We often use the word "hero" to describe a person who performs actions that are admired and appreciated by society.
Psychologists and philosophers have had many debates on what constitutes a hero. Usually, they consider three factors: 1) the deed performed. 2) the motivation for its performance, and 3) the reward.
But really, what makes a person a hero is none of these because, in most cases, it's not what the hero has done that makes him a hero; neither is it what has motivated him and often, it's not the reward.
In fact, what makes a person a hero is what he has sacrificed to do the thing for which he is admired.
Most heroes have sacrificed something important to them on their way to becoming heroes; some have sacrificed wealth, others family, nourishment, pleasure, etc., but the greatest sacrifice is considered to be life.
But one thing is for sure: a person cannot sacrifice something he doesn't have. He can sacrifice life because he has life.
Therefore, although some heroes have sacrificed their lives, only one hero in all of history could have sacrificed something much more important than life: everlasting life—immortality—eternity.
Adam made that sacrifice. He was the only one who ever had immortality, and he sacrificed it.
Greater still, he sacrificed immortality for all mankind. His sacrifice of immortality brought death into the world. The most significant problem facing mankind.
Without Adam's sacrifice of immortality, we would have been immortal, but we wouldn't have come into existence.
Instead of admiring Adam for the sacrifice he made to bestow life on us, however, we malign him as the originator of sin, the one who robbed man of eternal life, forgetting that, in fact, he besowed life on man.
Religion has been insisting on this sin and exists as a way to regain immortality, which is deception.
Nevertheless, religion's entire function since then has been to regain immortality. It harps on this "blessed" task and even takes on the job of judging people to damnation if they don't follow religious ideas.
In our avid search for ways of atoning for Adam's "sin," we don't take the trouble to examine the heroic act he performed and how it actually brought us into life and taught us the importance of love of one another. Most of all, the account of Adam and Eve is a lesson that teaches us to make tremendous efforts to love our spouses, especially for the husband to love his wife.
When it comes to loving a woman, the husband must be as prepared as Adam was to sacrifice immortality. Through this love, human beings are brought into the world.
Adam is not only the first man but also the first hero because he brought marital love into the world and sacrificed eternity to do it.
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