This column is written by the Otago University Debating Society, which meets for socail debating every Tuesday at 6pm in the Commerce Building.
Affirmative, by Old Major
When Eve ate the apple we got kicked out of the Garden of Eden which was a literal paradise. Or maybe not so literal. A lot of people think that the Bible is written metaphorically. Just like blue curtains in a book or movie mean that a character is really sad – or some shit like that; the Bible uses stories to illustrate other ideas. So the story of Eve eating the apple can be interpreted as illustrating humans’ embracing of knowledge, and our subsequent loss of innocence and descent into sin. In short, the choice to eat the apple represents a choice between remaining in a state of animal like innocence or being knowledgeable, self-conscious beings who have the capacity to do evil.
Eve’s decision to eat the apple was a bad one. In choosing to eat the apple Eve chose knowledge for all of us. So we’re stuck being thinking beings now. But if we could go back in time to bitch-slap Eve and tell her to stay the fuck away from the apple tree then we should.
As thinking animals we can construct principles of right and wrong, and then act on those same principles. And often we screw this up big time… like how men thought for hundreds of years that women were inferior and shouldn’t have rights, or how white people thought black people shouldn’t be treated equally, and why today we still fight over stupid things like religion (google what’s happening to the Yazidi people). So essentially, when Eve chose to eat the apple, she chose for us to have the capacity to do a shit ton of evil stuff… because knowledge is power and power is the root of all evil, and she chose knowledge.
What’s the alternative you might ask? Well Eve could have kept away from the tree and had some fun times with Adam, doing whatever the old-times equivalent to ‘’netflix and chill’’ was all day long: maybe ‘’name some animals and chill.’’ We could essentially be living the life of bonobos had Eve not eaten the apple.
And God? Well, if he exists, he’d still like us if Eve hadn’t eaten the apple. In hindsight he probably must think it was a bit of a mistake giving humans the choice to be knowlegable beings. It’s bit like when you take your dog to the pet shop so they can ‘choose’ a toy and then instead your dog pees on the floor, and you walk out quickly pretending that nothing bad had happened and being a bit annoyed at your dog but still loving them anyway.
To conclude: we could have been living the life of bonobos. Fuck you Eve.
Negative, by Squealer the Pig
Being omnipotent and omniscient, God doesn’t make mistakes. When God fashioned Adam and Eve, as well as granting them freedom of will, he placed within them the Yetzer Hara, the Wayward Inclination, or, as Alan Watts describes it: ‘the element of irreducible rascality’. You need a pinch of salt to make a good stew.
God then placed us in the Garden of Eden and said: “do not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, or else!”. When you lived at home and your parents said to you “no drugs! no alcohol! don’t smoke! and for God’s sake don’t even think about having sex!”, what did you immediately resolve to get mixed up in? God is cleverer than other parents, being omniscient and all—he knew very well that by forbidding us to eat the fruit, we would be irretrievably committed to eating it, and that we would have a lot of fun doing so.
But you might say, “there is so much violence and poverty in the world. Surely it would be better if we had listened to God and stayed in the Garden?”.
Well, life in the Garden, insofar as it was an ideal existence, was dreadfully boring. After a very short while, peace and pleasure without interruption become so much a part of the background of daily goings-on that they fade in virtual non-existence (or at least meaninglessness). If you’ve ever lived on Castle Street, you’ll know what I mean when I say that it’s only when the neighbours go to bed that you notice how loud the music was. In other words, there is no Noise without Silence.
God knew this too—you can’t have on without off; to have one you must have the other. Against the ever looming threat of violence and destruction, peace and creativity are seen to be all the more valuable. Our hedonistic adventures are intensified and our aesthetic experiences immeasurably elevated by virtue of their stark contrasting against all that is bad and ugly.
We could, of course, use our free will to avoid the bad, but I doubt we will ever succeed. Further, I doubt that if we did for any length of time we would be satisfied. Nevertheless, the game of ‘good must win’ in the meantime is a real lark and I should hate for it to end anytime soon.