The story of Cain and Abel is an anthropological record of another Fall from Grace, namely, the transition from pastoralism to cultivation. God favoured the animal sacrifice made to him by Abel the pastoralist above the sacrifice of grain made by Cain the cultivator. With cultivation came civilization: the domestication of nature and humans, agriculture, urbanization, centralised government, taxes, literacy, hierarchy, division of labour, slavery, trade, diplomacy, war and genocide. Cain was cursed for his primal act of fratricide, and after that went on to found cities. In a sense, then, civilization is the curse of Cain.
A similar act of fratricide can be found in the founding myth of Rome, the murder of Remus by his twin brother Romulus, both of whom who had been reared by a she-wolf. These stories thus also show how the founding of cities represented a founding sin, a violent sundering of humans from nature, and a violent domestication of nature by civilized humans, a violence that continues today in the form of agriculture, and which was accelerated by the Industrial Revolution, the latest Fall from Grace.
This interpretation is confirmed by two interesting videos. The first is an interview with "a recovering vegan" somewhat sensationally called "The Vegetarian Myth":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o
The second is a talk by a Zimbabwean environmental scientist who advocates intensive pastoralism as the only solution to desertification, starvation and poverty for one third of the planet: a band stretching from South America, across Africa and the Middle East, to central Asia. In fact, he proposed a solution to the problems of factory farming raised in the previous video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TedtalksHD+%28TEDTalks+HD+-+Site%29
What is important to note is that both videos condemn outright the factory, or industrial, farming of animals, confirming the idea that industrial farming is a Fall from grace.
A similar act of fratricide can be found in the founding myth of Rome, the murder of Remus by his twin brother Romulus, both of whom who had been reared by a she-wolf. These stories thus also show how the founding of cities represented a founding sin, a violent sundering of humans from nature, and a violent domestication of nature by civilized humans, a violence that continues today in the form of agriculture, and which was accelerated by the Industrial Revolution, the latest Fall from Grace.
This interpretation is confirmed by two interesting videos. The first is an interview with "a recovering vegan" somewhat sensationally called "The Vegetarian Myth":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o
The second is a talk by a Zimbabwean environmental scientist who advocates intensive pastoralism as the only solution to desertification, starvation and poverty for one third of the planet: a band stretching from South America, across Africa and the Middle East, to central Asia. In fact, he proposed a solution to the problems of factory farming raised in the previous video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TedtalksHD+%28TEDTalks+HD+-+Site%29
What is important to note is that both videos condemn outright the factory, or industrial, farming of animals, confirming the idea that industrial farming is a Fall from grace.