When they ate of the tree, their very nature changed. It was natural for them to lie, cheat, steal, murder, rape, ect. Not that they necessarily did these things per se themselves, but they passed it down to their children. Before they would have never had any desire for these things.

An easier way to get to heaven when you die:

1: All will face god on judgement day or something (in bible somewhere). Therefore, you'll get close to him

2: god made man in his own image - (in genesis somewhere). Therefore, god also has testicles

3: On judgement day, when you face god, kick him in the testicles. When he keels over in pain hop the turnstile into heaven. People die every second and he'll be too busy judging them to notice.

But what knowledge did the Tree of Knowledge change? What knowledge was given?

It cant be knowledge of good and evil since they would of known its good to follow God and wrong/evil not to. If not there are other problems with the tree...


The way you have it ok... But i wouldn't call it a Tree of Knowledge anymore, it would be more a tree of our changing nature.

It gave the knowledge of the difference between good and evil. Before that, the only good and evil they knew was 1 commandment, Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil....

Yes, their very nature changed when they ate of that tree, by that changed nature, we became sinful and have knowledge of good and evil. Before that it all came naturally to do right in the sight of the Lord because Adam and Eve had a part of them called a Spirit which was living and able to commune with God. God revealed His desires to Adam and Eves Spirit and they obeyed. When sinned, their Spirit died and they were no longer able to commune with God on that level, causing them to make choices according to what feels good to them, leading to sin. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He raises that dead Spirit from the dead and we are again able to please God and be convicted of our sin. With that said, Christians still do sin because our very flesh is still sinful and will not be redeemed until the rapture of the Church.

No before the tree they knew following God was good and not evil. Which is all they knew after the tree. But this is going round and round so....



They would not have sinned if was natural not to.

I give though.

So before they ate the apple, it came naturally to them to obey god. But they disobeyed him anyway?

If we want to consider the Genesis account as literal then I think the question is: "Can God create beings that have agency".

This is the question that always rolls around in my mind when discussion of free will come up. The problem of God placing the tree in the garden is the classic example. If God placed the tree there knowing they would eat from it then how can any blame be attributed to man?

I think it would be great if man was created with agency but I am not sure...

Why would anyone say no to Christ's free gift of salvation is beyond me.

You could say the same thing about literally thousands of religions throughout the world and recorded history.

Free will doesn't need to come into it. It's a question of moral culpability. If you have no knowledge of whether it is good to obey an order, can you face moral condemnation for that choice?

And I think the answer is no. Morality is something we attribute to humans because of their cognitive ability and their understanding of consequence. We don't attribute morality to lions.

Even avoiding the comparison to non-human beingss, most legal systems have protocols in place for people mentally impaired - people that can't have understood the consequence of their action.

It's back to the problem of God's moral judgements being radically different to our own in modern society.

But those religions aren't backed up by the facts. Jesus Christ performed miracles, raised the dead, healed the sick, made the blind to see, walked on water, turned water into wine, fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, fulfilled hundreds of prophecies written hundreds of years before His birth, predicted His own death, burial and resurrection and then died and rose again, showing Himself to hundreds of people. So, no you couldn't say that of any other religion in history. Jesus Christ is the real truth.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil would be better understood as two trees imo. After they ate from the tree, in addition to hearing God's 'telepathic voice', they now heard Satan's and became confused. They couldn't tell right from wrong anymore. They now needed to become resurrected (to be sure again as to who's right).

Why did God create Satan, or the tree, if he knew they would be seduced by him and fall into this confused state? Well...perhaps heaven is an amazing place where thinking creates, and because of the multitude of beings, a person needs to have a firm grasp on reality, or else he could be a mess, and/or more easily subject other beings to their deluded perception.

In a way, Satan is a training tool who maximally exploits us until we arrive at GTO thinking, whether or not that's his intent. However, if we continue to listen to him, and emulate his selfish above the law mindset, we'll be executed along with him.

Your religion isnt backed up by facts either. None of the things you listed are facts.

You know this through faith. It is a mistake to present this information as modern fact that everyone should readily accept.

Christianity itself acknowledges it is faith based so it is probably best to stick with that interpretation.

Your question of moral culpability is different than what I am talking about (but also interesting). I am asking whether or not Adam and Eve actually had the ability to choose anything other than what they did.

Was the Genesis account a pre-written script or was there the capacity for a real choice.

Your question of culpability is one step beyond this. If in fact there was the ability for choice was there sufficient understanding to warrant culpability.

I think in response to your question most assuredly Adam and Eve had no clue about what the consequences would be. They had no context or experience to compare with.

In the case that they have free will, I still don't think God can blame them for their choice.

In the case that they don't have free will, God is even more to blame.

Thousands of eyewitnesses saw Him do these things. The Eye witnesses wrote of His miracles, Josephus wrote of Him, The Roman Historians Wrote of Him, other historians wrote of Him.

Do you believe that George Washington was the First President of the US?

Another interesting one ive heard brought up is what happens if they dont eat the fruit. Do their kids face the same temptation and their kids and so on and so on. Because if so failure seems inevitable, someone is going to eat it. So it would be a trap for humanity free will or not.

And if its the other way and them not eating means humans get a get out of jail free card. A reset would of been in order imo.

"Thousands of eyewitnesses saw Him" is part of the claim (re: miracles). Who are those eye witnesses?

A more similar question might be Do you believe that Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter?

There are historic accounts of Lincoln, and Washington, and Jesus, which might support that they existed, but do not support any supernatural claims about them.

Preface: Agnostic

Pardon the pun but I find taking the devil's advocate position against atheists or other agnostics to be much more stimulating than against Christians - which feels like low-hanging fruit.

I try to find the underlying logic in the Bible by not being a literalist and acknowledging the different interests and bureaucracy involved in the creation of it. I'm also hoping against hope to not just become worm food at the end of all this while realizing that may be the likelihood.

For a plausible but "Christian" take how's this?

Point 1) Serial killer while being possessed

Point 2) To accept Christ they would have to truly turn to Him in their heart as opposed to merely in show/verbally so most cited instances were fraudulent and is analogous to
so it could happen but doesn't. Just like in theory a man who steps over many people to achieve his billions and has an obvious love of money (a root of evil, not money but the love of it) could get to Heaven but won't.

Two points are separate explanations and both work in practice

Imagine we didn't have fossils - isn't a land of dinosaurs almost equally fantastical?

Were they in the equivalent of Heaven to begin with?

Before they had cut out the whole living and dying thing and now the world serves as the middleman? The GOE was literally Heaven on Earth?

Once they ate of the apple did the equivalent of mankind's training wheels fall off and we were on our own to make it back to heaven through faith and deeds. Basically show that we're worthy?

We were being nurtured by father as babes in spirit and now it was time to go on our own and let him watch his creation ... until we did so poorly He had to push the reset button?

Coming up for positions involving Adam and Eve is tough without being a literalist

We were made with a sense of morality we just didn't have to use it until we were on our own?

What if He thought we were no longer kids and was letting us have the house to ourselves for the weekend?

Anytime someone says "we can't understand God" that's your que to stop talking to them as discreetly but quickly as possible because you can't debate circular logic.

Is a parent always the good guy? The individual child may say 'no' but we know how that is.

This seems a bridge too far

Seems much more likely that the fruit represented sex. Notice that this was the Tree of Knowledge

What's the term in the Bible for people having sex?

If the fruit is sex the question is moot

Sex was inevitable, yes

A parent says 'don't have sex' ... but that day stil comes

If we had a sense of morality then what is the knowledge of good and evil that we lacked?

Then he made a gross error in judgement.