I'm an atheist, so logically, this post will be for - and about - the people who spend a lot of time reading and thinking about the Bible.
"Why did God instruct Adam and Eve not to eat [from] the tree of good and evil", somebody asked here . "Did He Want Humanity to be ignorant of good and evil?"
Well, yes, of course. Haven't you read the Bible?
If you were raised in a Christian country, you probably know the story. A man and a woman lived in the Garden of Eden. But they broke one rule that was not to be broken - they ate some fruit from one particular tree. They were free to eat from any tree except that one, the one that God had forbidden. Some snake (that, everyone will tell you, was Satan in disguise) told them to disobey God, so they did, and were forever expelled from Paradise.
That's not the full story that's in the Bible. But you probably didn't notice.
You've heard that story so many times, probably since you were children, that you just don't think the Bible tells the story differently. I mean, the Bible was, until recently, the world's most popular book. You can't mislead people about its content if everybody can read it for themselves... right?
Here's the problem: people often don't read popular book that they talk about later. Especially books that they assume are unworthy of reading. A lot of people with strong opinions about The Twilight Saga or 50 Shades of Grey never read these books, because why? it would be a waste of time, of course, and I don't need to read it to know it's rubbish.
I think a lot of atheists take a similar stance against the Bible. Everybody knows the most popular stories - about Adam and Eve, Noah, Jesus - so it would be a waste of time to read it, especially if it's a sacred book of some religion I don't want ot be part of... right?
And they miss a lot of surprises.
But why those religious people who actually read Genesis for themselves, and notice things that make them ask questions - why do they still want to believe that the story in the Bible is, more or less, the same story that they were taught in church/Sunday school?
You should notice it's a different story. There are warning signs...
Let's read Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 - but this time, let's treat the Bible like an ordinary book, with no assumptions about its content.
"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
First warning sign: two special trees are mentioned. You've probably only heard of one - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And what about the other one, the tree of life - what did it actually do? Well, you're about to find out - at the end.
"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it". But God concluded that his gardener needed a helper, so he created a woman, too.
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Second warning sign: God lied to his human servants. And the snake actually informed humans of God's lie. The snake, for whatever reason, helped humans.
Thanks to the snake, humans became half-Godlike. They became knowledgeable like God (but, they were still mortal like animals).
And God found out about it when humans "heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day" and tried to hide from God. God realized that it was the snake that helped humans.
"So the Lord God said to the serpent [...] “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.”"
So that's how God breaks this snake-human alliance - by artificially "putting enmity" between snakes and humans. He also curses humans, but he doesn't immediately expel them from Eden. At least, there is time for Adam to invent a name for his wife and for God to make garments for humans and clothe them.
But here comes the best part...
"Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!”"
THAT is what the other tree did - it gave immortality.
God didn't banish people from Eden just because they ate some fruit.
He did it because he didn't want competition.
Humans were this close to becoming immortal (so, fully Godlike).
Only at the point when God realized it, he banished them from the Garden of Eden and placed a "cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life".
This is not the only story in the Bible about God preventing people from becoming Godlike (the Tower of Babel is another one). And immortality is humanity's oldest literary theme, if the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh is authentic and as old as it's assumed - because Gilgamesh is also about a failed quest to become immortal.
The Old Testament is a great read.
But why do people reading it keep assuming that God is a good guy?