no need for Christ or his cobbled together teachings because Christianity is based on a ridiculous fable. From that comes the monstrous cardinal tenet of the Christian Church: a great and glorious God has damned all the countless billions as yet unborn to eternal hell fire because one man and woman ate fruit at the instigation of a fabled talking snake. For punishment he must work for his living thereafter, and that "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die" which he promptly did just 930 years later.
"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur" or, "the world wants to be deceived, therefore deceive them!" Unofficial motto of the Vatican.
Here's the 'Curse' in detail, verse by verse and curse by curse and the following is adapted from Is It God's Word? By Joseph Wheless
Chapter iii of Genesis begins with the talking snake, who is praised as being more subtle than any beast of the field which Yahveh had made. The serpent meets, for the first time, Mother Eve under the shade of the wondrous tree of knowledge which flourished in the midst of the Garden of Eden, with respect to which Yahveh, in the first lie on record, had benignly threatened:
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
The serpent tells Eve that this is really not a true statement, for the fruit of the tree was good to eat, and if eaten, "your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as the gods, knowing good from evil." Here again the verity of a plurality of gods is asserted.
This was Eve's first day on earth; she was totally inexperienced with the ways of the world or of serpents; so she was "beguiled" by the serpent and did eat of the fruit, and gave some to Adam. While the trio were yet together, but too late to do any good by prevention, Yahveh appears upon the scene, learns of the incident, flies into the most damning of all the rages recorded of him in all his Book of Curses, and immediately damns every person and thing in being and yet to come.
This "curse" is a triple-plated damnation -- against the serpent, against the woman, and against the man. It is well worth the while to pause a moment to dissect it, curse by curse, as set out in Genesis iii:
"Yahveh Elohim said unto the serpent; Because thou hast done this,
"[1] thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field;
"[2] upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
"[3] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
"[4] it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Gen. iii, 14) 15)
While this is quite a blustering curse, it seems of slight practical consequence -- though the Bible editors and the inspired Church assure us that this really and truly is a pellucid and positive divine promise of Jesus Christ. As the serpent naturally went on his belly anyhow, one may wonder where is the point in cursing him to continue to "wriggle in and wriggle out" as usual; and as to eating dust for a steady diet, this must be a mistake, if the "curse" applied to snakes generally, as the "Funny-mentalists" insist, for snakes are not known to eat dirt, but they suck eggs, and eat birds and rabbits and rats and other snakes; not even Barnum's circus at its heyday ever had a snake addicted to such unusual and economical diet as dirt.
This dust diet is really prescribed only to this particular serpent; and there seems no just reason to read into the plain language of Yahveh the curse of a perpetual dirt diet for all snakes for all time, which is not in effect anyhow; and it would hardly be just in Yahveh to condemn all snakes in the world for the wrong of one snake. "Shall not the judge of all the earth be just?" And should the "just suffer for the unjust?" We shall consider the words "enmity between thee and the woman" and "thy seed" when we have noticed the other curses in their order.
"Unto the woman be said,
"[1] I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;
"[2] in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;
"[3] and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Gen. iii, 16)
Here the choleric Yahveh simply inflicts poor Eve in her own single person with increased pangs in child-birth and a multiplication of sorrows, which would do no credit to any kind and loving God. As for the rest, a desire or love only to her own husband, instead of her running off after affinities and soul- mates, would seem to be a blessing rather than a curse; and the subjection to her husband as the head of the household, is no accursed thing within reasonable limits of equality of personal privilege.
This curse on woman was also evidently limited to Eve alone; and there is no justice or reason in claiming, as some expositors insist, that Yahveh cursed all women for the simple act of one woman, any more than he did all serpents. The whole curse against Eve was really pain and sorrow in giving life, not eternal damnation after death.
"'Unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it:
"[1] cursed is the ground for thy sake;
"[2] in sorrow shalt thou eat (of) it all the days of thy life;
"[3] Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;
"[4) and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
"[5) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen. iii, 17-19).
This was Adam's share in the tremendous curse; and just what
was it? Let me state its terms again:
1. The ground is accursed;
2. in sorrow shalt thou (Adam) eat it all the days of thy life
(though he was to die on the very day he ate it);
3. thorns and thistles shall grow from the ground;
4. thou shalt eat the herbs of the field;
5. thou shalt eat bread in the sweat of thy face until thou
return unto the ground; that is, until thy death.
This is every single solitary item of the fearful "curse on man." it is no curse upon adam (man) at all, except the one item of having to work for an honest living; all the rest of the "curse" is upon the harmless and helpless earth, which Yahveh had just created with such a deal of pains that be had to rest a whole day -- which with him is as a thousand years (2 Peter iii, 8).
