I’m with President Benson, who said that the atonement has the most power to move us when we truly realize the awful extent of our fall. I’m also with every prophet to ever address the subject, who’s said that despair at our wickedness is just another of the Devil’s subtle arrows.

Wow, Adam. That is powerful imagery. And it is good doctrine too, I think. It is a painful reminder of both who we really are and of the awful gulf that still remains between us and our God — between our character and His character.

Part of the Good News is that Christ has already disabled one of the heads of Jacob’s two headed monster – death and hell (three heads if you count the devil separately) – and because of the atonement He has prepared an escape from the other through repentance. In the last days Christ is doing everything He can to remind us to always be repenting. He wants us to focus on changing our character for the better and making ourselves more like He is. Here is an interesting factoid: I did a search for all the verses in scriptures that contain some variation of the word “repent�. In the 2774 pages of the Bible there are 105 verses with a repent in them. In the 294 pages of the D&C there are 123 verses with repent. Repent is even more commonly used in the 418 pages of the Book of Mormon, appearing in 313 verses. Clearly Christ wants us back and the scriptures of the restoration show us how. I think we are very much in agreement that what is left for us is to not get too discouraged calling ourselves pathetic and disgusting and whatnot, but rather to fear not to do good, look unto Christ in every thought, remember that He does not (yet) condemn us and… well… repent.

Since it is common practice to use the simple term transgression instead of sin, wherein could we look at it in a deeper fashion?
Would it be in the effects of that act of partaking of the fruit and it’s eternal impact on Adam and Eve and us, or would it be in the individual consequences of their act here, moving them from the presence of God, to what can essentially be described as outer darkness and all that that entailed, thus illustrating the very serious nature of their eating of the forbidden fruit?

My conclusions are as follows:
(1) It is not doctrinizing and theorizing that make us think we’re worthless creatures. It is our experience with sin and our growing awareness, as we repent, of the price the Lord God has paid to get us out the hole we’re in. Thus, feeling that we’re ’sickening creatures’ is natural.
(2) Mormonism’s narrowing of the gap between God and man makes sense of this feeling.

If I believed in what Jonathan Edwards believed–if I believed in utter depravity–I would have a hard time caring much about it. My depravity would be innate and inevitable. There would be nothing I could do about it. I would not, in a sense, be responsible for it.

Similarly, if I just had the traditional Christian view that God was unimaginably distant, I would still have a hard time caring too much about my sins. What are they to HIm? What more could be expected of me? I would be very tempted to believe that I could be punished with a few stripes and there I’d be back in the good graces. Why not? I’m just a child.

But Mormonism squares the circle. It tells us that God is unimaginably distant from who we think we are. But He’s not very far from who we actually are. We are of his kind. We were meant to, and can, act as he would and as his Son did.

Imagine God sinning. Think of Christ watching porn. That’s you.

Another sidenote, the promise of Lucifer was that Eve would not die in the same day that she partook of the fruit. Whether spiritual or temporal death, and whether they were explused from the garden within 24 hrs of disobeying Father, I do not know. So, the serpent may have been telling more truth than lie.

Of course, knowing that some of the events in Eden are symbolic only still leaves us wondering how much literal time elapsed before a sufficient level of discernment had been obtained. Much of the discussion/speculation surrounding the Fall that we have participated in, is due directly to the fact that we are not really sure where to draw the line on what is literal and what is purely symbolic.

However, even granting that partaking of the forbidden fruit was purely symbolic, and that the exact process of gaining discernment is not now literally understood, we should remember that the symbols, as well as historical facts, have been given to us specifically to teach us certain truths. I think the way that Eve’s rapid eye-opening experience is depicted may be important. Whether literally true or metaphorically true, it doesn’t matter.

Thank you Adam for initiating this thread, and thanks also to all for the wonderful comments, ideas and insight. You’ve given me much to think about.