Is god evil

[osgart]

It's all in the interpretation of the story. Supposedly it was no mere apple. They had other trees to eat from. It wasn't just fruit though; it gave them the knowledge they desired to have. They could've ate from the tree of life instead and lived forever.

It's not about the mind, rather it's about heart's desires being good or evil. Everything of life and death was there for them to choose from. It was no mental trick. The test was for them to reveal their desires.

 

[Colt]

From what I see being said...
'in the beginning adam and eve would never die, suffer, etc if they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Instead of controlling them god gave them freewill to let them choose for themselves.

They knew the consequences yet chose(that free will thing) to eat the forbidden fruit. So from then on they experienced suffering, death, etc. because of the choice they made.

Was god evil or fair since they were allowed choices, not forced one way or the other?

If I lay an apple on the table and tell you don't eat that or you will die,, but you choose to eat it anyway and die..
Is that my fault? Does that make me evil? Or did you die by your own hand and choices?

There is much more to the story, but the result was/is the same. The wages of sin is death. Adam and Eve came from heaven to a world that was already fallen; the crafty beast was already evil, and the earth populated by evolved life. Death is normal for humans; it was specifically Adam and Eve who lost the use of the "tree of life" and eventually died from old age.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Death is normal for humans; it was specifically Adam and Eve who lost the use of the "tree of life" and eventually died from old age.

Of course, Almighty God knew that they would sin .. it was just a matter of time.

 

[Colt]

Of course, Almighty God knew that they would sin .. it was just a matter of time.

The Father knew it was a possibility that Eve and then Adam would default. Free will beings determine their own course. The Gods responds to our choices.

 

[blü 2]

Almighty God does not lie.
You can be sure that G-d taught no such thing !

If you're saying [he] made an honest mistake when [he] said if they ate the fruit they'd die the same day, I suppose that's possible ─ after all, in the story [he] can't even find Adam and Eve in the Garden. The argument could be that this is the start of the story when [he]'s still a prototype God with a few bugs in the design still to be ironed out.

It is a sin to disobey God.

Which one?

 

[wellwisher]

From what I see being said...
'in the beginning adam and eve would never die, suffer, etc if they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Instead of controlling them god gave them freewill to let them choose for themselves.

They knew the consequences yet chose(that free will thing) to eat the forbidden fruit. So from then on they experienced suffering, death, etc. because of the choice they made.

Was god evil or fair since they were allowed choices, not forced one way or the other?

If I lay an apple on the table and tell you don't eat that or you will die,, but you choose to eat it anyway and die..
Is that my fault? Does that make me evil? Or did you die by your own hand and choices?

If you look at the entire story, Eve and then Adam, did not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, until Satan gave them misinformation; fake news. Satan went after Eve first, with his fake news. She eats first. Women like to be told what they want to hear. This is called being charming and flattering. Guys lie to women since they know they will accept flattering lies and promises they cannot keep. Knowledge of good and evil is binary or 2-D as it being two faced or a hypocrite.

Eve buys into Satan's misinformation, then she helps to coax Adam to do the same thing, by reinforcing the fake news, with his choice making him feel insecure about being along, again. Before Eve, Adam was lonely in paradise and remembered that. He was willing to go along with Eve and Satan, then be alone and lonely again in paradise.

The sales pitch that led to the fall from paradise was based on Satan telling Eve that eating from the tree of knowledge would give her the power of a god, which was the ability to know good from evil. This knowledge, if true, would allow her to appease all her insecurities. Adam and Eve both ignored God's early warning, bought into the farm of misinformation, like many did during the Russian collusion delusion coup. This propaganda became the drum beat to force everyone to go along, or be singled out as an enemy that could now be mistreated. We have 20/20 hindsight in both cases to see similar dynamics. Making the midterms about abortion is about targeting Eve, first, since she is easier to coax with misinformation due to her insecurities.

Instead of relying on instincts and common sense; inner voice of the God who created and knew all, they allowed others; Satan to think for them; learned knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were the earliest modern humans, so I can see how they fell for it. But why do modern humans still do the same, given they had thousands of years of examples of what not to do?

