Ahhh.
Justin fell.
So we're talking about Adam and Eve, specifically the fall ...
Yes, love them.
... of Adam and Eve.
Why though?
Why are we talking about it?
Why is this such a hard thing to understand?
Why have Christians since the beginning of time been so ... I've asked a lot of friends
about this in their own religions and they just go, "Eh."
Because it's just not something that we really worry about.
Or I remember asking my parents one time and they're like, "We'll talk about it later when
you're older."
And I'm like, "Why is this such a ..."
There are very few things say that parents' say that about.
Exactly.
Interesting that that's one of them.
And the fall of Adam and Eve is one of them apparently.
Oh my gosh.
We'll talk about it when you're older.
I might be exaggerating a little bit, but no.
I think one of the reasons is because we have very different beliefs than other mainstream
Christianity, not very different, but there are some different things.
So the main thing probably is that we don't believe in original sin.
And if you wanted to learn more about our beliefs about that, we are going to make a
followup video, we want to talk more about it, so if you have any questions for us that
didn't get answered in this video, just let us know.
But we believe from the second article of faith and in our scriptures that man shall
be punished for his own sins, not for Adam's transgression.
So we don't believe that we were born into this earth with some sin already on us.
We don't believe that we were, I don't know exactly how other people believe it, but we
don't think that we were cursed.
That we would live a bad and sinful life just because Adam and Eve fell.
We believe we have our own agency and we make those decisions for ourselves.
Today we wanted to talk about why latter day saints feel like the fall of Adam and Eve
was actually a good thing for a few reasons, which is a different idea because a lot of
people think generally, Eve partook of the forbidden fruit and essentially screwed over
humanity.
Honestly, that's what people believe, correct me if I'm wrong.
No, it's true.
It's true.
But she gets a bad rap because she committed that sin or transgression.
Yeah.
There's been a lot of negative thoughts towards women because of that, in the early days of
sexism and stuff and that's super erroneous.
And in the later days of sexism.
And in the later days, yeah.
And all the days of sexism.
All the days of sexism.
She's gotten a bad rap.
Yeah.
It's so sad.
It's profound.
Very profound.
But anyways, why do we think that it's a good thing?
Why do you think it's a good thing then?
Okay.
I'll tell you Justin.
Okay.
Yes, I was hoping you would.
So here's what I think it's good and bad, obviously it's not good to disobey God.
Well because he gave to two commandments?
Rule?
Right.
He said, multiply and replenish the earth and probably shouldn't partake in the fruit
of that tree or else you're going to die and Eve did.
So obviously it's not good to disobey God, it's not good to sin, but it's interesting
because sometimes there can be good things that come out of it.
For instance, if I'm starving to death and I go steal a loaf of bread, that's probably
wrong because I'm stealing something.
(Singing).
But something good comes out of it.
But you don't die.
You don't die, so there's that.
So it's obviously not a good thing to disobey God, but if she had not partaken of that fruit,
we would not be here.
And we would not be able to have the opportunity to fulfill our potential and experience good
and evil because one of the things we believe is that we can't progress.
We can't fulfill our potential unless we have good and evil unless we have a choice between
good and evil.
And that's just what Adam and Eve's decision gave us, was the choice.
Right.
And I have, and this is just my personal opinion when it comes to the wording of God's commandment
or role is that usually it's there's a commandment and the result of it is a negative effect
on our spirits, it's sin and we're dirty.
But when he says, "Don't eat of the fruit or you will die."
So it wasn't, don't eat of the fruit or you will be cast out of heaven, don't eat of the
fruit and you'll never be able to make it to heaven.
It was just don't eat of the fruit or you'll die.
So in my mind, this is just my personal opinion, I don't feel like it was a spiritual law that
he was giving, he was just like, by the way, if you eat that fruit, you're going to die.
Yeah.
And I think that people have different opinions on that.
But that's just my personal opinion.
But it is scripturally supported.
Long story short, there's a lot of opinions as far as that.
But I just think it would be naive to take it as, okay, they partook of that fruit and
then they were cast out of heaven, but they did have to leave the garden of Eden, which
benefits us in so many ways marvelously.
I actually have a drawing.
Poof.
Wait, did you draw it or did you find it?
No, I found it.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't even know who to give the credit to.
So I think what we want in life a lot of times is this nice, easy path.
Like I want to go to school, sit down for five minutes and I want my teacher to give
me an A. Just nice and flat.
When in reality, life is full of tests and failures and hard work and et cetera, et cetera.
But the interesting thing is if I just sat down in a class and got an A, what would I
have learned?
Nothing.
But if you go through the path that's hard and you're studying and you actually do bad
on a test then you have to study extra to learn, then yeah, it was difficult and you
hurt your knees and you fell a few times and you got some cuts and bruises, but you're
better and you learned.
And so, that's what I think needed to happen.
The garden of Eden was just this flat line.
Nothing was happening.
Nothing was changing.
I highly doubt that's why God created mankind.
In fact, I know God did not create mankind just so that we could exist.
He created us with a purpose so that we could become like him, which requires growing opportunities.
So we left the garden of Eden to come to this terrible, frustrating, hard but wonderful,
beautiful life.
Yeah, well put.
There wouldn't be a way for us ...
Thank you.
... to become more like Jesus Christ without the fall.
There's just no way.
It wouldn't have happened.
And another thing I really like about when we're talking about the fall is how much it
helps the atonement of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us come in the whole picture
of the plan so much more importantly.
