Iamon lyme: Also, a tree of knowledge of good and evil infers evil already existed, otherwise there wouldn't have been a choice to be made... and there would have been no tempter to confuse us.

Blaming God for creating evil doesn't make sense, because when he created everything there was no evil. Blaming God for the existence of evil is the same as blaming him for the problems it causes for us, but we can't blame Him because we had a choice. We can't choose if we don't have free will... so if it's the fault of anything, it would have to be our own free will. We didn't have to sign up for this problem, I know I didn't, but I'm stuck with the decision Adam and Eve made. And blaming them doesn't make sense, because I don't think I could have passed that test either.... because for me to know that I shouldn't be messing around with evil presupposes a knowledge of evil.

You can't know it's wrong until you know it's wrong. All we had to go on before we "knew" it was wrong was God telling us not to do it, and what would happen if we do. So why give us a test we are doomed to fail, because a tempter is there who knows how to confuse us?

I can't say I know why, but I don't think Gods purpose for us was to forever remain ignorant, and live forever running naked through a garden. I don't have a problem with that, because at my age it's not appropriate for me to be running through mommy and daddys garden naked like a two year old. It doesn't make sense for me to believe His plan is for us to simply go full circle, and back to all of us walking naked through a garden again. I think he has a different plan for us.