One of the problems has to do with not learning from the past, due to a type of misinformation called revisionist history. Satan rewrote the future, based on bad information about God's ability to predict the future, even thought God was the one who created/creates the past, present and future. Instead, radical thinking tries to undermine common sense with seductive misinformation, that targets the ego. The result is history repeating itself, until a better choices need to be made.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

But you can't know the holocaust without experiencing it. All you can know about it now is facts about the holocaust. We're not talking about the ability to know the difference between good and evil. We're talking about biblical "knowing". It's intimate.

So I have to do evil to understand it?

The punishment was excessive so that God could be lenient later. That's the what the whole story is about. God wanted to setup a world where created beings ( who are finite and imperfect ) could make mistakes, repent, and receive mercy. It's a good system.

An unjust punishment for a crime is immoral. You agree it was excessive.

 

[jaareshiah]

The fall was all part of the plan.

God, whose name is Jehovah (see Isa 12:2, KJV), did not plan Adam's and Eve's disobedience, for that would make him just as guilty as they were, knowing full well that they would sin or "miss" the mark of perfect obedience.(Note: the word "sin" is from the Hebrew word chattath that means to "miss", as in missing when trying to reach a goal, way, mark; the Greek word is hamartia) When an engineer wants to see if a product he designed will work effectively, what does he do ? He tests it to see if it will do as hopes.

An engineer's testing is to find out if what he created would "meet specifications", which in the case of Adam and Eve did not, for perfect obedience was the goal. However, Adam and Eve were given "free choice", unlike say a mechanical product that is preprogrammed.

If, say a mechanic or auto technician were to knowingly place a defective part on a car, and it subsequently failed, he would be guilty. On the other hand, Adam and Eve were created perfect (Gen 1:31), with no flaws, so that if they failed the test, the fault would be their own.

They were both informed at Genesis 2:16, 17 of the consequences of death if they violated Jehovah's command to not touch "the tree of knowledge of good and bad", that established Jehovah's right to set moral boundaries for us as humans, who were created with a "built-in" conscience (Gen 1:26), sort of like a second person within ourselves that alerts us when we are about cross a moral boundary that we shouldn't cross, if it is trained right.

Note: the vast majority of mankind has never trained their conscience, for without intimately knowing Jehovah God, their conscience is basically working only "half-way" or just dead, and that is why there is so much moral corruption today, for Jehovah's archenemy Satan pushes the masses of mankind in "the wrong direction", misleading "the entire inhabited earth", Rev 12:9.

It was Satan the Devil (who also has free will) who initiated the rebellion in the garden of Eden some 6,000 years ago, seducing Eve into believing that she would not die if she ate from "the tree of knowledge of good and bad", convincing her that she could be her own "boss", setting her own moral standards as to what is "good and bad", what is right and wrong, with the words: "You certainly will not die. For God knows that in the very day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad", even though just seconds earlier, Eve told Satan that she was not even to touch "the tree of knowledge of good and bad" or else die.(Gen 3:1-5)

So, Jehovah placed a simple test before Adam and Eve, and allowed it to play out, and soon found out that they did not love him as their "heavenly Father", but became "narcisstists", lovers of themselves, which introduced sin into the world, so that Romans 5:12 says: "That is why, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned."

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Was that a punishment or just the result of eating it. Sort of like eating a poison fruit results in death.

Why put the tree there that could kill them? Would you put poisoned candy in a room with a person and tell them do not eat it because it will kill you? Why do that?

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

As I said, that was the result, not the punishment. The punishment for Adam and for Eve and the snake are given here, and these are probably blessings to an extent and meant for our benefit.
Gen 3:14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

Yes God punished Adam and eve for eating the apple.

 

[Messianic Israelite]

From what I see being said...
'in the beginning adam and eve would never die, suffer, etc if they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Instead of controlling them god gave them freewill to let them choose for themselves.

They knew the consequences yet chose(that free will thing) to eat the forbidden fruit. So from then on they experienced suffering, death, etc. because of the choice they made.

Was god evil or fair since they were allowed choices, not forced one way or the other?

If I lay an apple on the table and tell you don't eat that or you will die,, but you choose to eat it anyway and die..
Is that my fault? Does that make me evil? Or did you die by your own hand and choices?

