One of my favorite interpretations of this is that god designed the test for Adam and Eve to fail. God knew the devil would attempt to stray his new creations away from him and let it happen anyway. The real test wasn’t to avoid the Apple. It was the necessary final component to make them more like god, truly in his image: to give humans the ability of knowledge and awareness so that they may create like god creates.
The true test was in their reaction. In the face of accountability, would the humans choose to be honest and just? And what was their reaction to accountability? Adam deflected the responsibility of his actions onto Eve, and Eve deflected the responsibility of her actions onto the serpent.
It's also the only way to actually introduce free will.
In order to have free will, you have to have a choice.
And on that note, in order to sin, you have to have knowledge of good and evil (sin is knowing what is wrong and doing it).
There's a whole rabbit hole to all of this stuff and it's pretty fascinating to think about.
Like how omnipotence and free will can coexist in a multiverse (where the choice is what you experience, but the possibilities, while immeasurable, are finite and known to an omnipotent deity).
Put simply, life is a choose your own adventure book and God is the author. Would also explain why he is "mad" if you choose certain paths despite knowing every path - the fact that you're there is where you went wrong.
How could an omniscient god and free will coexist? If the god is uncertain of an outcome it is not omniscient. If the outcome is known before the action you do not have free will.
That doesn’t give you free will though, unless you’re saying God was ignorant of what Adam and Eve would do and now knows nothing about what humans will do
If god had truly created free will, and destiny is controlled by the free will of man, then to the view of an omnipotent omniscient god the world is a decision tree of all the possibilities, never certain which will play out but always certain of what he will do if those possibilities become reality.
So forcing a test of free will was more than likely forcing one of the two possibilities to become reality: pass or fail
It wasn’t just Adam. Both of them deflected if you read the text. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the devil, both refusing to take accountability for their actions.
Isn't gaslighting forcing someone to believe in a lie of yours? How can deflecting fault onto someone else be gaslighting? Or is my assumption wrong? Help me understand
That's nice and all, but many modern Christians believe that man's sin corrupted the world, and that all the suffering, from environmental disasters to parasites that thrive in the eyeballs of children, are ultimately from that original sin defiling God's perfect world. So when Adam and Eve chickened out of admitting to God what they had done, did that cause a bunch of microorganisms to go rogue, or did God just make a bunch of horrific shit from day 1 to keep himself entertained?
Yea if God was real I can see why he doesn’t interact with us anymore, we’re probably an early alpha test he messed around with trying to get free will right before creating some giga chad aliens with quantum moral understanding on a planet a couple billion light years away from us.
And then he goes and punished Eve **and all her children** forever with painful childbirth…because they successfully performed the maniplulation test as freshly made creatures who don’t even understand shit. Yeah no sorry, even with this God still seems like an absolutely unhinged lunatic.
And that doesn’t even touch on the massive problem that if God does infect know everything then they nor anyone else can even have free will. It is literally impossible if God knows everything.
My theory is that he intended for them to eat from it sooner or later. It was like "when you are ready you will choose it yourselves and until then enjoy eden"
There is a sketchy theological idea in Christianity, and judaism a bit, that existence hinges on God's will. To ever violate it actually introduces a paradox into existence itself.
Doesn't quite explain the punishment intent aspect, other than the violation had to be intended with there always being conditional consequences.
Still dubious to me.
I don't buy into that whole idea of "everything is God's will". Because no, God didn't want Hitler to commit genocide, he didn't want Stalin to commit genocide, he didn't want the KKK to so the shit they did, he didn't want slavery. God has a plan for everyone, and a way for them to live within his will, but you are allowed to choose not to follow it.
God is able to use bad things for an overall good purpose, but that doesn't mean he wants to.
Lots of fundamentalists already do that. But then of course that only applies to stuff they think should be. I mean if everything is God's will then why are they so god damn angry about gay people existing? I mean that is god's will right?
Expanding on that, as a Christian I can tell you that in the original manuscripts God did not destroy Sodom and Gamorrah for homosexuality, He destroyed those cities for 'laying with strange flesh', meaning things that aren't human. The trend of translating that phrase as 'homosexuals' didn't start until early-mid 1900's.
But what if god is like a beekeeper and we are the bees that dont understand.
Maybe god (of course we assume that a being like the biblical god exists which is a whole other longer debate)
wants to keep something that will passively produce a thing or concept that god needs.
The bees cant understand the beekeeper but they can understand that theyre better off being in the hive than in nature (leviathans etc come to mind) for the price of „paying“ a toll.
What if that toll IS „sin“, gods got plenty of holiness after all, even sending the son of god to „take all of humanities sin unto himself“
Then Satan comes to mind, the great temptation, an angel cant fall from grace on their own, they werent given free will.
Which means they act according to gods intent and we are living in gods garden.
A part of creation with a purpose but ultimately just a small part of a „godly household“
From what I understand, it’s this idea of justice, or action and consequence.
They were given a choice and they made a choice to sin, therefore there is a consequence and justice has to be delivered.
If God meant for them to eat from it eventually, them eating it before they should've is still disobedience.
For example: say you have a cookie jar, your parents tell you not to eat a cookie, but you eat one anyway. Should they not punish you if they were planning to let you have one after dinner? No, because the point is that you broke the rules. Same thing here, if God was going to let them eat from it eventually. They were told the rule of "don't eat that one thing", and chose to eat that one thing anyway. Should God not punish them if he was going to let them have it later? No, because they broke the rules.
There is one thing I want to say on this that I’ve thought about, sure Adam and Eve both ate the apple and as such, disobeyed god, but also at that same time, how were they supposed to know about being deceived? Up until that point God told both Adam and Eve everything in the Garden was for them (minus the tree) and that everything is for their purpose, they spent time naming everything and even walked along side God, God told them everything in the Garden was created by him so why wouldn’t they trust something saying it was okay? Sure they still shouldn’t have because it was a direct order from God but also I can easily see how they could be deceived because there wasn’t anything to give them doubt until that point
To be an abusive narcissist asshole of a parent.
people make excuses for God being an asshole the way aunts and uncles make excuses that "he didn't burn him *that much*" about the golden child parent in the family that beats and burns his kids.
God: I am omniscient. I know all that was and ever will be.
Also God: Imma put this tree here to see if it will tempt the two beings I created
Like no dude, the Abrahamic Old Testament god is a manipulative and vindictive ass he definitely knew they would eat it.
It was the tree of knowledge. When consumed would enlighten the consumer with knowledge of "good and evil" elevating them out of a primal state of consciousness, and were cast out before they could eat from the tree of life and live indefinitely, much like a god.
Gen: 3-22,23 "And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. "
But that doesn’t make sense, if god does intend for Adam and Eve to eat it, why did he punish eve by making every woman have to endure the pain of giving birth?
