On this apple and tree thing from the Garden of Eden.

Been thinking about this for a while so I started investigating. What did I investigate?

According to the bible, it was Eve that took an apple from a forbidden tree. I wasn't certain on the kind of tree - what was its specific function? On http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2010/06/29/satan-the-fall-good-evil-fruit-edible I found that a) the apple wasn't necessarily an apple, and b) that this was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The first part isn't particularly interesting, the second one is.

Does this mean that the christian god doesn't want people to know the difference between good and evil?

Interesting, since the christian faith (and many others) now use that as their hammer to pound in their wisdom. I perused a bit more and on http://www.creationtips.com/tree_of_knowledge.html I found:

God told Adam he could freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden except one — “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” If Adam ate from this tree, God told him, he would die (Genesis 2:16,17).

We all have heard that Adam and Eve got kicked out, they didn't die by eating from it.

Does this mean that their god told lies in trying to scare them?

Apparently Adam and Eve eating from that tree is the "original sin", the one every baby up to now carries along from the moment it's born, according to old-fashioned christian convictions. But lying is a sin too, according to christianity, so wasn't their god the first one to sin? Looking at http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-lying-sin.html:

The Bible is clear that lying is a sin and is displeasing to God.

It becomes a bit confusing here, but most religions share that trait. So god lied to Adam and Eve and according to what one might assume 'his own words' he became displeasing to himself.

This "original sin" is something that irks me as well. I'm not too clear on how long ago this Adam and Eve/Garden of Eden affair happened. Let's say 6000 years ago, to please the people who adhere to the Bible instead of proper evolution (in which case it would be several million years ago). Still, 6000 years is a long time, isn't it? Wouldn't it be time to forgive that mishap? Apparently not, since we still hear this original sin thing. Which brings me to this same bible again:

How do we forgive when we don't feel like it? How do we translate the decision to forgive into a change of heart?

We forgive by faith, out of obedience. Since forgiveness goes against our nature, we must forgive by faith, whether we feel like it or not. We must trust God to do the work in us that needs to be done so that the forgiveness will be complete.

(read all about it at http://christianity.about.com/od/whatdoesthebiblesay/a/bibleforgivenes.htm)

So god will do the work on forgiveness because 'forgiveness goes against our nature'. I'm not going to touch that one, this gets worse with each page. Still, god does the forgiving. Except for that one apple which wasn't supposed to teach people the difference between good and bad. Wow. Imagine the mess we'd be in if there was indifference between good and bad. Saved someone from drowning? Who cares. Shot someone? Who cares. Uhm... somehow this reflects large parts of the world... there is a lot of indifference about good and bad. I'm probably too weird to understand all this. I'm not even going to try...