The Garden of Eden

We are told that “God loves us”….

Here is the story of Adam and Eve and “The Garden of Eden”. Most of us know this story, even if we are not Christians. It goes something like this:

One day in the garden, Eve was hanging out, relaxing (or maybe eating, whatever). She gets approached by “The Serpent” who tempts her with the fruit of “The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil”. She eats it and gives some to her mate, Adam. He eats it, too.

“God” (Jehovah) had expressly forbidden them to eat from this tree.

This story has been told to me for the purpose of showing me that women are weaker than men, and that is why we women must obey men. What??? If women are weaker, why did it take a serpent (who must be more than a simple serpent as this one could talk, and knew what the tree offered) to tempt the woman; but it took a “mere” woman to tempt the man??? If I were the serpent and wanted to get both humans to eat from the tree, would I tempt the weaker one or the stronger one first? If I started with the weaker one, could I rely on that one to be able to tempt the stronger one? No, I would start with the stronger one, trusting that the stronger one could indeed tempt the weaker one. Or maybe the man and the woman were equally strong/weak and it did not really matter which one the serpent started with.

I have been told that God gave us free will, yet God forbade us to eat from the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. How can you have free will or use it, if you know not the difference between good and evil?