The Fall of Man

From the novel Year of the Flood:

"According to Adam One, the Fall of Man was multidimensional. The ancestral primates fell out of the trees; then they fell from vegetarianism into meat-eating. Then they fell from instinct into reason, and thus into technology; from simple signals into complex grammar, and thus into humanity; from firelessness into fire, and thence into weaponry; and from seasonal mating into incessant sexual twitching. Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment into the anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future"

At what point does being all-knowing create chaos and unhappiness? Perhaps what they say is true--ignorance is bliss. It seems humbling that we can qualify the 'fall of man' in one paragraph. Our fall from grace, from good, from love. My question, though, is why do we have to fall into destruction?

Some things I like to think about--Without knowledge and technological advances, would we still have war? Yes, because besides having weaponry, the real fall of man is into the love of power. It would just look like something else.

On an NPR newscast, the interviewer was discussing what our world would look like without religion. Would we still be in these faith wars? Think about all the bloodshed that would have not happened if we did not have religion. Yet think about all the bloodshed that would have happened had we not defined religion. Numbers intelligently pointed out in our discussion, that no matter what, humans would have come up with some way to explain the world--some way to explain our existence. How did it get so polluted and murky? The question seems erroneous, but intriguing none the less.

Knowledge is power--we know that much. And humanity is curious. Perhaps we must all make the conscious decision to continually seek knowledge, but choose love, grace, and goodness. Choose acceptance and tolerance, rather than arrogance and always wanting more.