Norman Breyfogle, Alan Weiss and I at a dinner chat after NY Big Apple Con, Nov 18, 07 at the Cowgirl Bar & Grill, West Village. YouTube video filmed by Elizabeth.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
(Continuing a discussion about the reasoning, from Adam's point of view, as expressed to God, when making his decision to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil)
Michael Netzer (right): And I also... if I eat... then I'm gonna go out there and work the land and turn the whole world into a Garden of Eden one day. And I know that you support the idea. So I'm calling your bluff and I'm gonna eat.
Norman Breyfogle (left): Why all the machinations on God's end?
MN: Aaah. Because he wants man to take responsibility.
NB: He doesn't have to give... he doesn't have to plant a tree... man will learn by himself, it's just a metaphor. It's in man's genes.
MN: No, no. No. If you give man the conditions...
NB: Are we genetically different from Adam and Eve?
MN: You just don't listen, do you?
NB: I have to have a chance to talk...
MN: Yeah but I have to be able to finish a sentence...
NB: Which sentence?!
Elisabeth Beam (camera): (laughter)
Alan Weiss (Across the table): You cannot... cannot take a paragraph and cut out a piece without the...without the whole meaning to get the point.
EB: (laughter)
NB: I thought this was a conversation, sorry...
MN: But a conversation is...
NB: Where you talk and I don't listen... and I don't get to say anything...
AW: No, it's a conversation where he talks and you interrupt...
MN: Listen, I'm gonna say one more thing and then give the stage to you, alright?
NB: It's alright... but I felt like it's your stage...
MN: Oh get outa here.. don't start playing these games with me...
NB: You mean like God played with Adam?
AW: aohhh...
EB: (laughter)
MN: If you get everything given to you, prepared... it's a whole different situation than if you...
NB: When has that ever been argued?
MN: What? That's what you're suggesting...
NB: Me?
MN: Yeah, you're saying why go through that whole process... that's the reason. So that man does it by himself through his own will. He goes through all the shit...
NB: No, you're misinterpreting my points...
MN: Well, if you hadn't tried to squeeze them in over my sentences I might have interpreted them correctly.
AW: (hearty laughter)
NB: Alright. Can I say something now?
MN: Yeah! It's all yours. And... and I want you to pay attention to how nicely I'm gonna listen to you.
NB: From my point of view, all you're doing is taking what is already clearly to any enlightened person, and will not be clear to any unenlightened person. It's already a metaphor. So all you're doing is elucidating and elaborating... and... and... having fun with the metaphor by piling metaphor on metaphor... and I have nothing against that... it's perfectly valid. But you're not changing the essential meaning. A metaphor is still a metaphor from the beginning...
EB: Hope I don't run out of batteries...
NB: ...And you're not going to convince anyone who doesn't see it as a metaphor that it is a metaphor anyway. In other words, I can... I can perfectly accept all those metaphors that you're talking about, but the point is not that God was a personality that set man... Adam and Eve in a garden with the fruits...
MN: Metaphorically, he was...
NB: Metaphorically! It's all a metaphor...
MN: That's what it's about...
EB: Uh... so you agreed on something... finally...
MN: That's what it's about. But the metaphor is a reflection of a certain reality, and you gotta understand that reality... and in the reality, when someone comes and when...
NB: You're not saying anything new... all you're doing is elaborating on the metaphor that's already given...
MN: Of course... what... what can I... what is there new to be said?
AW: (laughter)
NB: There's nothing more to be said?
MN: (shakes head)
NB: I thought the whole point of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is that... it's something new...
MN: The tree... but that was like a long time ago. We've been chewing on that tree for... like thousands of years...
NB: (laughter)
AW: (laughter)
EB: (laughter)
NB: Must be a pretty damn big tree...
MN: Yeah... Every time you hear a ... every time you hear a rea... a news report... you can see where... you can see its fruits...
NB: It doesn't have to be that way...
MN: No. But I'm telling you again. That if it wasn't this way... it would be worthless. It is this way so it means... so it means...
NB: That's what we talked about... what we talked about last night? What we were all talking about?