Yahweh isn't evil. He always gives mankind a choice. Have faith in Him and His Word and live, or sin and die. Yahweh would be a liar if Adam and Eve didn't die, just as he would be a liar if he granted eternal life to those who violate His Laws. Yahweh is not a liar. He means what He says. He told them they would die if they were to take the fruit (which I should add, was probably not an apple) of the tree of knowing the good and the evil. The lesson for our time is the same. Keep Yahweh's commandments and you will receive eternal life, break them and you will die an eternal death. We don't know if Adam and Eve repented fully. It is my hope they did, and will find grace at the Judgment.

 

[dybmh]

So I have to do evil to understand it?

Understanding is different. Knowing requires the experience.

An unjust punishment for a crime is immoral. You agree it was excessive.

I agree it was excessive to threaten with death for eating from the forbidden tree.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

What does "death" mean in this context?
They were no longer in a state of innocence .. a state of bliss.

Well Christians don't agree on the meaning so I can only go with what one Christian thinks at a time.

 

[muhammad_isa]

So I have to do evil to understand it?

Sometimes we do have to learn the hard way, yes.

 

[Brian2]

No, God never says anything even remotely like that. Instead [he] speaks of defending [his] own position.

No He does not. It is just something you made up. But you are just playing and making up silly things for the sake of argument and your own amusement.

[He] doesn't actually say, "Trust me." And what he says is, If you eat the fruit you'll die the same day. The snake tells no lies when he tells Eve, No, you won't.

The snake said nothing about "the same day". All the snake said is that Eve would not die. A big fat lie.
"The same day" either means that A@E died spiritually on that day, they lost their fellowship with God on that day, and I have seen that argued.
Another possible meaning is that what God said was not meant to show when they would die but was meant to show the certainty of their dying. They would be certain on that day that they would die.
This is similar to other places in the OT where legal decisions are stated in a similar way. Eg 1Kings 2:36-38. (Shimei did not die on that day but the certainty of the carrying out of the sentence of death was known on that day. This seems like the best answer imo.
Genesis 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
Also I have seen argued that what was meant by "the same day" is that it was a legal
1 Kings 2:36 Then the king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Build a house for yourself in Jerusalem and live there, but do not go anywhere else. 37 On the day you go out and cross the Kidron Valley, know for sure that you will die; your blood will be on your own head.” 38“The sentence is fair,” Shimei replied. “Your servant will do as my lord the king has spoken.” And Shimei lived in Jerusalem for a long time.…

And they ate it at a time when they still had no knowledge of good and evil, so they ate it at a time when each of them respectively was incapable of sin.

Just because they did not have a general knowledge of good and evil that does not mean that they did not know that eating the fruit was wrong. They had after all been told that particular evil and the good it was paired with. (not eating the fruit)

 

[Brian2]

Why put the tree there that could kill them? Would you put poisoned candy in a room with a person and tell them do not eat it because it will kill you? Why do that?

Adam and Eve were moral creatures and needed something to exercise that capacity with. God told them one wrong thing, eating the fruit. The reality is no doubt that the fruit in itself was harmless but the eating, the act, was the thing that ensured the death sentence would be carried out.
Not eating the fruit would mean probably that the tree of life would eventually fruit and they could eat that and life forever. Eating it meant that they were going to keep choosing to do what is evil at times and so could not be allowed to live on forever in that state. It was a problem that humans would have to live with and that God would fix, but it was going to take time.

 

[dybmh]

Another possible meaning is that what God said was not meant to show when they would die

 

[Truth in love]

They were writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Christ was ordained before the world began. The promise of eternal life would have been to Christ at that time I imagine, since we have been created and did not exist then.

Why would we have not been around then?

 

[Brian2]

View attachment 66951

Are you saying that Gen 2:17 cannot be a statement of certainty about their death. It would become certain on that day. Just as 1Kings 2:37 is a statement of certainty and not one saying on which day Shimmei would die.
The snake of course did lie to say Eve would not die no matter what it means.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Why would we have not been around then?

Good question.

I think he means that we wouldn't have been aware of what was going on.