84/90 - original sin

new moon night 1

eldest daughters are the israel of their family, because they can terrorize everyone with total impunity, because they have daddy’s unconditional support.

beautiful people i know we were supposed to continue through the second half of the alchemical stages today but the mind is scattered, i only just stopped working now. i have big dreams for this year, and am preparing many things to make those dreams come true. i did make a video quickly going through the stages which you can watch on instagram if you’d like, but i will get back to it some day, i promise, hopefully sometime in the next six days since i’m not sure yet but am considering stopping. not stopping writing entirely but stopping publishing everyday, and maybe going back to weekly well thought through essays and articles with arguments and a point to make.

did you know that the original sin is a purely christian concept? if you’re christian or were raised christian you might be asking: what do you mean? that happens in the old testament the torah has the same origin story. and yes, you’re right to a degree, yes it’s the same story, but it’s not read the same way. neither jews nor muslims read the story of adam and eve the way that christians do. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, muslims and jews are much closer to one another in faith and practice than either are to christians. and you thought i wouldn’t make an argument.

in this case, for example, unlike christians, muslims and jews read the story of adam and eve as the first sin, the first mistake that resulted in immediate consequences (like mortality and hardship) but that did not permanently corrupt human nature. it is the first moral lesson, viewed as an educational and historical turning point rather than an inherited, unredeemable flaw. in judaism and islam, humans aren’t born inherently sinful or guilty for adam and eve’s actions. every individual is born, like adam and eve, with a clean slate and the free will to choose between good and evil. the emphasis here is on free will. the sin introduced self-consciousness and the knowledge of both good and bad into the human experience, and each one of us gets to choose whether to do good or evil, and we’re each responsible for our choice.

so why do christians read it so differently? well, because, jesus. jesus changes eveything because jesus closes the cycle, jesus coming and living and dying is the full circle moment, when all the prophecies of the old testament come true and the world lives happily ever after. you don’t need to keep waiting for him, paul said, he has come, it’s done. the jews say the timing wasn’t right, so no we’ll keep waiting. the muslims say the christians misinterpreted (and intentionally misrepresented) the hebrew bible to push their son of god agenda but god has no children and the mehdi is yet to come. jesus is also why the old testament isn’t actually the same as the hebrew bible, because in translating the texts, christians also reordered and reinterpreted them so that the story would build up towards the climax that is jesus, so that the hebrew bible becomes the old testament serves as a backstory for the new testament brought by christ. so because we’re setting up for a savior who will die for our sins, for a curse that will be broken, the story must begin with the curse itself, the first sin that set us on the path of impurity and wrongdoing. the first mistake is the first foreshadow, setting the stage for the need for a savior who will wipe our slate clean.

but for jews and muslims, the slate is already clean, and your responsibility is to practice your free will in the wisest way possible, for the betterment of humanity and the world and in accordance with god’s plan. some mystical and hasidic traditions even read the first sin alchemically, as a deliberate and purposeful descent rather than a tragic fall from grace, in kind with inanna or persephone. by gaining knowledge and mortality, humanity was given the agency to leave the garden of eden and actively work to elevate, repair, and perfect the physical world, a concept known in judaism as tikkun olam. and for both, free will is the core element of moral accountability, our ability to choose between good and evil. where they differe is that while islam balances free will with the overarching sovereignty of divine decree, or qadar, in judaism the emphasis is on the inherent internal duality within humans that they have to choose from: a good nature and an evil nature, and one has to make the choice everyday in every practice which nature to engage. every action, from choosing how to treat a neighbor to keeping kosher or giving charity, is viewed as an active exercise of free will, with real consequences for the individual and the world. obviously this goes deeper when you get into the more mystical stuff and there are certain commandments to observe but that’s the gist. what christianity did though was take that duality out of the individual and put it outside onto jesus and the devil.

happy new moon in cancer beautiful people, may you have the biggest feels tonight, and may you know in your heart that you are innocent, and it’s not your fault that eve ate from that tree, but i’m really glad she did because i don’t know if any of us would be here if she’d been bent on being a good girl.

until tomorrow <3