Originally posted by: SunnyD
Food for thought...
If god loved us unconditionally he would not have judged Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and banished us from the Garden of Eden.
And from the philosophical side of things, if god was all knowing and omnipotent, then he would not have placed the tree in the garden, knowing it would be humanity's failing. He would not have asked Adam and Eve "Who told you you were naked?" He would not have had to question them to find out they had indeed eaten of the fruit. Moreso, we could assume anyway god is omnipotent, and if so then he would have known before creating mankind what the outcome was going to be. Hence, god "set us up the bomb" in that respect.
Faith is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately it is an intangible simply to be used and twisted by humankind for its own purposes and gain.
I find it interesting that you find unconditional love and withholding judgment to go hand-in-hand or even similar. I love my whole family and if any of them were doing something wrong that would down the road lead to their unhappiness I would make a judgment on it, because of the love, not in spite of it. Making judgments on bad actions helps prevent more bad actions in the future. I don't know where this whole notion that making any type of a judgment is a bad thing to do. People have to make judgment calls all the time. People who decide not to make judgment calls are often times said to have bad judgment. People with bad judgment seem to have more trouble in life.
Originally posted by: SunnyD
You contradict yourself.
If god didn't know, then god isn't omnipotent and thus not all-powerful. If god knew what they were going to do, thus being omnipotent and all-powerful, then god wouldn't have asked. If it was to be displeasing to god to eat from the tree, then why did god put the tree in the garden if not only to displease god's self.
As a parent - I can say I am not omnipotent. I ask my kids if they did something because I generally don't know for certain. If I do know for certain, then I prefix the question with "Why".
The key is that god is supposed to be forgiving and merciful. If that's true, and god were to know the outcome, then why were we punished, or why did god put the tree there (if only to know we would fail), or why were we created at all? The answer is that either god is not omnipotent, or we were meant to eat from the tree, and/or were never meant to stay in the garden for eternity, or god is fallible. Given that religion teaches that god is all-powerful and omnipotent, then I submit that humanity was intended to eat from the tree, thus there is no such thing as sin.
A. Quite the thing for you to be telling us what someone who is omnipotent and all powerful what they would or wouldn't have done. Perhaps God wanted them to choose for themselves what they would do. Knowing something is going to happen and making it to happen aren't the same thing.
B. I think you might be on to something there.
C. Here too. Let's say God had a plan that required man to be tested. If God is perfect then it seems he would create a perfect world (Garden of Eden) but it's hard to be tested when you're in paradise. This world isn't perfect. So the eating of the fruit was a way to transition the perfect world that God created to the imperfect world we live in and where we could be tested. There was still sin from disobeying God and eating the fruit, even though God knew that it would happen and it was all according to his plan. That's not to say that we're responsible for that 'original sin.' I think we're only responsible for our own sins.
Anyway, I think you make some good points but you need to get rid of your "jump to conclusions" mat. You seem to take your very finite knowledge or even guesses about what God's plan is and assume what an omnipotent and perfect being would do in that situation. Something similar to your kids telling you how you should act and why. They don't have the understanding that you do just like we don't have the understanding God does.