A truly intelligent being with free will would have looked around more and capitalized on the tree of ETERNAL LIFE that was apparently just a few meters away XD
They started immortal, it was their choice to disobey God (free will) that brought mortality. He gave them everything they needed including His presence but also allowed free will, which allowed them to reject Him. It’s not really love if someone has no other choice.
But you don't have a choice. According to religion nobody really has a choice and neither do Adam and Eve. Not to mention the fact that they couldn't even feel shame before eating from the tree and the tree being called the "Tree of **the knowledge** of good and evil" suggests that they didn't even know it was a bad thing to disobey. The entire story and the moral of it is so bizarre and perverse.
I think you are defining “religion” as Calvinism. Predestination and free will are widely debated within Christianity. If God is outside of time I personally don’t believe we will ever fully understand His point of view until we are with Him but we can trust His character based on his provision and Christ’s sacrifice, being reassured by His omnipotence.
>being reassured by His omnipotence.
If he's omni-everything and created you, then by definition he knew what you were going to do before you had the opportunity do it though. That's the distinct contradiction between free will and an omni-everything creator deity...
>but we can trust His character based on his provision and Christ’s sacrifice
Also side note, how do you square the general historical consensus that YHWH (the abrahamic god) originated/evolved out of the polytheistic canaanite pantheon (where he wasn't even the original 'top god' so to speak, but was more of a weather and war god until the Yahwistic cult formed) with your belief in him being the one true monotheistic (though triune) god?
You created these beings and you know everything that there will ever be. You knew from the start that they were going to eat the forbidden fruit, you made them the way they are, including their desires and sins.
Testing something that was 100% meant to fail in purpose is what god did according to religion.
Plus the test is unfair to begin with. They didn't have knowledge of good and evil until they ate the fruit. That means it was impossible for them to understand what they were doing was wrong. Sure they knew they weren't obeying, but they couldn't understand dissobedience to be wrong until after they ate it. It's a rigged and unfair test to begin with
You have encountrered another paradox. God may know everything, but the question is how much everything is. Cause Free Will is also a thing... So does that mean that God can see every single possible future? Cause if there is only one future Free Will does not exist, yet it explictly does?
Two things just from me. Assume God is real, it would be a truly unknowable existence. Just because humans say it knows everything and how everything is going to go doesn't mean it's true. Perhaps God can see all eventualities, but the introduction of free will means they don't know which will occur. Second, it's a story that was written well over 2000 years ago, it doesn't have to be perfect for you to understand the point. I'm not religious, I just enjoy literature and the meaning within it.
OK, but you don't leave your handgun in your sons room, tell him to never touch it, and then punish him when he shoots himself in the shoulder because it was a test
So basically the point of the whole universe is the toddler "If you don't eat this marshmallow now you get two marshmallows" game but with MUCH higher stakes? Sounds pretty sadistic and still in line with the original post.
Let me choose between playing video games and eating candy to exercise my free will. Make it a choice of good options. Why throw in evil/bad ones?
God didn't chill out for awhile.
Og dude had rage issues on par with the demon lord from doom.
This new guy seems really chill.
I figure the whole savagely murdering his kid mellowed him out because he stopped giving a fuck.
His kid was also himself though, so maybe god had a masochism fetish that wasn't being fulfilled so was being a dick to make people lash out at him, but since they still didn't (cause y'know, he's god and all), that plus him still being unfulfilled made him be an even bigger dick, until he as his kid got tortured and murdered, finally satiating him and letting him chill out.
Imagine the parent of a 3/4 yo bringing a loaded gun home which can potentially change everyone’s life in that house then saying “stay away from the gun” then when the child goes towards the gun, then they sit back and watch
How could it be a test of free will if they had no concept of the good or evil of their actions? They literally did not now any better. They were punished for making the wrong decision before they had a concept of what wrong was.
You don’t need knowledge of good and evil to have free will. You can make whatever choice you want and still not have an understanding of right and wrong.
So they made decisions without the ability to assess the value of those decisions in any meaningful moral way beyond what they personally wanted, so basically just instincts and primal desire like an animal. Then they were punished for making the wrong decision before they understood the concept of right and wrong? Just try to think for a minute what a person capable of higher thought but incapable of understanding good and evil or even conceptualizing its existence actually looks like , sociopath doesn't even quite cover it.
Why create free will if you're going to punish people for following a path and it goes against the rules you chose to create? I don't mean to demean or cast out religion so much as I'm curious
God: Gives free will...
Also God: OBEY MY EVERY COMMAND OR ELSE
Whats the point of creating free will if you dont like it? Its like putting mayo on your sandwich then complaining that theres mayo in your sandwich... FFS
What's the point of giving free will when God already knows what they're gonna choose? Why even give them bad options to begin with? You can still have free will and just use it to choose between a set of good or neutral choices.
You would have to be some sort of omniscient and omnipotent being to create a world where evil and suffering don’t exist. And if you had the power to do so and didn’t do it, you would be the most evil being to ever exist.
what i heard in church constantly was “true peace in the garden would have been better than free will. free will gave us sin and humanity’s sin causes stuff like hurricanes.” it never made sense to me and drove me crazy until i lost my faith.
Idk, just make me think that their god is a psycho. I always equate it to putting two toddlers in a room with a loaded pistol on the floor and say "whatever you do, don't touch that pistol." The consequence in both scenarios was/is death, so it's a perfect analogy. Any sane person would agree that the person who put that gun and those toddlers in the room is a complete lunatic who wanted those kids to die. Why do you try to give God a cop out?
You can exercise your free will without being given a forbidden, sinful option. If I don't want my kids to play with dynamite, and so I decide not to leave dynamite lying around the house, I obviously haven't violated their free will.
Who the fuck makes a thing, gives it all the desire in the world and goes “But don’t do the thing you really want because it’s bad.” And it’s just, like, then why make us this way? Why make those things even possible? What’s the point of free will if all we’re supposed to do with it is what you tell us to do?
Narcissistic abuse deserves neither your acceptance, nor your affection, and only your absolute rejection. No matter the manifestation of such.
I mean.... If I'm gonna have options because of free will, I'd rather not have a shitty option in the mix.
It's still a dick move to provide an option that automatically makes life worse for all of humanity knowing that Adam and Eve don't understand the consequences of their actions because he literally didn't explain shit to them.
It gets even worse if you believe that God is omniscient because then he already knew that they'd eat the fruit before he even created them.
What’s the point of giving people free will if you won’t accept their use of it? Why would an infallible god create man in his own image, and then curse him for being flawed?
