Genesis 3:14-17
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Let’s break this down. Satan is cursed, but not “for thy sake.” (What does cursed for thy sake mean?) To Eve, though not explicitly cursed, God says he “will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…” which sounds suspiciously like a curse. Adam is cursed “for thy sake” and like Eve will suffer “sorrow … all the days of thy life.”
A while back, I asked about the 2nd Article of Faith, asking if people can be cursed for others’ sins. If we take the story of Genesis somewhat literally, women are cursed to have painful childbirth. That is all women are cursed because of Eve’s sin. All men die due to Adam’s sin. On that post, several argued that the 2nd Article of faith simply refers to Adam’s transgression, and we can be punished for other’s sins. But Margaret Young stated,
But in the Articles of Faith we are told that we are not responsible for Adam’s transgression, that each man is responsible for his own, and you have to extrapolate from that, then, is the black man responsible for Cain’s transgression, or Ham’s transgression, for whatever is implied by seeing his father’s nakedness? The answer has to come back that, no, not if we do believe that every man is responsible for his own sins.
Are we responsible for our own sins, or can we suffer or be cursed by God to suffer punishment for our forerathers?
If we talk about real life, if a mother is addicted to drugs while she is pregnant, the child can suffer debilitating learning disabililties from fetal alcohol syndrome, or drugs, or whatever. Surely the child is suffering the curse of being born to an unhealthy and sinful mother. And if God is responsible for all life, is God essentially cursing this infant to a horrible life? Surely God does curse the children of unfit parents in the real world, (or at least refuses to intervene on their behalf.) Does God curse children of sinners to hell, such as was taught by the Curse of Cain/Ham? Surely Brigham Young believed and taught the curse of Ham and Cain. While the church disavows these theories now, it hasn’t repudiated godly curses.
Or is Margaret Young correct in her interpretation that God doesn’t punish or curse people except for their own sins?
Do you feel the church teaches that godly curses are real?
And finally, why does it say the ground is cursed for Adam’s sake? Is this opposition in all things, kind of “good thing”? Or is it simply ancient man’s feeble attempts to explain why farming and childbirth are difficult?
Wheat & Tares 
I don’t think it means childbirth is painful – it means having children is altogether painful. Having to teach them agency and watch them suffer, etc. Having to be a mother is a full-time, non-stop job and most Mormon women suck at it. And men have to work hard to provide for that sorrow. He’s basically saying it’s not going to be an easy life now. There is a very strong possibility that God curses the children of sinners to Hell because if parents do not raise their children correctly (because of their own sins of laziness, ignorance, entitlement, etc) the children will inevitably do something that puts them on the path there. For example, the Stanford rapist has parents who are clearly sinners by making excuses for him and somehow teaching him that he could do what he did…so yea, all cursed.
The Church does not teach that Godly curses are real and they should. They should teach parents that if their children are struggling it is their fault and they need to be more involved or get professionals involved to fix it instead of writing them off – they will be accountable for that.
Of course the church punishes children for supposed sins of parents. Look what they did to children of same sex marriages. If that’s not punishment then there is no such thing as punishment. The general authorities can preach all day long that it was an inspired move and by so doing, they are teaching that God does punish children for the supposed sins of the parents. The church is in no way going to say that stupid new policy is anything less than pure divine revealed inspiration straight from a God that lives trillions of miles across the universe on a big fat planet that’s spinning next to Kolob. They are now bound to back that up by labeling it divine inspiration because if they don’t, then that is to say it’s just a man made mistake that has so far driven 3 dozen youth to commit suicide, since that’s what a God in heaven wants his youth to do. The church took away the free agency of those youth and drove them to commit suicide and readers, nothing you can tell me will convince me otherwise. It’s called mental abuse. Now that’s something to be proud of isn’t it! Attention mountain meadows massacre fans….part 2 is now showing!
“Are we responsible for our own sins, or can we suffer or be cursed by God to suffer punishment for our forefathers?”
I think there is a difference between “suffering” and “being responsible.” Simply by being born, we have to suffer the curses of living in a fallen world, including the curse of living with imperfect people who do us harm.
The metaphysical question is whether, by virtue of being born, we are somehow born IN sin, and thus in some way responsible for our lot, or whether we are innocent, and simply have to suffer the tribulations of the world, just as every living creature does.
Mormonism is a bit conflicted on the issue. On the one hand, we reject the traditional Christian dogma of original sin. But our doctrine on the pre-existence invites us to harbour karma-like interpretations, like the patriarchal-blessing revelation of being chosen for this estate because we were a “noble and great one” in the pre-existence,” which obviously assumes that others are chosen for less desirable estates because they were less noble and great.
Even though the old blacks-and-the-priesthood interpretations have been rejected, they are a natural outgrowth of a karma-like, works-oriented, eternal-progression obsessed culture, which claims that “all blessings are predicated by obedience to laws upon which they are predicated.”
In a way, I think we should go back to the old Christian idea of original sin, which avoids all the karma messiness and simply makes us all born in sin and in need of redemption. It’s not that we are “punished” for Adam’s transgression, but that we are in some way responsible collectively. After all, Mormons believe they “chose” to come to earth, so in some way, they “chose” like Adam and Eve, to go down the path of the forbidden fruit, and should therefore, in some way be responsible for it.
“Surely the child is suffering the curse of being born to an unhealthy and sinful mother. And if God is responsible for all life, is God essentially cursing this infant to a horrible life?” The child is suffering the effects of another person’s agency. That is one of the challenges in this life – that our agency can affect the experiences of others, and vice versa. There are plenty of children born with disabilities because of genetic malfunctions. People in the past called those kids cursed, but we wouldn’t typically do so today.
BTW, the meme doesn’t make sense. God is angry at Adam that Adam chose to listen to Eve over God (in partaking of the tree, something Adam was explicitly commanded not to do in v. 17 prior to the creation of Eve in v. 22). God is angry in the book of Hosea that Israel (his wife) chose to listen to other gods rather than Jehovah. In both cases, the crime is trusting someone else over God. If Adam had listened to the serpent first and then instructed Eve to partake of the fruit, God still would have been ticked (even though Eve obeyed her husband).
“is it simply ancient man’s feeble attempts to explain why farming and childbirth are difficult?”
This has my vote.