why did god punish the serpent?

[xx_mortekai_xx]

In the book of genesis, after adam and eve ate from the tree, they claimed it was because the serpent deceived them.

I have heard many christians claim that the serpent was actually satan.

If this is the case, why would god punish the entirety of a class of animal because of the actions of another supernatural being? And wouldnt god have had the foresight to know that satan was going to tempt adam and eve, before they had proper knowledge of good and evil?

And if it wasnt satan, why make a talking snake in the first place?

[Peter]

I have a theory. Genesis was written by a group of retarded monkeys on an acid trip.

[Senor Hoint]

I have a theory. Genesis was written by a group of retarded monkeys on an acid trip.

Acid hadn't been invented yet, but they could easily have been using...other psychedelics.

[xx_mortekai_xx]

Acid hadn't been invented yet, but they could easily have been using...other psychedelics.

Mescaline or possibly psilocybin.

[brendand]

A simple google search shows that the serpent has had many roles in the bible. This particular one just seems to be the most prevalent because of the story's popularity.

The obvious reason is that the bible is full of symbolism and multiple authors.

[Julie789]

Entertainment value?

[xx_mortekai_xx]

Entertainment value?

It does seem as if the god of the bible is trying to entertain himself. Or he's inept. The god of the bible certainly isn't the omnibenevolent loving father figure most christians believe in. The fact that they think that their god can do no evil shows unequivocally that they haven't read their bible, as god himself contradicts that belief directly.

[spukmeyer]

First of all, not that it should interest any one too much, this is me coming back from my last post which must have been more than three years ago... It was not easy to recall the name of the forum either (google suggested volvo was more meaningful).

Anyway, sorry for that preamble, but just to clear things up I am neither an atheist, agnostic or a theist. Having a degree in physics I naturally tend to be of an agnostic type, although I know too much about the scientific method to realize that it can't be applied everywhere. No religion seems to have hit the sweet spot, but there are definitely stuff out there that we can't poke with our particle beam accelerators and our space telescopes.

Now, on the point raised by the original poster: one of the aspects of some religious that I could never understand is the importance of relying on arguments of authority. Sure, any religion is by its very nature established on the basis of an authoritative argument, but you really don't need to use it everywhere - especially when reasoning with atheists or agnostics, who are immune to those arguments (it's actually the best way to get on their nerves and go straight to the usual carnage).

That being said, I think that trying to figure out the meaning of a literary speech figure (the snake) in a book that was written with a clear human purpose (sorry but there was nothing spiritual about it!), is as useful as going about whether angels are male or female. Theists that resort too easily to the argument of authority (citing a book written by other fellow humans thousands of years ago) are not respectable opponents when we are ambitious for a more sophisticated debate.

A religion is a human facility, prone to all mistakes and imperfections that are humanly expected. The mysteries beyond (and behind) all of it is what is actually relevant. Forget about the bible, the pope, Rome and even Jesus Christ - these are not important by themselves, nothing more than semantic tools to explore what our (human!) scientific method is not able to probe. Yet.