Ask Lemmy

The usual explanation is because God wanted humans to have free will, so interfering in their ability to self-determine would negate that.

The reality is because it makes no fucking sense, like much of the Bible.

Because he doesn't exist, so even questioning it is irrelevant

It's a judeo-christian-muslim god.

because he was a pussy

It was a test, but if he was omniscient, he would have known the results without having to run it. 😉

it sounds like you're flirting with the Epicurean Paradox

Because he gifted humanity free-will? I thought that was like the main reason

Ey Eve, bet you are too scared to try this apple.

If I've learned something from listening History in the Bible podcast is that Yaweh is an asshole and that there are layers of bad translations.

Yeah, that story has a lot of plot holes.

Bad character and plot writing. The Bible was written by hacks and scabs.

Why are there two different creation stories in the Bible? If Cain and Abel were the first sons of Adam and Eve, how could Cain come upon a city while he was wandering the earth? Why are there two conflicting versions of the Ten Commandments? Etc. Etc.

Fanfiction/Please permit me to make wild allegations, I was also looking at this yesterday and wondered: is it the apple of knowledge of sexual reproduction? (I know the book says good and evil, I get it)

The other tree was the fruit of eternal life. They did not consume this fruit.

So, as for the story, humans could neither sexually reproduce nor live forever/a long time prior to eating the fruit of the knowledge of sexual reproduction. Life and death. Good and evil.

They ate it, wanted to have sex with each other and were ashamed and covered themselves to avoid sexual arousal.

The free will they received was the ability to sexually reproduce.

In the story, angels cannot sexually reproduce with each other?, but seemingly live forever/a long time, and angels supposedly did get very excited that they could now sexually reproduce with humans: nephelim. Hybrids. There are no female angels.

Two different technology trees: humans with sexual reproduction and limited lifespan and angels with longevity/eternal life/angel powers/no females.

This gave the world a third (unintended?) hybrid nephelim class and this upset the balance of power on earth/the creation.

The chaos that ensued inspired yahweh to flood his creation and try again?

Wild shit! For me these are the chaotic and confused retelling of a story of extraterrestrial influence on the development of the human species.

This particular chapter is focused on origins and bloodlines of humanity so it makes sense to me in that way 🙃

Thank you for your time.

Don’t try to apply reason/common sense/logic to ANY religion. You’ll end up with more questions than answers.

Besides, I was told that the point of the story was resisting temptation. God wanted to see if Adam and Eve could do that. Spoiler: they couldn’t.

Free will. The idea is that for free will to exist you must be able to choose the wrong action.

If a supreme being rules out all wrong actions or prevented you from taking wrong actions, how could there be free will? How could you even be responsible for your own thoughts and actions. How are you not just a puppet?

Alternately you can think of it as a leveling up. It seems like the Apple is always represented as “knowledge of good and evil”. So originally they’re just animals. They take actions but there is no morality, nothing is good or bad. But if they use their free will to take this one forbidden step, they receive the knowledge of good and evil, they can act good or act bad, they know it’s good or bad, and they have the free will to choose their path. And they are accountable for those choices. Now they’re human

Because he is a jealous god. He told people this.

If you're not looking for a genuine answer from a Christian, skip this.

First thing: the translation of "the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil" isn't really that good of a translation. It's closer to "the right to define good and evil. That means that eating the fruit is basically saying "fuck you, God. Imma do my own thing". That's not how God designed humans to live, and is incompatible to living alongside someone as powerful as God, which is why God told them not to eat it.

But why create that tree in the first place? Essentially, choice. When you're in the supermarket and you see 50 different flavors, but everything is from the same brand, do you really have any choice? Same thing with God. Unless you have the option of rejecting God, choosing to him means nothing.

Just to add to the great answers already given by others, another aspect to it all is that the mythology that developed into Judaism/Christianity/Islam was originally polytheistic. The god known as YHWH/Yahweh was one of many, but had a dedicated cult (not unlike Greco-Roman deities that often had cults of their own, revering one specific god to the exclusion of others who were nevertheless acknowledged).

So in that sense, the idea of Yahweh being omnipotent and omniscient is a bit of a retcon, meant to highlight the superiority of Yahweh over other gods as his henotheistic sect gradually developed into a more zealous monotheistic religion that rejected the legitimacy of all other gods entirely

That being said, the idea of Satan as a sort of antagonist character to tempt humans towards sin did not emerge until much later either, after the aforementioned omnipotent/omniscient revision of Yahweh. It really just boils down to whatever plot contrivances were convenient for the successive works of religious fan fiction that would later come to be canonized within each Abrahamic religion.

Aha! The question that has many pastors digging deep to get a good answer too. And usually they end up with the age old “mysterious ways”.

The “best” one is usually along the lines of: god wanted a relationship which involves choice and free will, so he had to create a division that would allow humankind to have a choice in the matter.

So god feels lonely, causes all misery on earth that ever was and ever will be. Because free will… On top of that he also ~~indirectly~~ (oh screw it, it’s god) directly causes eternal torture in the afterlife for a vast majority of humankind. Because also, free will (I keep stressing that because that in itself is a huge problem for theologians).

And then all that leads to god killing itself in the form of its own son. Because some of you touch your own genitalia in glee.

Genius.

As in all theological questions, it really requires faith.

If you have faith then you don't need to worry about the details.

If you don't have faith then none of it makes any sense.

I find the story better with "all-knowing" meaning know what is and had been and the future being unknown. A fact created by have multiple beings of free will.

That said eating the apple is very low stakes way to let someone choose to disobey you and thus learn what that means. The "punishment" seems like the plan all along.

at least how i prefer the story