I’m back! Thank you for all your suggestions for blog posts. Truth be told, most of them were crap. You can do much better, I’m sure of it. Send all queries to @UnfriendlyA on Twitter from now on, as my previous PA is a bit shagged out 
In Genesis 2:17 (King James version), God makes it very clear that if anyone were to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they will surely die. Not probably, but surely:
2:17
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
What purpose would it serve to threaten an uneducated, otherwise innocent person with death for the consumption of one particular type of fruit, whilst the rest remained fit for human consumption? Were the apples poisonous? In which case, why put them there? Why put the tree there in plain view of two people who would have otherwise been quite happy with mangoes, pineapples, raspberries, kiwi fruits, bananas, lychees, pears, oranges, plum tomatoes etc had the devil not happened to be passing?
Why call it “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” in the first place? Surely “God’s Apples: Hands Off” would have been sufficient? And if this fruit was out of bounds, why put the tree in the centre of the place you have built for these little naked humans? If I’ve learnt one thing from moving out of home into shared accomodation, it’s that anything you leave in shared areas is fair game for the rest of the house mates, with the possible exception of my toothbrush (I hope).
I can’t help but wonder that if the woman hadn’t been denied access to this sensitive, classified information – Knowledge of Good and Evil – would she have bothered eating it? If she had been taught the difference between right and wrong, and was granted some kind of context in order to be able to choose freely, would she have chosen:
3:16
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.
Subservience to a husband?
3:17
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;
An ongoing sense of guilt?
3:18
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Stinging nettles?
3:19
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Decomposition of your lifeless corpse?
What kind of great, amazing god wouldn’t have seen this coming? I’ve heard so often how God has a plan, which we are too puny to understand. This plan’s been in the making for some time now according to the Bible, at least since the Babylonians have been styling their hair and performing complicated mathematical tasks for fun. Why didn’t he bother to draw up a plan of the world before making it and think “Oh me, I’d better move that bloody Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil before I end making more work for myself by systematically killing African babies for no good reason in 6000 years time from the fatal misinformation that my appointed representative on earth is spewing out at an unfathomable rate”?
I’ll tell you why: Whoever wrote this book, had no clue about narrative. The plot holes in this story are bigger than Jordans vayjayjay. My creative writing class teacher would laugh me out of the building for something like this. It’s the sort of story that the Farrely brothers would write, except they’d make it into a comedy in which God is the bumbling idiot. That so many have been raped, tortured, beaten, stoned, and murdered in its name is the real original sin.
In my interpretation of the events of this story, it doesn’t matter that the woman didn’t know any better, because she went and found out. Remember, God told her that she’d die if she ate the forbidden fruit. Yeah, in the long run, maybe, but not immediately. God was sort of ambiguous there. That’s one of the funny things about God, he never really says anything of use, sort of like a Tory politician. The devil, therefore, was right. They ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and took their first steps into skepticism.
Hello. I came across your webpage. I want to thank you for a few of the questions. Curiosity and skepticism begs questions. This is a good thing. If one does not question, one simply accepts the molded “truth” someone else gives. This molded truth, which has not been questioned, poses a couple of major problems. #1 – since there are more untruths than truths, any accepted truth without questioning is usually wrong. #2 – any accepted truth without questioning is usually not believed with pure conscience, but rather out of a since of debt to whichever person(s) taught this to the believer. So again, thank you for some of the questions, and I encourage you to continue questioning.
The travesty, however, comes when we question without exercising the fullest extent of searching for the answers. If we question without seeking answers honestly and wholly, then we are no better than those who accept these molded “truths” without questions.
To answer a few of your skeptical questions (which I found only in years of study), I will post them and then my answers.
1. What kind of great, amazing god wouldn’t have seen this coming?
ANSWER: Some believe God saw this coming. He didn’t allow it as an accidental thing. He allowed this to happen for a specific reason. It wasn’t that the fruit was poisoned, or even bad in and of itself. It is that God created mankind for the purpose of choosing Him, loving Him (as true love can ONLY be by choice), and fellowshiping with Him (as true friendship can also only be by choice). These particular Christians can not conceive of any other logical reason that an all-powerful, all-knowing God would create humans. If He can do all things, and if He knows all things, the only possible thing He could lack is friendship with someone of intellect. Thus, He created man with the free choice of the tree in the middle of the garden (not to tempt them, but to offer them choice.) If He had not placed this tree there, or some other forbidden thing, man would be FORCED to obey God by default since there was no other commands. This was the ONE command that offered man free choice.
2. “I’ll tell you why: Whoever wrote this book, had no clue about narrative. ”
ANSWER: This book of 66 books was written over a period of 1500 or 1600 years by about 40 different authors. This is a widely accepted fact among both religions and non-religious communities.
3. “… so many have been raped, tortured, beaten, stoned, and murdered in its name is the real… sin.”
ANSWER: True. The Bible itself never condones rape, torture, or beating. The only stoning it allows is for a capital punishment case. The only other killing it allows is in defense of country, or family. Anyone, therefore, who has ever raped, tortured, beaten, stoned, or murdered anyone has done so totally outside of the message of the book they claim to believe in. The book is not at fault any more than video game someone plays and goes about killing people in the name of the game. The people (a small minority of “believers”) were at fault, not the book. Most people (if not all today) would claim those people were not even truly believers in the Book they claimed.
4. Remember, God told her that she’d die if she ate the forbidden fruit. Yeah, in the long run, maybe, but not immediately.
ANSWER: The Bible teaches of a spiritual death that did take place immediately. A separation from God. This is the death to which God was referring. It was also a death they partially understood, since there was a time of the day in which God was with them, and a time of the day in which He was not. They could partially grasp the idea of total separation from the God who walked with them in the cool of the evening. So God was not “ambiguous” as you state.
5. You also said that God does not give any relevant to our lives.
ANSWER: Of course, this is purely speculation on either side of the totem pole. Those who have given up anger, hatred, strife, and embraced true love for fellow humans would beg to differ.
I was exactly where you were not too long ago. I dedicated myself to an extreme amount of study. Upon finding strong and compelling scientific, historical, geological, and logical evidences, I turned to belief in God. After carefully examining each of the major religion’s books, the Christian Bible is the only that has a logical answer to every question I could consider. The hardest thing to overcome is the vast, overwhelming amount of people who claim to believe in the Bible, yet they truly do not as is shown by their actions. It is these people you must not focus upon. They are no different than those who say they believe in the Koran, and yet are terrorists. Instead of focusing on people who claim they believe in the book, study the origin and the book itself.
correction: sense of debt***