But there is not a single word or remotest hint of sin, or death of soul, or eternal damnation. If Yahveh ever said: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (ii, 17) he either "repented" as usual, or it was all a brutal Jahvic bluff; for Adam continued to live, after that fatal day, for just nine hundred and thirty years, if the vital statistics of Genesis are to be credited.
But I repeat that there is not one word in the whole record of sin or death or damnation as a penalty against Adam himself, much less against his posterity and all humanity.
The "curse," as we have seen, is principally against the ground itself, not upon the man: "accursed is the ground for thy sake." The man is humorously condemned to eat ground, as was the snake; there is no "of" in the original Hebrew. The ground also should grow thorns and thistles; yet, according to Genesis i, every kind of herb and plant and tree, including, of course, thorns and thistles, had already been created and "the earth brought forth" the same, on the third day (i, 12). The man was further condemned, as part of the "curse," to eat "the herb of the field"; but already, and as a divine providence for man, these same herbs of the field had been graciously bestowed upon him for food; for it is recorded:
"And Elohim said, Behold, I have given you every herb, and every tree, in the which is the fruit; ... to you it shall be for meat" (i, 29).
As for eating bread in the sweat of his face, or working to make the ground bring forth its produce of food, why, that was the express purpose for which man was created in the first place (in the second version of his creation) and put into the Garden of Eden -- a blessing of healthful work instead of idle existence. For, after the earth was created, and before man was put upon it, it is recorded:
"And there was not a man to till the ground" (ii, 5).
So Yahveh proceeded to form man out of the dust of the ground, and then laid out and planted the Garden of Eden. Then Yahveh Elohim took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" (ii, 15) -- thus providing for him useful and healthful work, so that "by the sweat of his face" he should eat of all the varied products of nature which Yahveh had given the man for food, until his return to the dust from which he was taken.
So we see that every single clause of the "curse" on man, was no "curse at all; every item of it, except that of "eating dirt" all his life like the snake, and which he never acquired the habit of doing, was already provided by the bounteous Creator Yahveh as particular blessings for his masterpiece of creation.
The statement about his death and return to dust was no part of the "curse" at all, for man was never designed to live on earth forever, but was mercifully to be released, in due time, from that intolerable fate.
The pretence of some pious persons and of the Council of Orange that but for this awful "original sin," man would have lived always without tasting death, besides being utterly absurd, is distinctly denied by the inspired record; for, in a very curious passage, Yahveh Elohim is represented in a colloquy with some of the other gods, anonymous in the record, and, says Yahveh:
"Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore Yahveh Elohim sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken" (iii, 22, 23).
Thus the man was driven away from the tree of life, which had the magic property of making earthly life everlasting, expressly to prevent him from acquiring immunity from death.
And he was driven forth from the garden expressly "to till the ground from whence he was taken" (iii, 23) -- which was exactly the purpose for which he was originally put into the garden, "to dress it and to keep it" (ii, 15). So the "curse" is seen to be quite innocuous; and I pledge my word of honor that there is not another word nor the remotest allusion in all the Hebrew Bible to the whole incident of the garden and the snake. The Old Testament is as silent as Sheol (the grave) about any pretended "original sin" and "curse" and "Fall," and of eternal damnation on account of that or of anything else.
And just here one very singular circumstance may be mentioned, which is another falsehood imputable to Yahveh. Just after the Flood, when pious reckless old Noah destroyed one-half of all his breeding stock for a burnt sacrifice to Yahveh, we are told that "Yahveh smelled a sweet savor; and Yahveh said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake" (Gen. viii, 21).
This would certainly seem to indicate that Yahveh was appeased and the "curse" lifted, and that the new race of mankind would now have a fair new start in life. But this is evidently a mistake; for the "curse" of Eden yet rests upon the ground. Indeed, "all things continue as from the beginning of the world"; the ground still brings forth thorns and thistles, and in toil man still eats of it in the sweat of his face (for, as the poet sings: "How salt with sweat is the laborer's bread!"); snakes still wriggle through life on their belly; and in pain do women yet bring forth children. So Jahvistic injustice is still universal and his Holy Word is broken, believe either phase of it one may prefer.
This is the whole of the fearful "curse" and "fall of man," whereby, we are told, all humanity was placed under the "curse of God," and Jesus Christ had to be sent into the world by his Father Yahveh, after four thousand years of weary "watchful waiting," to suffer and die ignominiously in order "to redeem mankind from the sin and curse of Adam." But one may wonder where is any eternal death and damnation in all this, or any scheme of redemption -- where is the joke. I shall reveal it.