Why would God put the TREE of the KNOWLEDGE of GOOD AND EVIL around POTENTIALLY SINFUL PEOPLE?

Because god is a bastard who deliberately orchestrated the eternal damnation of humankind.

Adam and Eve and all mankind have free will. They can choose life or death:

(Deuteronomy 30:19, 20) I do take the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you today, that I have put life and death before you, the blessing and the malediction; and you must choose life in order that you may keep alive, you and your offspring.

The Tree of Life symbolized as a reminder that their dependence is from God their creator. As long as they obeyed they would live. Once they disobey, which they did when they took that bite, they will die. Immediately after that they started to die. You can say they chose death.

Well, yeah, good point. If you take the details of any myth seriously, instead of looking for a non-literal interpretation, it makes no sense.

But of course, practically any literature beyond "See Dick Run" is that way. Once you progress to something more advanced (say, Dr. Seuss), you're reading material for which a literal interpretation is nonsense--just a way of missing the point.

What the Garden of Eden story is describing is the human condition. The knowledge of good and evil messes us up, because knowledge (in any context except very recent, technical applications) is familiarity, not discernment. We have a capacity for abstraction and a moral sense, so we recognize the categories "good" and "evil," but we are naturally no good at sorting decisions according to those categories. When we try to apply our abstract reasoning to the problem, we generally come up with self-serving arguments that something evil is really good.

The story DOES make sense in the context of the theory of evolution, because that theory describes how our brains came to function as they do. The "fruit of the tree" in the myth is simply the capacity our species developed. The myth is a shorthand description of the trouble it causes. The rest of the Bible is a collection of writings in many forms, accumulated over many years, focused on addressing one simple question: How do we best deal with the way our species is messed up?

“Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don’t eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting ‘Gotcha.’ It wouldn’t have made any difference if they hadn’t eaten it.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you’re dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won’t give up. They’ll get you in the end.”

-- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

People continue to blame God for the rebellion of the first humans. Let me ask, if I may. Let's say you had a young child. You give your child, everything he wants within reason. Now you love Chocolate Cake. You Buy a piece of chocolate cake from the bakery and warn the child that it is YOURS. He can have anything else, but must leave that piece of cake for you or else he'll suffer the consequences. He eats your cake despite the warning and gets a spanking. Whose fault was that? Were you not supposed to bring the cake into the house in the first place? Do you not have a right to establish boundaries and rules for your children?

Tell me. Adam & Eve could eat from any other tree whatsoever. What were they deprived of?

It was to give us a free will to choose from right and wrong.

In the beginning of the Old Testament, it states that they chose to eat the forbidden fruit, and then they knew good and evil. God wanted us to know Good and evil so we have a free will and can understand life, and aren't like robots.

If all you were aware of was good, if someone said something that you got offended by, you couldn't politely tell them to stop in a way that makes sense. You wouldn't be able to say something like, "I got sad and insulted when you do this." We'd have a spirit that has no understanding and no meaning in our lives.

Christians believe people in God's will are meant to know good and evil, but they aren't meant in God's will to do evil. They believe in salvation for our sins. Drama is for actions and sin, but just knowing good and evil makes life more meaningful and valuable, and you tend to appreciate life more. It is sin in my view that causes us to be separated from God, which is why I believe we need salvation for our sins.

In my view, God already knew spiritually who would be part of the tree of life knowing good and evil from the tree of knowledge, and part of God spiritually. So the temptation was just a way in my view for bad spirits to go where they spiritually should be.

P.S.- I agree with fireball, except I wouldn't call it a test because God is all knowing and all powerful. It is a way of having certain spirits going where they should be. Clean spirits, according to Christians such as myself, believe that if you don't have a clean spirit and accept sin as not meant to happen in the father's will as part of the father, you won't see his kingdom in heaven.

Good question and ask further - Because of His omnipotence God KNEW in advance that they would eat of the tree, so it was not a "test" and it was not about a "potential" eating. it was all about an evantuality that had to occur.

To me, there is only one general answer that is consistent with the entirety of the story. And the answer is that it was always part of God's plan to have humanity obtain knowledge and enter an existance of accountability.

Think of the common biblical analogy of humanity as God's children -- we want our children to be independant and be accountable, but we also want to protect them. So we tell them "no" to independance that we think they are not ready for, yet understand that at some time they will be ready and will take that step - possibly even if we have not yet lifted the "no".

So God created the system in which at some point humanity would take the step to independance and accountability, but the step would be postponed until humanity was ready.

This being His plan makes sense to me because we know from the rest of the Bible that God cares most about how we treat each other. that biblical story is that we are accountable for how we treat others, and it gives us guidance as to what proper treatment of others is. The entire Jewish bible (the "old" testament) is a book-ends story of humanity starting in a place of well-kept but ignorant existance, moving into a state of knowledge and accountability, and culminating at the time of the messiah with the ability to maintain that knowledge and still reach a state of life without strive and war etc. All part of the plan from the beginning.

Life without this knowledge and accountability would ahve been life without meaning. Meaningful existance stems from the quest to reach our potential in how to treat each other. That is to me a fundamental teaching from the Jewish Bible.

The contrary view of a "fall" etc does not adequately take into account the purposeful provision of the tree in the face of absolute certainty that they would eat of it.

