Oh please, why did He put the tree in the garden if He didn't intend Adam and Eve to eat from it? Forbidding them to do so is just basic reverse psychology.
That thought gave me a interesting thought to go along with that as well. What if God and the Devil have never really been at war with each other, but instead, have been playing us like a succession game or something. I mean, God had to have created the Devil as well, and despite the whole "fallen angel" status that was carried by the Devil, things would be carried more as a friendly rivalry, than as a full-blown war between Heaven and Hell with Earth as the chosen battlefield. Everything needs a purpose, and last I recall, Hell had more purpose as a prison (or "Time Out Zone") for demons, than fallen Man that have done much wrong.
Well, that's kind of where things start to fall apart, isn't it? I mean... The Christian god is supposed to be all knowing, all powerful, and all good. So god had to know that the serpent would tempt Eve, had to know that we'd eat from the tree, had to know that Lucifer would rebel... And had to be OK with all that, because if god wasn't OK with all that then it wouldn't have happened.
"Don't play God" should only ever be uttered in B-Movies to the scientist who created the Rabid-Flying-Amphibious-Sharks that were created to clean up oilspills before he releases them on the world.
Agreed.
Still, it's not as arbitrary as Ephemeriis makes it out to be. One way a person can take these is advancing ourselves 'till these things are no longer godlike. Electricity would be considered godlike a thousand years ago, and they likely wouldn't know what to do with it. Then you have stuff like gunpowder where you know it'll be used as irresponsibly as we have used it. We shouldn't play with things that we cannot handle, as we could hurt ourselves. We should play human, working with what we understand.
Except that the scary things we cannot handle become the things that we understand when we play with them. That's how we learn. And usually there is hurt along the way. Which is essential to the learning process.
To play devil's advocate here (God's advocate?), you could argue that it's more like a parent telling their 2-year old not to play with matches. Yes, the adult gets to play with matches, but that's because we're (hopefully) more mature and careful because we more fully comprehend the danger.
Great example, but probably not in the way you intended.
When I was a kid we had a big ol' kerosene heater in the basement, which was also the playroom for us kids. It had a big, flat top on it that got incredibly hot. I used to have fun melting my legos on it.
My parents told me time and time again not to touch it because it was hot and I'd burn myself. I got yelled at, grounded, had toys taken away, etc. I kept ignoring them. I knew what I was doing. I was being careful. I wouldn't get hurt.
Then one day I thought it was off, and put my hand flat on top of it. Burned the hell out of my whole hand. Hurt like hell. Not only was I in pain, but I was terrified to tell my parents because I knew I shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I spent the rest of the day playing outside in the snow, minus one mitten, so I could stick my hand in the snowbank to stop the pain.
I never played with that heater again.
People need to make their own mistakes. It doesn't matter how much you warn them or how much advice you give. Everybody has to screw it up themselves.
