Paradise Lost

To think I was finally going to read Paradise Lost, a version of Genesis by Milton, the great epic that forms the basis of most literary conversations. It's not so bad after all - except that the characters are pretty 17th C conventional. And Satan, I don't think he's as grand as most critics put him out to be. He's kind of lame actually. But he still fares a little better than God. Who can love God, or rather, who can love the absolute figure who sits atop his throne foretelling events to his minions/angels?

Anyway, we were on the topic of Adam and Eve, the Original Sin and the idea of free will. I asked what sort of "free choice" did Adam and Eve have since all choices lead back to that one source, God. To obey God and enjoy Paradise or to reject God and suffer the consequences. Does it not remind you of a political "you're either with me or against me" notion? So then that makes the concept of liberty (be it positive or negative) in Heaven quite redundant, doesn't it?
Someone wrote in to say that I'm of the devil's party without knowing it. Boohoo.

Actually I guess he's right to a certain degree. It was a pretty simplistic argument on my part; an innate sense of resistance towards any thing that claims itself to be of absolute power. Besides, noone can really talk about freedom without first setting the limitations and boundaries. Not even say, freedom of the mind.