[Lessismore]

that it created two humans and put a tree right within their grasp that, for some reason, it didn't want them touching (why put it there, then?).

This has always seemed pretty peculiar to me, also, especially since the entity (being omniscient) certainly knew what would happen -- first the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then the creation of the first fig leaf fashions.

Note that clothing made of skins were later furnished by the entity, which must mean that PETA is at odds with the entity.

[jennyp]

This has always seemed pretty peculiar to me, also, especially since the entity (being omniscient) certainly knew what would happen -- first the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then the creation of the first fig leaf fashions.

In the spirit of the upcoming Lightbulb Day festivities^*, here's an Ayn Rand quote:

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge - he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil - he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor - he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire - he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy - all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was - that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love - he was not man.

Man's fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he's man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.

They call it a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for Man.
from Galt's speech, in Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

^*Dec. 21, the shortest, darkest, dreariest day of the year; the day we celebrate Man's capacity for reason by going out & looking at all the lights.

[Dimensio]

Note that clothing made of skins were later furnished by the entity, which must mean that PETA is at odds with the entity.

Well, I guess that counts for a few points in this entity's favour.

[jlogajan]

This has always seemed pretty peculiar to me, also, especially since the entity (being omniscient) certainly knew what would happen

Actually, the whole concept of a God with perfect knowledge of past, present and future makes religion a ridiculous concept for just that very reason. God knows all future outcomes, God creates men of "free will" even though he already knows to infinity how each one will behave and whether that person will go to hell or not.

It is all fatalistic -- God already knows the result of his creation -- so what is the point? Is he hoping he suffers from amnesia so that he can be surprised by the results.

Or -- God doesn't know everything and therefore he's not qualified to be passing judgement on anyone else -- in which case he is nothing more than a cheap dictator.