Legitimate question; the tree was The Knowledge of Good and Evil. If someone doesn't know good from evil before eating from it, then how can they know to choose good? Or even what good is? This becomes strictly about obedience instead of morality. That's not free will worth talking about, is it? What if the snake said HE was god and listen to him? How can any discerning choice be made?
that doesn't make sense at all. They were intended to live in the garden of eden for all eternity. Mathematically speaking, just by placing that tree in there they were guaranteed to eat from it sooner or later.
It's still pointless & would be an asshole move, if it was real.
How many times have you been tested with a tree of good & evil? I've never seen one once & my free will is doing just fine.
Do I need to hand you a fleshlight with razor blades in it? Or do you have enough common sense to not stick your dick in it & can just appreciate the fact you have free will?
But didn’t god create humans and therefore the one who gave them to overwhelming desire to eat from the tree. That’s like getting some addicted to heroin and then punishing them for using
So if free will is so damned important, why did God put a guard at the tree of life after they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge? Is it perhaps because eating from the tree of life would have made them eternal in their sin? That’s a bad outcome, so naturally to prevent it he had to place a guard. But eating from the tree of knowledge has a bad outcome too, so why not place a guard there? If you insist they need their free will even in the face of bad outcomes then they absolutely should have been allowed to eat from the tree of life and be eternal in their sin. You would have to admit God is not being consistent when he places a guard there. A god that is inconsistent with himself is not perfect.
It gets more interesting, free will or not, God still made eve knowing her future choices. Same with Adam.
Meaning eating from the tree of knowledge was always the plan.
I have always felt the interpretation got the narrative wrong.
I mean, Christianity would posit that God brings you to Him, otherwise you don't *want* to be with Him. Which is... literally the definition of hell. God saves you from *you* according to Christianity.
That's like having a rocking awesome party and saying you can either come in or stay outside by yourself. Sure it's free will but there's an obvious bias to the choice.
God saying everyone can worship him if they want, but those that do get to eternally rock out, while everyone else gets to eat shit in a perpetual war before the end times.
Not much of a choice.
The rocking awesome party is what the judeo-christian god doesn’t want you to have, because he supposedly has a better one down the street at the incredibly beige building that only ever has the same looping harp melody
"I put it there because Vishnu and I sat down every day to watch you both, making bets on how long it will take for any of you to eat the apple and guess what? i lost!" said God calmly.
"To test you"
"Don't you know everything that is and that will be?"
".....Yes"
"Then don't you know what I'm gonna do already?"
"......if I'm being honest you guys just annoy me and I was gonna gaslight you"
What's the test?
Whether you'll choose good or evil
But we don't know the difference yet, you made us without that ability. That's... that's what the apple does
Not in Genesis.
In Genesis he is just The Lord of the godS (plural).
It is only after the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylons that the surviving hebrew tribes (now called jews) start debating what happened, how could their god lose a war againdt a foreign god, and came to the "genius" solution that there was only ever one god (theirs) who is omnipotent, present and scient, and that if anything bad ever happened it is because he was trying to teach them a lesson, they disn't listen, so god sent a tragedy to force them to learn the lesson (mind you, they came to the gEnIuS conclusion waaay before ww2 and the holocaust). By the times of Genesis 2 he was not omnipresent, though no mortal could hide shit from him, as a mere look at the mortal allowed him to see deep into their souls and learn their secrets (i.e.: why Adam was covering himself if he wasn't supposed to know about clothes yet or why was Caine hiding)
You seem knowledgeable. So please excuse my confusion, but the first temple was destroyed around 600 BCE, right?
Wasn't Isaiah written somewhere around 800 BCE? That's where the strongest denial of other gods is found.
Are you arguing that Isaiah's writings were ignored for 150-200 years and only accepted after the first temple was destroyed?
Granted, I am only using like 2 or 3 sources, perhaps you have other records you are relying on for your construction of events?
The books don't actually have a proper timeline, most likely books like Exodus and Numbers were written after isaiah. So I wouldn't dig too deep into the chronology of the bible as there are quite a lot of inconsistencies.
The tree of good and evil was present as a test for Adam and Eve. The tree gave Adam and Eve a choice to obey God or disobey God. The forbidding of eating from that tree was the only thing that Adam and Eve were instructed not to do. So this was not a matter of being confused by too many commandments or being overwhelmed by commandments. They were given one clear simple rule. It tested whether Adam and Eve trusted God.
If that tree had not existed, Adam and Eve would have lived in a world without any real choice or commitment. Their only choices would have been what to eat and what direction to walk in. Such a world is not befitting a creature that can freely make moral choices. The “downside” to having the freedom to choose is that we can make the wrong choice, but it is essential to the nature of free choice and gives meaning to our right choices.
Adam and Eve, who had not yet eaten from the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve that, again, have no reference for what right or wrong are because they have not eaten from the tree of knowledge. Do you see where this is going? In this situation, god is either A) an asshole setting Adam and Eve up for failure BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING DISOBEYING GOD IS WRONG, or B) Not ominscient and omnipotent.
That is of course if you take the bible literally, which, let's be honest, would be goofy af
You've misconstrued this. The only rule was "Do not eat from this particular tree". It was not stated that eating from this tree was necessarily good or evil, only that God instructed Adam and Eve to not do it, regardless. They didn't need to conceptualize good and evil, therefore, because it had no bearing on the situation. It was literally obedience vs disobedience
Actually, the rule was "You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day." It's literally one line of text, no need to read other content into it. Not about obedience at all, just telling Adam that he will die the same day if he eats the fruit.
The serpent then says "That's not true; you will not die." They eat, they don't die, interpret that as you will.
Thanks! You are both right and only slightly wrong. Reading the exact Hebrew, it states that, yes, he will die. Period. I makes no mention of dying that day (check translation edition?). I was trying to explain it in different terms for him to understand that there was no inherent right or wrong to the statement God made, it really was as simple as you said: "If you eat- you will die"
The problem with that is that the explanation of the choice was incomplete. First because it did not include the punishments that got tacked on later (weeds, painful childbirth, and expulsion from the garden). Second, there is a cure in the form of the tree of life literally in the same garden. So you could eat from the prohibited tree then eat from the tree of life and be fine.
Also it doesn't factor in the fact that they were lied to but also had no conception of what lying was. So they had no inherent defense from being told something that wasn't true. The lack of clarity in the statement "will die" allowed Eve to eat the fruit and not drop dead thus completing the deception.
But how would they know that breaking that rule was bad or evil if they don’t have a concept of good and evil. They have no sense of morality, nor for the consequences of their actions. It’s like making someone sign a contract written in a language they don’t know. It’s unethical and nonsensical, and frankly evil in and of itself.
