The Book of Genesis tells us that God originally intended to create Adam and Eve with eternal life. However, the curious Eve disobeyed the Creator and ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge against God’s will. After this act of license, Jehovah God said:
“Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,” – with that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden…and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.
Thus, God put a barrier in the way of the tree of life, i.e., in the way of learning how to achieve immortality. Only in the Book of Revelation do we learn that eternal life is promised only for the “sealed.” Let me remind you: “Who were sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the sons of Israel” (Revelation 7:4). In other words, eternal life is not even for all the sons of Israel, but only for the “sealed.” As for those who are not sons of Israel, “let there be memory eternal to us.”
Fables are fables and legends are legends, of course, but religion has played its negative role regarding cognition in general and the cognition of human life in particular. It played, plays, and will continue playing it for some time.
In the preceding pages, I have told many times how religion negatively influenced the development of societies, especially in Europe during the Middle Ages. After numerous scientific revolutions, beginning in the 19th century, the role of religion started declining as evidenced by statistical data for advanced countries.
Religion, Average Life Expectancy and Progress