Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
When God created the most popular couple in the world in which all other humans would descend from, He did so for a multitude of reasons, each of those reasons carrying lessons for humans to learn from and live their life according to. A lot of the lessons in the story of Adam and Eve are what I call “quiet lessons” - often overlooked by the larger lessons – sin, family, marriage – which are good lessons, but they are only a part to the whole.
One of the “quiet lessons” from Adam and Eve I’ve been contemplating lately is that of human bonding. It’s widely speculated (I say speculated because I cannot say that it’s foolproof), that humans need each other to survive. However, the reasons we need each other to survive go beyond reproduction for the evolution of our species and to not be taken out by attacks of other tribes on us.
A human can become his own worst enemy when he is alone, when he is without the mental, emotional, and spiritual bonding of others. He, God, by design, created a world in which human bonding is a requirement for survival of the individual (providing Eve to Adam), thus, the species. He, by design, created a world in which Trust becomes the foundation for this necessary bonding between humans. Without trust, there is no fundamental element in which a bond between humans can be built. Trust, capital T.
Did Adam trust Eve? This is a debate that could go on for hours so for the sake of this article I will assume he did (I mean, he slept with her, gah). Under this assumption that he trusted her, we'd have to also assume Adam understood the power of choice and a prerequisite of the trust extended to Eve was the confidence he had in her to make good choices when faced with opportunities to choose poorly. * side note - too bad Adam hadn’t read one of those manosphere ten dolla ebooks on wahmen being monkey branch swinging children, else, he might have not trusted her and we as humans wouldn’t be paying for her eating that stupid apple. *
Totally kidding (maybe), but the sentiment stands – Trust is the essential component to human bonding - one of those "quiet lessons" I was talking about.
One needs to display good character to be trustworthy, yeah? Trustworthy people appear to have a code of morals they live by, but this is where it gets muddied - are those morals their principles or only preferences? Because good character can be faked by those who live according to moral preferences, not principles, and in modern society I see this everywhere - people living lives of moral hypocrisy, not moral integrity, and the consequences? Lack of Trust, therefore, lack of human bonding needed for a positive evolution of our species, per God. (i'm just the messenger)
"If you don't stick to your principles when they're tested, then they're not principles. They're hobbies."
I'm not going to stand on some pillar and pretend I'm an angel that has lived every day of her life according to the strict set of moral principles I have. I'm human and have screwed up a lot. But, and this is a big one, the more I process the traumatic things I've been through, I find myself authentically aligning with these core inner principles I've always had and living my life with more moral integrity than not. [it could also be that I'm an infj - wicked strong moral compass] Because of this, I notice the vast amounts of moral hypocrisy happening around me and to me, and now I understand the epidemic of loneliness that spreads across this world. How do we trust each other when very few give us reasons to trust in humanity by not practicing what they preach?
But we do trust each other, or at least enough so to continue evolving (although arguably, not in a healthy direction). We take the words of "influencers" on social media, of politicians, of most anyone in a leadership role as gospel, never questioning their character or moral integrity. It's almost a phenomenon - there's got to be some correlation with the number of followers/supporters one has and the automatic assumption from the public that person is of good character and trustworthy. For many of these people with mass followings/supporters, morality is merely a matter of appearances and preferences - quick to desert the principles they preach when it's not convenient to have them.
Take, for example, the logistician with over 60 thousand followers on Twitter, who publicly portrays a hero archetype that fights for a prosperous America by helping his fellow countrymen/women battle internal and external bad guys. He proudly hits that like button anytime someone says how great he is, how smart he is, what a good guy he is for helping all of us nobodies, freely giving us his intellect and "prophecies", like a true martyr. He sometimes lectures his followers on being good humans; beginning his ascent to influencerdom by writing on that very thing - how to become the best human we can be. He has great character, they think, so they trust him.
But...
you know a girl who knows a girl, and this logistician almost killed that girl - that girl being one of those Americans he claims to care so much about.
Behind the scenes, his moral hypocrisy runs rampant while his ego soaks up what others think is moral integrity; An obliterator of Trust, the hypocrite, abandoner of moral principles, only preferences remain, out of convenience. This person, constructing the narrative to be admired for his self-sacrifice, yet sacrifices innocent people so that he can selfishly get ahead, destroying Trust in another human being & sending them down a path of loneliness, fearful now of that human bond needed for survival.
Circling back to Adam and Eve and the quiet lessons - continuing to eat ourselves alive in some collective (self) fulfilling prophecy, morals have become accessories to our personalities, only needed when they socially benefit us. As humans, we are all prone to moral error, however, using morals as a weapon to manipulate others into trusting you and then not following through when shit gets real on these claims makes you a moral hypocrite and a contributor to the lack of trust individuals need to bond with others - for their survival, per God.
And so, I think the lesson here is that one can only have moral principles and not just preferences when they are able to hold themselves accountable in an actionable and meaningful way, to become a better human, else, they live as a hypocrite and spread distrust everywhere, causing damage to other humans and degradation of our species, culture, and our children.