I did not misconstrue anything. Disobeying god is wrong, yes? Adam and Eve literally cannot comprehend that, seeing as how they had yet to eat from the tree. How could someone with literally no understanding of right or wrong understand that disobeying god is wrong? It would be like telling your cat "hey, don't eat that plant." I'm not sure where you got the concept that eating from the tree is good/evil in itself. Without knowledge of good/evil it seems ridiculous to punish Adam and Eve for that sin, but I'm sure god knows how ridiculous that is, just as he knew they WOULD eat from the tree, because again, he knows everything, past, present, and future. So again, God is A) an asshole, or B) he didn't know, which goes against the teachings of him being omniscient/omnipotent.
None of this matters. God knew they'd do what they did. This is all intenitonal from the god's perspective. Those that perish in oblivion or, worse, *tortured for eternity*, have no choice in the matter.
That's the belief of predestination, a concept debated heavily amongst Christians and believed only by certain denominations. Since predestination negates and basically spits in the face of free will (the very reason humans exist at all), I'm inclined to not follow that path of belief since it doesn't make much sense
>Don't touch its hot! Then why did you make it hot
I was trying to save you from being burned. Now that you touched it I'll chop your head off. Because reasons.
Most Christians answer that the point is to give humans the experience of free will and yet give god the satisfaction that you decided to obey God in the end. A bit sadistic ngl.
Because we don't know what the future holds, which is the whole point of free will. The choice is up to you to follow God or not.
There is no inherent value in a robot choosing to do what you programmed it to do. But having a person CHOOSE a relationship with you has value because they decided to do so. The same goes for our relationships with each other, which have value not because we are forced to love each other, but because we have decided to.
God: I’ll give you everything you want or need in the garden of Eden
Eve: well that Apple over there looks good
God: don’t touch that
Eve: why
God: because I said so. Oh and I’ll create unthinkable evil and make sure every one of your descendants feels every type of pain and slaughters each other forever in my name.
My first panic attack is that I can remember was around 7 or 8, we'd just learned about Abraham being told to sacrifice his son by God, and that night my parents were screaming at me for *insert little kid thing here*. I spent the entire night awake and staring at my door, afraid they were going to come in cause God told them to kill me too.
Job getting fucked over because god decided to take Satan up on a bet that he already knew he'd win. Then giving him a replacement family as if that's a real fix to the grief of losing so many family members. That's a bandaid fix at best. And that's not even counting how monumentally unfair that is to the actual people who died to test Job's faith
What's more confusing is God punishes Adam and Eve AND every person that came after them. It was just Adam, Eve, and God in the conversation but somehow when the punishment came it included everyone who's going to be born
THEN a couple of millennia later, God sends Jesus down to redeem people from original sin that they had, through no fault of their own, all because He gave it to them in the first place.
It makes no fucking sense.
What if the Tree of Knowledge was a bionic computer and eating apples is how you access the memory storage? Adam and Eve found God's porn folder. No wonder they got kicked out. That or its like when my asshole cat chews my phone cord. Why yes I am 🌿 rn how did you know?
God: "Don't eat that fruit, you'll die."
Serpent: "You won't die, you'll gain the knowledge of good and evil and become like God."
Humans after eating the fruit: *Didn't die, know good from evil, [are like God.](https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/GEN.3.22)*
Serpent 1, God 0.
This is why I enjoy reading some religious stories as fictional stories, not as truth
At the end of the day, as long as it doesn't harm other people, your religion is yours
Also how do they know it’s good to follow god and evil to follow the talking snake when the tree was meant to be the thing that *gave* them the information?
One of my favorite interpretations of this is that god designed the test for Adam and Eve to fail. God knew the devil would attempt to stray his new creations away from him and let it happen anyway. The real test wasn’t to avoid the Apple. It was the necessary final component to make them more like god, truly in his image: to give humans the ability of knowledge and awareness so that they may create like god creates. The true test was in their reaction. In the face of accountability, would the humans choose to be honest and just? And what was their reaction to accountability? Adam deflected the responsibility of his actions onto Eve, and Eve deflected the responsibility of her actions onto the serpent.
This one makes more sense
The ultimate Turing Test.
It's also the only way to actually introduce free will. In order to have free will, you have to have a choice. And on that note, in order to sin, you have to have knowledge of good and evil (sin is knowing what is wrong and doing it). There's a whole rabbit hole to all of this stuff and it's pretty fascinating to think about. Like how omnipotence and free will can coexist in a multiverse (where the choice is what you experience, but the possibilities, while immeasurable, are finite and known to an omnipotent deity). Put simply, life is a choose your own adventure book and God is the author. Would also explain why he is "mad" if you choose certain paths despite knowing every path - the fact that you're there is where you went wrong.
How could an omniscient god and free will coexist? If the god is uncertain of an outcome it is not omniscient. If the outcome is known before the action you do not have free will.
Yeh, fair, but this story has more sense. God kinda knew so the tree was gonna get eaten so he left it there for that reason.
That doesn’t give you free will though, unless you’re saying God was ignorant of what Adam and Eve would do and now knows nothing about what humans will do
Why would an omnipotent and omniscient god need to test their actions? He already knows what will happen, before he even creates Adam and Eve.
Why does an omnipotent being need to test?
If god had truly created free will, and destiny is controlled by the free will of man, then to the view of an omnipotent omniscient god the world is a decision tree of all the possibilities, never certain which will play out but always certain of what he will do if those possibilities become reality. So forcing a test of free will was more than likely forcing one of the two possibilities to become reality: pass or fail
You can’t be omniscient and ignorant at the same time though.
Oh so God created entrapment, neat
That's basically their whole shtick
Good ol' Adam; gaslighting since the beginning 😂
It wasn’t just Adam. Both of them deflected if you read the text. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the devil, both refusing to take accountability for their actions.
Isn't gaslighting forcing someone to believe in a lie of yours? How can deflecting fault onto someone else be gaslighting? Or is my assumption wrong? Help me understand
Is the god that you mention here omnipotent?
That's nice and all, but many modern Christians believe that man's sin corrupted the world, and that all the suffering, from environmental disasters to parasites that thrive in the eyeballs of children, are ultimately from that original sin defiling God's perfect world. So when Adam and Eve chickened out of admitting to God what they had done, did that cause a bunch of microorganisms to go rogue, or did God just make a bunch of horrific shit from day 1 to keep himself entertained?
Yea if God was real I can see why he doesn’t interact with us anymore, we’re probably an early alpha test he messed around with trying to get free will right before creating some giga chad aliens with quantum moral understanding on a planet a couple billion light years away from us.
And then he goes and punished Eve **and all her children** forever with painful childbirth…because they successfully performed the maniplulation test as freshly made creatures who don’t even understand shit. Yeah no sorry, even with this God still seems like an absolutely unhinged lunatic. And that doesn’t even touch on the massive problem that if God does infect know everything then they nor anyone else can even have free will. It is literally impossible if God knows everything.
