I absolutely agree with you. Christians never seem to be able to answer me when I ask them why it says in Genesis that God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree, and then did not intervene when he saw that they were about to do so. In other words, they were curious and they were given open access (by their supposedly benevolent creator) to something fatal. Now IF that account is true, I am appalled as a parent because I would not tell my child not to touch the stove, then step back and let them get burned because of their "freewill". Also, how would it even make sense to begin with that eating a piece of fruit makes you know things, and therefore makes you die???
Let's try to clarify a few things
You mean, let's try to qualify the problem by reinterpreting an entirely different analogy that has nothing to do with the biblical myth. Offer no reason to be believe, other then your own presumed authority on nonsense.
If God is interested in genuine love via free will
This is a premise. How is this premise derived? Why would we ever consider it?
The problem with this premise is that it is not derived from anything. It is a cultural ideological belief related to specific interpretation of a specific set of texts for the sole purpose of benefiting on arbitrarily selected dogma. Those texts are arbitrarily chosen to suit the dogma, not actually derived from the texts themselves, and thousands of differing/contradicting beliefs are arrived to the same way from the same religious books. So, you immediately begin my imposing your own ideological beliefs as if they were the only ones worth considering or the only ones relevant to the problem at hand, not to mention that it is the beginning of an argument from authority you simply do not possess.
and our choice to love/reject Him
This is a premise. How do I love something I do not have any reason to believe in? How do you 'choose' to reject or accept something you have no reason to believe in?
At face value this premise is a blatant contradiction, imposing a dichotomy of choices that do not logically follow into the reasonableness of the ability to choose. Not to mention where it imposes a distinct adjective to describe not knowing if a position is true, but instead 'rejecting' that position as if it were known.
why would He intervene on our decision to obey or disobey Him?
Actually, she's already addressed this problem:
I am appalled as a parent because I would not tell my child not to touch the stove, then step back and let them get burned because of their "freewill". Her analogy quite rightly fits the genesis narrative, as god has the ultimate ability to not only prevent what's going to happen but also has the forethought to know it will happen inevitably. That's why we send adults to jail who leave loaded guns in a baby cribs.
. However, forcing your child to obey you negates their ability to truly choose what they want to do.
This is irrelevant.
Its a qualification, inserted without explanation, as if to impose a standard or objection to an inherent contradiction. Ignoring that 'free will' isn't actually mentioned biblically and is imposed by apologetics later to account for inherent contradictions, how is this relevant to a parent preventing a child from harming themselves horrifically?
Keep in mind, also, that Adam and Eve were rational adults, not toddlers.
This is special pleading, like before it is meant to insert a pleaded qualification without explanation, as if to impose a standard or objection to any inherent problem. It is also dishonest in that we already know that adam and eve lack knowledge, is it the tree of knowledge after all.
It is also a non-argument, because in all situations adam and eve lack the forethought of god. They cannot know, because they are imperfect and child like.
The free will decisions made were done while fully understanding the implications of the choice (whereas a toddler touching the stove does not understand the implication of being burned).
This is a conclusion that does not follow from any of your previous premises, all of which are contradicted and have to be made up in the absence of a rational explanation.
So let's see, you insert free will, you insert that adam and eve are rational mind, yet.. you don't expect anyone to point this out?
I like to use the idea that God created the potential for sin (free will) and it was man who actualized sin.
Irrelevant.
Demonstrate why I need to engage in the intellectual dishonesty and blatant compartmentalization you just demonstrated for me above in order to make a religious myth less irrational/illogical?
As a former believer, I would identify what you just did in this thread as a textbook example of a christian engaging in an irrational/illogical action that only encouraged my own questioning of beliefs I held at that time, what do you think about that?
