Lets say you have a little child and you warn him never ever pick the fruit on one particular tree in your yard, but allow him to pick fruit from the rest of the trees in the yard. Then, you find out he disobeyed you and your response? You guessed it, what you should do is kick your child off of your property to fend for himself and curse the rest of his life and all of his descendants. Who would do that to someone they love?
Actually, if you look at it the following way - it might make sense. God, an evil being despotic in power, wishes no humans to have any knowledge, thus forbidding the tree of knowledge from being consumed to keep his slaves stupid. He has them mine gold, silver, and sacrifice for him - until one day the one we have demonized, Lucifer (angle of Illumination and Light) offers to man the key to knowledge, and he offers it to women first, seeing that they are more likely to accept knowledge. In accepting knowledge, and seeing the truth, god gets angry. He throws a sissy fit bigger than Elton John finding out the piano keys were made out of an Ivory substitute. Thus we are punished for questioning our masters, and we are savaged by them. What if god was just an ancient king, and Lucifer was a kind of prophet, or sage who knew without knowledge, man would perish? It has been the history of mankind that rulers use ignorance as a tool upon masses of cow-eyed humans. Perhaps that is the problem. It has been unquestionably proven that in the Bible God has smashed, killed, and murdered thousands upon thousands... while Lucifer only killed at one time to prove a point with Job - that God has brainwashed man better than anyone else.
Which completely misses the point. Lucifer had everything he could ever need but wanted what he couldn't have: Godhood. He created an army and tried to overthrow God so he could sit on His throne. He got tossed out along with his army. Adam and Eve had everything they could ever need and yet they wanted the one thing they couldn't have: Godhood. They got tossed out. The story of Adam and Eve has nothing to do with a tree. It has to do with coveting what you can't have. If it wasn't the tree it'd be something else. Eventually it'd be Godhood; God himself that they covert. The only way to avoid the problem would be for God to not exist and therefore nothing would exist. Or, God could let man live so they'd learn the hard way that coveting what you can't have is a bad idea and they'd appreciate the blessings that God has given them. Lucifer, Adam and Eve were pretty much acting like spoiled brats who had everything but wanted the "one" thing God was supposedly holding out on them. The knowledge of good and evil is a very small subset of knowledge. It's not our knowledge of evil that has led to so many technological breakthrus. The knowledge of good has gotten us nowhere. Name one good thing that the knowledge of good and evil has given us. Why do we need that knowledge in a perfect world? The knowledge of good and evil has no relavence to scientific discovery.
If we never desired for things we didn't yet have we would not have the wheel or writing for starters. Desire is a good thing.
Never said there was anything wrong with desire. Desiring things you can't have (someone else's wife for example) is what is wrong.
So God created Lucifer with the desire to attain godhood, and created a bunch of problems for everyone. And then he went on to create humans and did the exact same thing. Talk about the triumph of hope over experience.
Hmm... perhaps god is Lucifer, and Lucifer is god. Seems to be more death caused by Lucifer and less by god if you look at it that way.
If god exists why was he so worried that we would know the difference between good and evil? It would explain it if god in bible is actually lucifer...
If Adam and Eve didn't know the difference between good and evil before eating the fruit, they'd have had no concept of sin. So what exactly were they being punished for?
So you want God to restrict your desires? You actually want to be a sock puppet yourself. Interesting.
Who is to say I can't have someone else's wife and that her and I may be much happier for it. I personally like my metaphor about the story and going back to that, God did not punish them at all. It was the result of the fruit of the tree of knowledge they ate that they should become mortal (no death in the garden) and KNOW the good and evil (fun and not fun) of such an existence. The snake is probably (not my original ideas here) a symbol of Lilith or some other pagan goddess representing the counterbalance to the male preserving god and would want her children to move on and grow up, but if you want to think of it as Lucifer you could also assume it is a Prometheus character in the myth and therefor is bringing enlightenment much like the Morning Star title implies. I do not think the story is about the woes of temptation and disobedience I think it is an ancient attempt at describing the reasoning for suffering in the world. To know and experience life is to experience the good and bad and if we all lived in a mythical garden where nothing died sipping green tea we would be nothing more than the playthings in God's sandbox many people believe we are. It is funny to me that many who think this way also talk about free-will so highly while using every religious tool at their disposal to alleviate themselves from using it.
God put the tree in the garden so that Adam and Eve would have a choice. It was their choice to live or die. By the way, they didn't get struck dead...they both lived to be nearly 1,000 years old. And yes, Eve coveted to have God's wisdom and knowledge. Lucifer said something like "...Eat the fruit...and your eyes will be opened...you will be like God." And, it's called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because that's exactly what it is. If you grow up in a place where death doesn't exist, you can't possibly comprehend what evil could be, since you have only ever been exposed to good. Adam and Eve did not know what death was. Perhaps they didn't think it would be possible that such a thing could ever happen to them (even though they didn't understand what it was)...