There's this quote I really like by President Benson and it says, "No one adequately and
properly knows why he needs Christ until he understands and accepts the doctrine of the
fall and its effect upon all mankind.
An understanding of the relationship between the fall of Adam and Eve and the atonement
of Jesus Christ deepens God's children's joy in their redemption."
When we understand how the fall of Adam and Eve, and then the atonement of Jesus Christ
and everything comes back together, it just reminds me that we can make mistakes.
The fall of Adam was downward, but it was forward.
And they were able still to live amazing lives and have children and it's because of Jesus
Christ.
It's because of his sacrifice for us, we're able to make those mistakes and we can still
live with him again.
Yeah.
There's a great scripture that is in the book of Moses that I'm going to actually find because
it talks a little about ... If you're not familiar with the book of Moses, it's an extra
biblical book of scripture that ...
Pearl of Great Price.
It's in the Pearl of Great Price that latter day saints use.
This is Moses chapter 5:11 and it's Eve talking.
And she says, "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed and never should
have known good and evil and the joy of our redemption and the eternal life, which God
giveth unto all the obedient."
And it's the same for us.
Without their decision, we would never have known good and evil and the joy of our redemption,
the purpose of Jesus Christ would not exist without the fall.
Right.
The plan would have been frustrated.
Yeah.
So thank you, Adam and Eve.
Hurray!
So a lot of understanding about the fall comes from the book of Mormon, because in second
Nephi in the book of Mormon, Lehi the prophet who is Nephi's father, pretty much gives us
a large explanation of why the fall was so important and crucial for our happiness.
In fact, he directly says, "Adam fell that men might be, and men are, that they may have
joy."
Which puts the overarching idea that we are here to have joy, which means growth, which
means learning and growing closer to the savior.
And I love it because at the time when he's giving this quote, Lehi is in the wilderness,
meaning he left his home.
He left all of the comforts of this house to follow God's commandments.
His family was ...
It was a rough time.
What instantly came into my mind was the mothers.
Oh my gosh.
I can't even imagine.
But it was so difficult for them.
And there was a part where Nephi broke his bone and they were starving and so many hard
things happen, but Lehi could recognize thanks to his understanding of the fall, he could
recognize that this was an opportunity to experience joy.
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
And I think we can learn from that.
It's interesting that some people have suffered more than I can possibly imagine and yet they
have a better outlook on life than I will ever have.
And I think that plays into the fact that our hard experiences help us have a better
perspective, help us perceive things with more light.
And it's also interesting because sometimes we think what would have happened if they
hadn't partaken of the fruit.
And we can speculate a lot about that.
But Lehi, the prophet that you mentioned actually talks about it in second Nephi chapter two,
he says, "And now behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but
he would have remained in the garden of Eden and all things which were created must have
remained in the same state in which they were after they were created.
And they must have remained forever and had no end.
And they would have had no children, wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence
having no joy for they knew no misery doing no good for they knew no sin."
Knew no sin.
So it's just interesting.
It's crazy, because you think about the garden of Eden, it was literally perfect.
You could walk around, there's flowers and animals and you can eat all the fruit and
stuff and it just sounds like a perfect place.
But think about that.
If there's nothing bad that can happen there, you don't recognize the good either.
So to us it sounds perfect and amazing, but for them, they're just chilling.
They know nothing else.
And the only reason it sounds good to us is because we've experienced ...
Exactly.
The pain.
... the pain and adversary.
Adverse?
Anniversary?
It's almost my anniversary.
Adversity.
Yours?
Mine.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Sorry.
And speaking of anniversaries.
No, it has nothing to do ... I think it's interesting too, that it mentions that they
would have remained innocent and that comes back to the whole original sin and stuff.
I think one thing that is really special, important to me is the fact that we don't
baptize babies because we believe that babies are pure and clean.
For my mom, she was a Catholic and that was really confusing for her because she's like,
"It's not fair for a baby to be cast out of heaven just because he wasn't baptized in
time."
Or what about stillborns?
There was just all things, questions my mom had.
And I love that we're not accountable for sin until we're accountable for our agency.
So we believe that that's around the age of eight.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
But I love that Adam and Eve would have just been babies, pure.
The scripture says it right there.
For those of you who aren't babies and do sin, there is hope and you can still feel
joy thanks to Adam and Eve.
And Jesus Christ.
And Jesus, always Jesus.
Okay.
The quote that has been mulling through my head ...
Fair enough.
... over and over again this whole time is why do we fall Bruce?
So we can learn to pick ourselves up.
So we can get back up again.
What is that?
It's from Batman.
Batman.
Oh, I only watch Marvel now.
He falls down the well.
And then the bats scared him.
And the guy's like, "Why do we fall Bruce?
To pick ourselves back up again."
Is that when he's becoming Batman?
No, it's something that impacted him in his childhood.
Oh, okay.
But the principle is why do we fall?
To learn to pick ourselves back up again.
So the fall ...
That's true.
... it's a good thing.
That came together.
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I think we're there.
I don't use Twitter at all, so I don't even know.
Rarely.
I hate Twitter.
Rarely do I use Twitter.
What is the little whistle sound it makes?
It makes a sound?
If the Twitter icon has been talking to you, that may be an issue.
No, I mean when you get a tweet it makes a sound.
I don't know, my laptop is always on silent and my phone's always on silent.
Same.
I don't understand when people ... I never have my phone on, so when people's phones
ring ...
Oh my gosh, it's alarming to me.
I'm like, "Dude, put it on vibrant forever."