Added the one hundred third The Freethinker Podcast YouTube Interview with Richard Carrier on Original Sin & Free Will to The Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web.
Join host Edouard Tahmizian for three-quarters of an hour in his follow-up interview with Richard Carrier on the metaphysical impossibility of libertarian free will. Jesus, Tahmizian points out, allegedly had free will, yet was not able to sin. So why would Adam be any different? Ultimately the only thing that would enable Adam and Eve to sin is a moral imperfection, a dysfunctionality designed by God within them. For historical context Carrier notes in response that despite modern theological overlays, the earliest Jews and Christians did not in fact believe that God was all-knowing, maximally perfect, or disembodied. So the internal contradictions that contemporary theologians have had to deal with, like why an innocent Adam would have any inclination to sin in the first place, are a modern invention. Historically, the ancients were telling a story to answer why life is so hard, why women go through such difficult childbirths, why people treat each other so badly, and so on. On the modern account, though, how would Adam and Eve even know at the outset that obeying God is good and disobeying him is evil unless they had already partook of the forbidden fruit? And why would they have any interest in that knowledge unless they were already inbuilt with a desire to know, rather than being indifferent to knowledge of good and evil? Moreover, the Genesis story never tells you why it’s bad to have knowledge of good and evil in the first place. The only bad thing that’s evident is that God will punish you if you have it! This time around check out a more biblically centered dive into this age-old philosophical issue!