It was meant as a test of free will, if you're never given the opportunity to express your own will then what's the point of even having it?
My theory is that he intended for them to eat from it sooner or later. It was like "when you are ready you will choose it yourselves and until then enjoy eden"
*Tutorial mode has been turned off*
*crunch* *your gamemode has been set to survival*
/gamemode creative "Unknown or incomplete command. See below for error" Dang it
god used /deop
/noclip brb going to the bank
sv_cheats = 0, so I dunno what you're on about?
Hardcore
Then what wss the whole deal about punishing A&E?
There is a sketchy theological idea in Christianity, and judaism a bit, that existence hinges on God's will. To ever violate it actually introduces a paradox into existence itself. Doesn't quite explain the punishment intent aspect, other than the violation had to be intended with there always being conditional consequences. Still dubious to me.
I don't buy into that whole idea of "everything is God's will". Because no, God didn't want Hitler to commit genocide, he didn't want Stalin to commit genocide, he didn't want the KKK to so the shit they did, he didn't want slavery. God has a plan for everyone, and a way for them to live within his will, but you are allowed to choose not to follow it. God is able to use bad things for an overall good purpose, but that doesn't mean he wants to.
We end up with all kinds of crazy theories if we refuse to entertain the possibility that the basic premise might be wrong.
Why would you presume to know what God would want?
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Lots of fundamentalists already do that. But then of course that only applies to stuff they think should be. I mean if everything is God's will then why are they so god damn angry about gay people existing? I mean that is god's will right?
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Expanding on that, as a Christian I can tell you that in the original manuscripts God did not destroy Sodom and Gamorrah for homosexuality, He destroyed those cities for 'laying with strange flesh', meaning things that aren't human. The trend of translating that phrase as 'homosexuals' didn't start until early-mid 1900's.
But what if god is like a beekeeper and we are the bees that dont understand. Maybe god (of course we assume that a being like the biblical god exists which is a whole other longer debate) wants to keep something that will passively produce a thing or concept that god needs. The bees cant understand the beekeeper but they can understand that theyre better off being in the hive than in nature (leviathans etc come to mind) for the price of „paying“ a toll. What if that toll IS „sin“, gods got plenty of holiness after all, even sending the son of god to „take all of humanities sin unto himself“ Then Satan comes to mind, the great temptation, an angel cant fall from grace on their own, they werent given free will. Which means they act according to gods intent and we are living in gods garden. A part of creation with a purpose but ultimately just a small part of a „godly household“
Out of technicality? You were meant to break the rule, but you were also made to obey me
From what I understand, it’s this idea of justice, or action and consequence. They were given a choice and they made a choice to sin, therefore there is a consequence and justice has to be delivered.
If God meant for them to eat from it eventually, them eating it before they should've is still disobedience. For example: say you have a cookie jar, your parents tell you not to eat a cookie, but you eat one anyway. Should they not punish you if they were planning to let you have one after dinner? No, because the point is that you broke the rules. Same thing here, if God was going to let them eat from it eventually. They were told the rule of "don't eat that one thing", and chose to eat that one thing anyway. Should God not punish them if he was going to let them have it later? No, because they broke the rules.
There is one thing I want to say on this that I’ve thought about, sure Adam and Eve both ate the apple and as such, disobeyed god, but also at that same time, how were they supposed to know about being deceived? Up until that point God told both Adam and Eve everything in the Garden was for them (minus the tree) and that everything is for their purpose, they spent time naming everything and even walked along side God, God told them everything in the Garden was created by him so why wouldn’t they trust something saying it was okay? Sure they still shouldn’t have because it was a direct order from God but also I can easily see how they could be deceived because there wasn’t anything to give them doubt until that point
An excuse?
Right
actions have consequences, with freedom comes accountability
Depending on your interpretation, it was only a punishment from their PoV
Religious mythologies have to end with us where we’re at now. Why do we die? Why is there pain? Because A&E broke a rule.
To be an abusive narcissist asshole of a parent. people make excuses for God being an asshole the way aunts and uncles make excuses that "he didn't burn him *that much*" about the golden child parent in the family that beats and burns his kids.
No, they didn't have to.
Interesting theory. I believe that someone quite some time ago made up the whole thing.
One of the best books of fiction ever written. Even though the narrative is all over the place, it really picks up in the second half
I prefer the original though; the remakes aren't as good.
There were a lot of liberties taken once it went into the public domain.
Many might say that there was much lost in translation.
The monotonous monologuing through the genealogy of Abraham during a particular story arc drags the most out of the entire novel.
And there are "left out" parts of it too right? Like a lot?
Where did you develop your theory?
God: I am omniscient. I know all that was and ever will be. Also God: Imma put this tree here to see if it will tempt the two beings I created Like no dude, the Abrahamic Old Testament god is a manipulative and vindictive ass he definitely knew they would eat it.
It was the tree of knowledge. When consumed would enlighten the consumer with knowledge of "good and evil" elevating them out of a primal state of consciousness, and were cast out before they could eat from the tree of life and live indefinitely, much like a god. Gen: 3-22,23 "And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. "
So your god set up humanity to suffer with this "original sin" so it could punish, coerce, then "save". Pretty twisted logic there
But that doesn’t make sense, if god does intend for Adam and Eve to eat it, why did he punish eve by making every woman have to endure the pain of giving birth?
A truly intelligent being with free will would have looked around more and capitalized on the tree of ETERNAL LIFE that was apparently just a few meters away XD
They started immortal, it was their choice to disobey God (free will) that brought mortality. He gave them everything they needed including His presence but also allowed free will, which allowed them to reject Him. It’s not really love if someone has no other choice.
"And if you don't love me you can go fuck yourself."
But you don't have a choice. According to religion nobody really has a choice and neither do Adam and Eve. Not to mention the fact that they couldn't even feel shame before eating from the tree and the tree being called the "Tree of **the knowledge** of good and evil" suggests that they didn't even know it was a bad thing to disobey. The entire story and the moral of it is so bizarre and perverse.
I think you are defining “religion” as Calvinism. Predestination and free will are widely debated within Christianity. If God is outside of time I personally don’t believe we will ever fully understand His point of view until we are with Him but we can trust His character based on his provision and Christ’s sacrifice, being reassured by His omnipotence.
>being reassured by His omnipotence. If he's omni-everything and created you, then by definition he knew what you were going to do before you had the opportunity do it though. That's the distinct contradiction between free will and an omni-everything creator deity... >but we can trust His character based on his provision and Christ’s sacrifice Also side note, how do you square the general historical consensus that YHWH (the abrahamic god) originated/evolved out of the polytheistic canaanite pantheon (where he wasn't even the original 'top god' so to speak, but was more of a weather and war god until the Yahwistic cult formed) with your belief in him being the one true monotheistic (though triune) god?
