oddly reminiscent of something i heard on a tour of temple square in salt lake city. i was there with a conference of unitarians, and we were all gung ho about going to the temple to demonstrate our tolerance and our belief in learning about other religious traditions, but still waiting to catch them out in obvious intolerance or hypocrisy. so near the end of the tour we were in a building looking at pictures of the inside of the temple (nonmormons not permitted to enter, but looking at pictures: okay!) with our guides, and we saw a picture of a mural showing adam and eve. aha! we said. do you believe in original sin? nono. one of the guides told us that mormons do not believe in original sin, that eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was necessary, that that was when we were truly born. it was a hard birth, as births are hard, but we aren’t people without the knowledge of good and evil, and we didn’t really live before then.