The story is allegorical, not literal. It is a way to understand God's plan for humanity in a meaningful quest to reach our potentiality of being "very good". It has been twisted however into seeing this beautful and meaningful existance in only negative ways.

God gave man a free will, to be a moral agent you have to exercise that character to act responsibly and morally. Without that "Tree" Both Satan and Man could charge guard with fault with it - it makes man's culpability his own.

God placed adam and eve in the garden of eden...a place of no death and no birth.

Every person who has lived or will live in the furture...had to have a chance to come down and gain a body......be it 90 seconds or 90 years.In order to cause adam and eve to leave perfect happiness...they had to bring about this fall on their own.

had they never eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil...they would have remained there forever. because if you remember...the tree of life was there also. had they eaten of the tree of good and evila dn then went over and ate of the tree of life...they would have remained in the garden...and we who needed to coem down after them...would never have been able to. We would have missed our chance of living a life and proving to God that we deserve to return to him in heaven.

thus..................as soon as God knew that adam and eve ate of the fruit...he came down and placed a cheribum.....an angle to guard the tree of life......and then forced adam and eve into the world which was created for them....long before.

adam and eve could not bear children....they could have sex.....they had no sex organs in the garden.......so mankind could not happen while they were there.

God knew that satan would focus on eve..........as women are always wanting more.

Thus eve fullfilled her purpose of creation....having a need to do that which she was advized not to.

remmeber now........eating of a fruit is not a sin.............it was a trangression.That trangression did not place them in bad light...it placed them upon the earth.....to bring about mankind.

God was not angry with adam and eve...by their eating of the fruit......he was then able to cause them to live upon the earth and to be able to bear children and thus to bring about the eternal life and immortality of man.

the garden was a playground......and not a place to be in forever......

jean

Haven't you ever seen that picture of that huge farmer's field that has acres and acres of just crops and one lone tree in it, and that's where the plane wrecked into?

FIRST OF ALL GOD MADE MAN FOR HIS PLEASURE, HE WALKED AND TALKED WITH ADAM IN THE GARDEN IN THE EVENINGS. GOD TOLD ADAM TO HAVE DOMINION OVER THE ANIMALS AND THE LAND AND NOT TO EAT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL FOR WHEN THAT HE DID SURELY ADAM WOULD DIE.

NOW GOD MADE EVE OUT OF ADAM'S SIDE AS A HELPMEET. AND FROM THE GET GO OF MAN AND WOMAN THERE WAS ALWAYS FREE WILL. BECAUSE GOD WANTED HIS CREATIONS TO WORSHIP HIM BY CHOICE NOT LIKE THE ANGELS WHO WERE MADE TO WORSHIP HIM.

WHEN THE SNAKE, WHICH ADAM WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE DOMINION OVER, CAME ALONG AND TEMPTED EVE, ADAM SHOULD HAVE REBUKED THE SNAKE AND TOLD HIM TO LEAVE,BUT HE DIDNT. AND ADAM WAS WITH EVE WHEN SHE PARTOOK OF THE FRUIT AND HE SHOULD HAVE TOLD HER NO THAT SHE SHOULDN'T GO AGAINST GOD BUT HE DIDNT. SO THEN ADAM PARTAKES OF THE FRUIT OFFERED TO HIM BY HIS WIFE SO THEREFORE SINCE ADAM DIDN'T OBEY GOD BY TAKING DOMINION OVER WHAT GOD TOLD HIM TO, AND BEING THE PRIEST OF HIS HOUSEHOLD WHICH GOD GAVE HIM THE GARDEN AS HIS HOUSEHOLD THEN ADAM'S HANDS WERE ALREADY SINFUL BEFORE EVE EVER TOOK OF THE FRUIT. HE JUST DIDNT UNDERSTAND THAT YET, NOT UNTIL HE PARTOOK OF THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE TREE OF GOOD AND EVIL HIMSELF, THEN SIN WAS MADE KNOWN TO MAN.

SECONDLY, GOD MADE ADAM FOR HIS PLEASURE AND GAVE ADAM HIS OWN WILL TO CHOOSE. SINCE THERE WERE NO LAWS BUT TWO, HAVE DOMINION OVER THE CREATURES THAT GOD HAD MADE AND DON'T EAT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL

GOD WANTED PEOPLE TO WORSHIP HIM WILLINGLY. SO YES HE KNEW WHAT WAS TO HAPPEN BY PUTTING THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE GARDEN AND HE KNEW THAT LUCIFER WAS GOING TO TEMPT THEM. BUT I WOULD SAY THAT GOD REALLY WANTED ADAM TO TAKE DOMINION AND DO WHAT HE WAS TOLD TO DO AND BE POWERFUL ENOUGH TO REBUKE THE DEVIL LIKE CHRIST DID LATER ON INTO THE FUTURE. GOD KNEW THAT THERE WERE TWO SIDES TO EVERY COIN AND YOU CAN'T HAVE GOOD WITHOUT BAD AND THE GOOD WAS THE LIFE GIVING BREATH THAT GOD BREATHE INTO ADAM AND THE BAD WAS THE WILL OF MAN AS MAN WHICH WAS IMPERFECT.

Because God loves us and gave us free will. Way to be ungrateful.