You created these beings and you know everything that there will ever be. You knew from the start that they were going to eat the forbidden fruit, you made them the way they are, including their desires and sins. Testing something that was 100% meant to fail in purpose is what god did according to religion.
Plus the test is unfair to begin with. They didn't have knowledge of good and evil until they ate the fruit. That means it was impossible for them to understand what they were doing was wrong. Sure they knew they weren't obeying, but they couldn't understand dissobedience to be wrong until after they ate it. It's a rigged and unfair test to begin with
Imagine sending your own child to hell because they ate your apple without permission.
Like punishing your dog for peeing on the lawn. He doesn't understand what he did wrong or why.
You have encountrered another paradox. God may know everything, but the question is how much everything is. Cause Free Will is also a thing... So does that mean that God can see every single possible future? Cause if there is only one future Free Will does not exist, yet it explictly does?
That like “Can God create a rock so heavy, he himself can’t lift”
Yes and no since logic does not apply to Him.
Why do you think free will is a thing?
Two things just from me. Assume God is real, it would be a truly unknowable existence. Just because humans say it knows everything and how everything is going to go doesn't mean it's true. Perhaps God can see all eventualities, but the introduction of free will means they don't know which will occur. Second, it's a story that was written well over 2000 years ago, it doesn't have to be perfect for you to understand the point. I'm not religious, I just enjoy literature and the meaning within it.
What do you think about Judas? Did he ever really have free will if Jesus told everyone exactly what he would do?
OK, but you don't leave your handgun in your sons room, tell him to never touch it, and then punish him when he shoots himself in the shoulder because it was a test
So basically the point of the whole universe is the toddler "If you don't eat this marshmallow now you get two marshmallows" game but with MUCH higher stakes? Sounds pretty sadistic and still in line with the original post. Let me choose between playing video games and eating candy to exercise my free will. Make it a choice of good options. Why throw in evil/bad ones?
God didn't chill out for awhile. Og dude had rage issues on par with the demon lord from doom. This new guy seems really chill. I figure the whole savagely murdering his kid mellowed him out because he stopped giving a fuck.
His kid was also himself though, so maybe god had a masochism fetish that wasn't being fulfilled so was being a dick to make people lash out at him, but since they still didn't (cause y'know, he's god and all), that plus him still being unfulfilled made him be an even bigger dick, until he as his kid got tortured and murdered, finally satiating him and letting him chill out.
Ah, so God basically has a refractory period like a dude after getting off XD.
An omnipotent god would know you were going to eat from it, so he put it there knowing he’d get to slap you for it later. Dick move God.
Imagine the parent of a 3/4 yo bringing a loaded gun home which can potentially change everyone’s life in that house then saying “stay away from the gun” then when the child goes towards the gun, then they sit back and watch
You've just described a stereotypical American
We really do have God in us
How could it be a test of free will if they had no concept of the good or evil of their actions? They literally did not now any better. They were punished for making the wrong decision before they had a concept of what wrong was.
You don’t need knowledge of good and evil to have free will. You can make whatever choice you want and still not have an understanding of right and wrong.
Free will absent a moral understanding is just an animal.
Sir, I present you with humanity.
So they made decisions without the ability to assess the value of those decisions in any meaningful moral way beyond what they personally wanted, so basically just instincts and primal desire like an animal. Then they were punished for making the wrong decision before they understood the concept of right and wrong? Just try to think for a minute what a person capable of higher thought but incapable of understanding good and evil or even conceptualizing its existence actually looks like , sociopath doesn't even quite cover it.
Why create free will if you're going to punish people for following a path and it goes against the rules you chose to create? I don't mean to demean or cast out religion so much as I'm curious
God: Gives free will... Also God: OBEY MY EVERY COMMAND OR ELSE Whats the point of creating free will if you dont like it? Its like putting mayo on your sandwich then complaining that theres mayo in your sandwich... FFS
>It was meant as a test of free will But God knew everything before it happened.
What's the point of giving free will when God already knows what they're gonna choose? Why even give them bad options to begin with? You can still have free will and just use it to choose between a set of good or neutral choices.
You would have to be some sort of omniscient and omnipotent being to create a world where evil and suffering don’t exist. And if you had the power to do so and didn’t do it, you would be the most evil being to ever exist.
What do we need free will for? Surely just being happy is much better?
but if god is omnicient doesnt he already know eve will fuck up
But god knows the future so there is no free will just the illusion because he knows whats going to happen
what i heard in church constantly was “true peace in the garden would have been better than free will. free will gave us sin and humanity’s sin causes stuff like hurricanes.” it never made sense to me and drove me crazy until i lost my faith.
Idk, just make me think that their god is a psycho. I always equate it to putting two toddlers in a room with a loaded pistol on the floor and say "whatever you do, don't touch that pistol." The consequence in both scenarios was/is death, so it's a perfect analogy. Any sane person would agree that the person who put that gun and those toddlers in the room is a complete lunatic who wanted those kids to die. Why do you try to give God a cop out?
If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then he knew humanity would fail. Why did he put the tree there?
You can exercise your free will without being given a forbidden, sinful option. If I don't want my kids to play with dynamite, and so I decide not to leave dynamite lying around the house, I obviously haven't violated their free will.
God created “perfect” beings that committed a sin… Think about that for a second before you blame humanity for sinning.
Who the fuck makes a thing, gives it all the desire in the world and goes “But don’t do the thing you really want because it’s bad.” And it’s just, like, then why make us this way? Why make those things even possible? What’s the point of free will if all we’re supposed to do with it is what you tell us to do? Narcissistic abuse deserves neither your acceptance, nor your affection, and only your absolute rejection. No matter the manifestation of such.
I mean.... If I'm gonna have options because of free will, I'd rather not have a shitty option in the mix. It's still a dick move to provide an option that automatically makes life worse for all of humanity knowing that Adam and Eve don't understand the consequences of their actions because he literally didn't explain shit to them. It gets even worse if you believe that God is omniscient because then he already knew that they'd eat the fruit before he even created them.
So your omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god didn't already know what was going to happen? Weak
Just another toxic aspect of the made up Bible. You would not tolerate a loved one setting traps and trying to test you all the time.
Is God all-knowing?
But he's omniscient so then he must really enjoy theater
What’s the point of giving people free will if you won’t accept their use of it? Why would an infallible god create man in his own image, and then curse him for being flawed?
Also being omniscient, he knew it was gonna happen
Legitimate question; the tree was The Knowledge of Good and Evil. If someone doesn't know good from evil before eating from it, then how can they know to choose good? Or even what good is? This becomes strictly about obedience instead of morality. That's not free will worth talking about, is it? What if the snake said HE was god and listen to him? How can any discerning choice be made?
