Scene: Garden of Eden. Newly built. Adam and Eve, sounding naive and newly minted, converse with God. Birdsong in background, gentle waters lapping.
God: So, Adam, Eve. You like it here?
Adam: Oh yeah, it's great!
Eve: Nice flowers!
G: Good, glad you like it. Took me days.
A: I'm quite fond of the trees.
E: Oh yeah, just look at the trees.
G: Yes, I like them myself, and speaking of trees, before I let you alone there's just one thing.
A: OK. What?
E: Oooh! Butterfly!
G: There's this one thing, right?
A: Ok....
G: There's a tree over there. With fruit on it
A: The big one?
G: Yes, the big one.
E: Right. It is big, isn't it?
G: Yes. Well, don't eat the fruit of it. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It'll give you the knowledge of good and evil, and nobody wants that. Seriously guys. Knowledge of good and evil, not cool. OK? You don't have it now, you'll have it if you eat the fruit, end of story. No eating the fruit. This is important.
A: OK god! Just one question though.
G: Anything for you, Adam my lad!
A: Well, why shouldn't we eat the fruit, God?
[uncomfortable pause]
G: Because, well... it would give you knowledge, and you'd be disobeying me, and that's what we call "bad".
A: Yeah, you said, but what does "bad" mean?
G: Well, you know, bad. Naughty.
E: Nope, don't get it.
A: Me either
G: Immoral?
A: Nope, don't know about that
G: Malignant?
E: Doesn't mean anything to me....
G: Iniquitous? Injurious?
A: Don't get it.
G: Execrable?
E: Err...
G: Pernicious!
A: Sorry, that's not helping
G: OK... Err... Nefarious. Damnable. Villainous?
E: Nope
G: What about.... Evil? You know, the opposite of good?
A: Look, God, we don't know what any of that is...
G: Don't you two idiots know anything???
[short pause]
A: Well, no.
E: We don't
G: (exasperated): Look, I can't stand around here all day explaining it to you, sort it out for yourselves
A: OK god, see you later
E: Byyyeeeee!
[pause, god leaves]
E: Why can't we eat that fruit again Adam?
A: buggered if I know.
And that's exactly how it went.
So, original sin, right? How did Adam and Eve know it was a bad thing to eat the fruit if they had no idea what good and evil were? The knowledge of relative value judgements is a requirement in discriminating between a good and bad outcome.
How, then, would they know it wasn't a good thing to eat the fruit?
Because god told them not to?
Ah, but there's no way of knowing if disobeying god is a bad thing. they have no knowledge of good and evil, remember?
Because God, In Genesis 2, tells Adam he will surely die?
Well, no. The serpent says "of course you won't die" in Genesis 3, and again, there is no way for Adam and Eve to know that believing this is a bad thing. They have no knowledge of good or evil yet.
But shouldn't they believe god over a snake? Again, they have no way of making that judgement. And it appears the snake was smarter than this god guy, anyway. Besides, the snake is talking to Eve. God told Adam about the tree and the whole dying thing before she came along. Seriously. Even if she was able to make the good/bad judgement, she wouldn't be choosing between the word of god and the word of a snake.
And you know what else? God put the serpent there, and put the fruit there, and put the humans there. And made sure the humans were curious, dumb, gullible, and had a taste for fruit. And that they lacked the necessary mental faculty to follow the rules.
It's that beardy guy's fault that these elements came together.
It's exactly as if I'd put my dog into a room with a delicious biscuit, then punished him for eating it when I went away. For ever. And his descendents.
Three options:
1. God is dumb
2. God is an evil troll
3. God doesn't exist and it's all a fairytale
Duh.