July 1, 2023
for UU Band of Writers, July 2, 2023
prompt/theme: The Tree of Knowledge
This is a pretty straight-forward essay, about what we already know, but maybe the prompt and my own perspectives have prompted a slightly different account.
The Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) grows fruits. Especially apples! Our western religion says apples are knowledge, and that knowledge is sometimes bad; that it is greater to believe and have faith instead. But snakes climbed among the branches and told us to eat the apples, and sure enough eating them was poisonous and destroyed our faith and left us with only knowledge instead. It has taken us thousands of years to gain the full fruits of knowledge and catch its full sickness.
One way to see "the tree of knowledge"
But originally we were nourished by these apples and fruits and we were fruitful and multiplied. We got so many of us, and got so much knowledge, that we decided to use our knowledge to farm and grow more trees to feed ourselves, and we gained still more knowledge from the added trees and their fruits. And with this knowledge we built cities and temples, and then hired soldiers to steal apples from other cities or to defend against the thieves. War Lords became gods and emperors, and then one God beat out all the rest and commanded allegiance and told us how sinful we were. And the priests and monks taught us to read, and knowledge increased again. And the kings founded nations, which later became republics and constitutional monarchies, and then their knowledge created industries. Trees of knowledge sprang up everywhere, as humans colonized the world and forced everyone to live according to knowledge. Many people lost their faith entirely and worshiped money and science instead, and alienated themselves from life, and all our cities, our trees and all of life were put in danger from all the industrial products that we had created from our trees of knowledge. But the trees of knowledge still bear fruit, and apples abound, and snakes slither everywhere, and we still are nourished and are fruitful and multiply. And knowledge even multiplies itself, and threatens to replace us.
Can all this knowledge teach us more about our knowledge too? Can we learn to unlearn what alienates us and destroys our faith and life? Are we hopeless sinners who disobeyed God and ate the apples of knowledge that the snakes told us to eat? Or can knowledge lead us full circle in a spiral snake dance to help us know the truth that sets us free? Can our tree of knowledge bear us the fruits of wisdom too? Can we learn how to live with our knowledge, and gain knowledge even of God instead of just faith in God, and by this knowledge of things not seen gain a real and genuine and not merely commanded faith? Can we apply our knowledge to make products that sustain instead of destroy our cities and all our trees too? Can the tree of knowledge become a tree of life too?
The Tree of Life, a Band of Writers poem by Eric Meece dated 02/02/2020
Human social evolution in a nutshell: spiral dynamics and planetary dynamics
Bible verses: the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden
Why the forbidden fruit is called an apple
faith is the evidence of things not seen
you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free
As wildfire smoke fills the skies and record heat waves cook much of North America
Canadian climate activist Tzeporah Berman says governments need to be pushed to phase out fossil fuels more rapidly.