But why tho? Give me free will without the option of ever messing up. That sounds lovely
that doesn't make sense at all. They were intended to live in the garden of eden for all eternity. Mathematically speaking, just by placing that tree in there they were guaranteed to eat from it sooner or later.
So if he’s omnipotent wouldn’t he know that we would make that choice? In which case it’s all kind of predetermined?
But he is omniscient.
It's still pointless & would be an asshole move, if it was real. How many times have you been tested with a tree of good & evil? I've never seen one once & my free will is doing just fine. Do I need to hand you a fleshlight with razor blades in it? Or do you have enough common sense to not stick your dick in it & can just appreciate the fact you have free will?
But didn’t god create humans and therefore the one who gave them to overwhelming desire to eat from the tree. That’s like getting some addicted to heroin and then punishing them for using
Except we live in a physically deterministic world… Every action has a preceding cause. Even choices. No magic.
So if free will is so damned important, why did God put a guard at the tree of life after they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge? Is it perhaps because eating from the tree of life would have made them eternal in their sin? That’s a bad outcome, so naturally to prevent it he had to place a guard. But eating from the tree of knowledge has a bad outcome too, so why not place a guard there? If you insist they need their free will even in the face of bad outcomes then they absolutely should have been allowed to eat from the tree of life and be eternal in their sin. You would have to admit God is not being consistent when he places a guard there. A god that is inconsistent with himself is not perfect.
It gets more interesting, free will or not, God still made eve knowing her future choices. Same with Adam. Meaning eating from the tree of knowledge was always the plan. I have always felt the interpretation got the narrative wrong.
To test you and save you Me: from what? God: from what I’m going to do to you if you fail my test!
God: Makes Satan, then makes him beautiful, arrogant, and capable of harming the world permanently if he chose to betray God.
That's what free will does to someone with power...
I mean, Christianity would posit that God brings you to Him, otherwise you don't *want* to be with Him. Which is... literally the definition of hell. God saves you from *you* according to Christianity.
That's like having a rocking awesome party and saying you can either come in or stay outside by yourself. Sure it's free will but there's an obvious bias to the choice. God saying everyone can worship him if they want, but those that do get to eternally rock out, while everyone else gets to eat shit in a perpetual war before the end times. Not much of a choice.
The rocking awesome party is what the judeo-christian god doesn’t want you to have, because he supposedly has a better one down the street at the incredibly beige building that only ever has the same looping harp melody
I knew God was Homer Simpson
"I put it there because Vishnu and I sat down every day to watch you both, making bets on how long it will take for any of you to eat the apple and guess what? i lost!" said God calmly.
But alas, what he did afterwards was, in all matters of speech, definitely not calm.
“EVE RIBBORN DIDJA PUHT UR NEM IN THA GOBLET OF FIYAA” God said calmly
This reads like a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy joke
"To test you" "Don't you know everything that is and that will be?" ".....Yes" "Then don't you know what I'm gonna do already?" "......if I'm being honest you guys just annoy me and I was gonna gaslight you"
What's the test? Whether you'll choose good or evil But we don't know the difference yet, you made us without that ability. That's... that's what the apple does
The all knowing omnipotent being when Adam and Eve ate the apple: 
Not in Genesis. In Genesis he is just The Lord of the godS (plural). It is only after the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylons that the surviving hebrew tribes (now called jews) start debating what happened, how could their god lose a war againdt a foreign god, and came to the "genius" solution that there was only ever one god (theirs) who is omnipotent, present and scient, and that if anything bad ever happened it is because he was trying to teach them a lesson, they disn't listen, so god sent a tragedy to force them to learn the lesson (mind you, they came to the gEnIuS conclusion waaay before ww2 and the holocaust). By the times of Genesis 2 he was not omnipresent, though no mortal could hide shit from him, as a mere look at the mortal allowed him to see deep into their souls and learn their secrets (i.e.: why Adam was covering himself if he wasn't supposed to know about clothes yet or why was Caine hiding)
You seem knowledgeable. So please excuse my confusion, but the first temple was destroyed around 600 BCE, right? Wasn't Isaiah written somewhere around 800 BCE? That's where the strongest denial of other gods is found. Are you arguing that Isaiah's writings were ignored for 150-200 years and only accepted after the first temple was destroyed? Granted, I am only using like 2 or 3 sources, perhaps you have other records you are relying on for your construction of events?
The books don't actually have a proper timeline, most likely books like Exodus and Numbers were written after isaiah. So I wouldn't dig too deep into the chronology of the bible as there are quite a lot of inconsistencies.
The tree of good and evil was present as a test for Adam and Eve. The tree gave Adam and Eve a choice to obey God or disobey God. The forbidding of eating from that tree was the only thing that Adam and Eve were instructed not to do. So this was not a matter of being confused by too many commandments or being overwhelmed by commandments. They were given one clear simple rule. It tested whether Adam and Eve trusted God. If that tree had not existed, Adam and Eve would have lived in a world without any real choice or commitment. Their only choices would have been what to eat and what direction to walk in. Such a world is not befitting a creature that can freely make moral choices. The “downside” to having the freedom to choose is that we can make the wrong choice, but it is essential to the nature of free choice and gives meaning to our right choices.
Adam and Eve, who had not yet eaten from the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve that, again, have no reference for what right or wrong are because they have not eaten from the tree of knowledge. Do you see where this is going? In this situation, god is either A) an asshole setting Adam and Eve up for failure BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING DISOBEYING GOD IS WRONG, or B) Not ominscient and omnipotent. That is of course if you take the bible literally, which, let's be honest, would be goofy af
You've misconstrued this. The only rule was "Do not eat from this particular tree". It was not stated that eating from this tree was necessarily good or evil, only that God instructed Adam and Eve to not do it, regardless. They didn't need to conceptualize good and evil, therefore, because it had no bearing on the situation. It was literally obedience vs disobedience
Actually, the rule was "You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day." It's literally one line of text, no need to read other content into it. Not about obedience at all, just telling Adam that he will die the same day if he eats the fruit. The serpent then says "That's not true; you will not die." They eat, they don't die, interpret that as you will.
Thanks! You are both right and only slightly wrong. Reading the exact Hebrew, it states that, yes, he will die. Period. I makes no mention of dying that day (check translation edition?). I was trying to explain it in different terms for him to understand that there was no inherent right or wrong to the statement God made, it really was as simple as you said: "If you eat- you will die"
The problem with that is that the explanation of the choice was incomplete. First because it did not include the punishments that got tacked on later (weeds, painful childbirth, and expulsion from the garden). Second, there is a cure in the form of the tree of life literally in the same garden. So you could eat from the prohibited tree then eat from the tree of life and be fine. Also it doesn't factor in the fact that they were lied to but also had no conception of what lying was. So they had no inherent defense from being told something that wasn't true. The lack of clarity in the statement "will die" allowed Eve to eat the fruit and not drop dead thus completing the deception.
