Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “tree2,” is actually described as “A resurrection from 2006.” The barmaid, ever critical, points out that God is not a helicopter parent.
Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ the Poison Garden
December 10, 2025 • 9:10 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I find that story to be delightfully confusing.
The serpent says that eating of the tree will make us be like God: ‘You will not die. God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’
Even though the serpent is the craftiest of the lot, it looks like the bit about not dying in that day turned out to be true. (Assuming words like ‘die’ and ‘day’ mean what they usually mean.) But he might have been lying with the ‘you will be like God…’ bit.
I had to look up Nanny McPhee. Mo is well with the times.
I think the word ‘mortal’ is meant.
Thanks.
I looked it up. God goes on to say something like ‘Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever’.
Now it looks like the serpent was right about man being like God, knowing good and evil.
But the ‘live forever’ bit is confusing. After all, he did say ‘To dust you shall return’.
No doubt He will clarify all when He returns in the second week of June, 2031. The inerrant word surely cannot be nonsense 🙂
Had they eaten of the tree of life, they would have become immortal. Then they would have been like gods: both immortal AND knowing good and evil.
Yahweh didn’t want competition.
Notice the use of the plural: “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (emphasis added). A holdover from when Judaism was henotheistic?
The movie Nanny McPhee was based on a delightful little book called Nurse Matilda, by Christianna Brand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_Matilda
Slack parenting is just the entree. Where was the Intergalactic Child Protection Agency?
This Genesis chapter 2&3 God and Eden story claims that God had the ability to issue warnings to prevent the loss or destruction of the Garden of Eden and yet God has not used this ability down through history. It has been partly lack of knowledge that has led to degradation of habitats around the world [ and lack of knowledge which contributes to keeping people in the grip of primitive religions ] For example a God could have warned people against the introduction of non native species which would go on to have a detrimental impact in their new environment. Well a God could have intervened and destroyed or made infertile such species. It would really take a micromanaging God to maintain a garden of Eden world; doing things like ensuring adequate rainfall over all the land, making wind blow a steady 20 mph everywhere to provide windpower, controlling births and deaths to bring a well balanced global population pyramid, warning people not to cut down tropical rainforest as in any case the thin soil would soon wash away and rainfall decrease [ though people know this now but still do it ].
Perhaps a God could have warned leaders in Iran not to divert the waters flowing into 5 million year old endorheic salt lake Urmia or it would dry up. This isn’t rocket science though but you could maybe see how they didn’t put as much value on a salt lake Vs growing cotton & food. Seems that there was a microclimate there where water cycled within the catchment basin until man’s folly ruined it. Surprising that prayers in Scripture don’t blame God more for not doing his bit in controlling climate- for basically being at fault for going AWOL.
The Genesis story should have been, “And God said to Adam and Eve, do not eat from the tree of knowledge or you will realize that i am only a priestly fraud”