On Pages 48-50 in his book, 12 RULES FOR LIFE AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS, Jordan Peterson noted the fall from grace that our first parents suffered as they ate Satan's forbidden fruit, and thus were cast out of the Garden of Eden by God, and they became conscious, self-conscious, and aware of their nakedness, which they covered.
Jordan wants us to accept that this storyline is poignant: becoming self-conscious is the boundary line in the development of consciousness, for an intelligent species: as humans stepped over that line, they became individuals with consciousness, self-consciousness, rational cognition and free will.
They were very low-level angels that were still part mammalian beasts. My thought is that once humans at the forbidden fruit and fell from grace, they became alive and needed to walk the path between good and evil, yang and yin, order and chaos.
Another thought I have is that, as asleep angels in heaven or the guardian angels, humans were pure goodness, but they wills were the non-free wills of good robots that could only love, honor and obey God; they were not conscious, or self-conscious which is when one's will is free.
Another thought I have is that animals that are not intelligent species, but their instincts control them, are somewhat biological puppets like humans in the Garden of Eden or angels are in heaven, that were always in heaven. They may be good, neutral, or evil, but they are not responsible for their choices because they have never been free. When Jordan advises us to treat ourselves like someone we are responsible for helping, we wants us to take up our original sin, our gift from God as smart beings with agency to take up the call to be living angels working for God, and then we will have shouldered maximum or near maximum responsibility and our lives will be meaningful, and fulfilling and we will know a type of peace, love and contentment for having fought the good fight as individual agents, children of light.
I think that Jordan's genius and goodness shine most originally here as he hones in on what first parents' nakedness forcing them to cover themselves means in terms the human condition: From his book 12 RULES FOR LIFE AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS, Jordan on Pages 49 and 50 wrote this: "What does it mean to know yourself naked--or, potentially worse to know yourself and your partner naked? . . . Naked means vulnerable and easily damaged. Naked means subject to judgment for beauty and health. Naked means unprotected and unarmed in the jungle nature and men. This is why Adam and Eve became ashamed, immediately after their eyes were opened. They could see--and what they first saw was themselves. Their faults stood out. Their vulnerablities were on display. . . . Adam and Eve made themselves loincloths . . . right away, to cover up their fragile bodies--and to protect their egos. Then they promptly skittered and hid. In their vulnerability, now fully realized, they felt unworthy to stand before God."
Jordan on to describe how inferior, ashamed, inadequate, fearful, resentful, and even hating the awakened first parents felt towards God or any creature or person superior to them. The inferiors can build on that hate and resentment and do what Cain did and seek to take revenge on God and Being itself by turning psychopathically murderous, or just nihilistically deny that standards of any kind apply nowhere and do not exist. But though you run from reality, it still will come crashing down on you.
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