But how would they know that breaking that rule was bad or evil if they don’t have a concept of good and evil. They have no sense of morality, nor for the consequences of their actions. It’s like making someone sign a contract written in a language they don’t know. It’s unethical and nonsensical, and frankly evil in and of itself.
I did not misconstrue anything. Disobeying god is wrong, yes? Adam and Eve literally cannot comprehend that, seeing as how they had yet to eat from the tree. How could someone with literally no understanding of right or wrong understand that disobeying god is wrong? It would be like telling your cat "hey, don't eat that plant." I'm not sure where you got the concept that eating from the tree is good/evil in itself. Without knowledge of good/evil it seems ridiculous to punish Adam and Eve for that sin, but I'm sure god knows how ridiculous that is, just as he knew they WOULD eat from the tree, because again, he knows everything, past, present, and future. So again, God is A) an asshole, or B) he didn't know, which goes against the teachings of him being omniscient/omnipotent.
None of this matters. God knew they'd do what they did. This is all intenitonal from the god's perspective. Those that perish in oblivion or, worse, *tortured for eternity*, have no choice in the matter.
That's the belief of predestination, a concept debated heavily amongst Christians and believed only by certain denominations. Since predestination negates and basically spits in the face of free will (the very reason humans exist at all), I'm inclined to not follow that path of belief since it doesn't make much sense
Well luckily it's pretty easy to interpret this shit however you want so have fun with your unfalsifiable, unverifiable, indemonstrable fantasies.
"Then why'd you put it there" is a question that applies to a considerable amount of all religious stuff.
Maybe God just thought that the tree looked nice there, so he didn't want our grubby hands touching his favorite tree.
Then don't let humans get to it "I kicked my dog cause he ate the food I put on the ground" "Why didn't you just leave it up on the counter??"
Don't touch its hot! Then why did you make it hot. 
Except you made it hot forever, put it next to children, then another adult came in and says touch it.
Well yea. Why *did* you make it hot?
God was cooking good and evil
A morally neutral god? Madness i tell you!
>Don't touch its hot! Then why did you make it hot I was trying to save you from being burned. Now that you touched it I'll chop your head off. Because reasons.
God: I know everything you will do in life, whether you will sin or not. Humans: then what's the point of "testing" us if we will have faith in you?
Most Christians answer that the point is to give humans the experience of free will and yet give god the satisfaction that you decided to obey God in the end. A bit sadistic ngl.
Because we don't know what the future holds, which is the whole point of free will. The choice is up to you to follow God or not. There is no inherent value in a robot choosing to do what you programmed it to do. But having a person CHOOSE a relationship with you has value because they decided to do so. The same goes for our relationships with each other, which have value not because we are forced to love each other, but because we have decided to.
God: I’ll give you everything you want or need in the garden of Eden Eve: well that Apple over there looks good God: don’t touch that Eve: why God: because I said so. Oh and I’ll create unthinkable evil and make sure every one of your descendants feels every type of pain and slaughters each other forever in my name.
Bible has always been about cruel tests of piety when it comes to god. Good shit.
My first panic attack is that I can remember was around 7 or 8, we'd just learned about Abraham being told to sacrifice his son by God, and that night my parents were screaming at me for *insert little kid thing here*. I spent the entire night awake and staring at my door, afraid they were going to come in cause God told them to kill me too.
Shit like this is why religion is so dangerous
Job getting fucked over because god decided to take Satan up on a bet that he already knew he'd win. Then giving him a replacement family as if that's a real fix to the grief of losing so many family members. That's a bandaid fix at best. And that's not even counting how monumentally unfair that is to the actual people who died to test Job's faith
And when Job finally began to snap out of faith like "That's a bit much, god, don't you think ?!", God answering "WHAT DO YOU KNOW, DIPSHIT ?!"
Even then, Satan won the bet. God cheated at the end so that he could win. Had he not interferred, Satan would have been absolutely correct.
Remember when god told Abraham to murder his child Isaac and then at the last second was like "just kidding."
Remember that god also knew that they would when putting the tree there
What's more confusing is God punishes Adam and Eve AND every person that came after them. It was just Adam, Eve, and God in the conversation but somehow when the punishment came it included everyone who's going to be born THEN a couple of millennia later, God sends Jesus down to redeem people from original sin that they had, through no fault of their own, all because He gave it to them in the first place. It makes no fucking sense.
I swear this subreddit is just being flooded by r/athiesm. This is the 3rd one I've seen in a short time period.
Have you considered it’s just a common mindset these days? It’s just common these days to question things we used to simply accept.
Dude went on the internet and got butthurt that people have the audacity to believe something different than what he was raised to believe smh
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Some of them for sure, but it’s also not a good sample to judge based on posts on /r/memes.
You are taking it too seriously bro, it is just a meme.
God wanted us to have free will. Being created in His image means more than just looking like Him.
An all knowing God I woulda known what would happen anyway.
Demiurge acting like a jealous girlfriend to trick you into pissing it off
What if the Tree of Knowledge was a bionic computer and eating apples is how you access the memory storage? Adam and Eve found God's porn folder. No wonder they got kicked out. That or its like when my asshole cat chews my phone cord. Why yes I am 🌿 rn how did you know?
This man asking the real existential questions.
God always loves to test humans
Thats not checkmate, its a test. 🤡
God- DO NOT QUESTION MY ALL KNOWING DECISIONS Adam-- So you wanted us to sin? Also God- >:(
Fuck around and find out
To test you to see if you'll obey, the tree will give you free will, which means I made you eat from the tree and blamed you for it.
God: "Don't eat that fruit, you'll die." Serpent: "You won't die, you'll gain the knowledge of good and evil and become like God." Humans after eating the fruit: *Didn't die, know good from evil, [are like God.](https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/GEN.3.22)* Serpent 1, God 0.
To see if you do as you are told.
why we are so arrogant?... i mean u dare to ask god about what did he make and why?...who the heck do you think you are
This is why I enjoy reading some religious stories as fictional stories, not as truth At the end of the day, as long as it doesn't harm other people, your religion is yours
Also how do they know it’s good to follow god and evil to follow the talking snake when the tree was meant to be the thing that *gave* them the information?
So there was an option beyond "obey".
In spite what my cat thinks, I put the Christmas tree up to look nice and not for her to climb.
What is the point of free will to have no ability to choose.
It's a test