@Kenson,
Nobody understands this passage.
Is the crime eating an apple? No, that's absurd. Besides it wasn't really an apple.
Is the crime sex? I've heard some prudes say that. No, sorry, God is not a prude.
Is the crime free will? Sort of? But that's not right either.
You see, if we read and read this passage, which I have done, to the point of making myself insane, you find out a few things:
-The tree is at the center of the garden of Eden, where straight walk through in any direction would lead to it. Only by walking the edges could they avoid this.
-The tree is not a tall tree, and the branches that bear fruit are not out of reach
-The tree is not guarded by anything, not a hydra, nor minotaur, nor frost giant. They can walk right up and take it.
-Nor is the tree surrounded by swampland, a great distance from Eden, or near a volcano.
-If that isn't enough, a snake is literally convincing them to do it. This isn't, as some people declare, really the devil. You see, without knowledge of good and evil, Satan tempting (btw, Satan according to canon, is an accuser not a tempter) people doesn't make any sense. You have to be able to see good and evil to have a distinction. This is literally God speaking through one of his creatures.
God ALLOWED us to have this. He set Eden up as a place where humans could live forever in a boring natural area and be safe all the time. Or we could have exciting adventures, weird experiences, or even kinky sex. In order to give free will, it must be freely taken.
None of this is original sin. In this story, then, there are only two remaining options. Either it was the sin of
self-rejection (that is, Adam and Eve allowed their knowledge of good and evil to delude them into thinking that God really hated them for doing this, and thus they were banished from the garden of Eden because they believed they were no longer worthy), or it was the sin of leaving the garden of Eden. But you say, God banished Adam and Eve! Not so fast. Have you ever had a job/gf/bf where you were happy but believed you didn't deserve what you had? You go out of your way to self-sabotage, right? Well, this was God basically saying "Whatever, fine, I 'banish' you. Ummm here's some guy with a flaming sword. He's actually been ordered not to hurt you, but he's gonna scare you good. You're gonna leave here instead, on Earth." The original sin then is
living. But the problem with this, is that there is literally nothing that we can do to make things better. And I'm not gonna advocate suicide. That's also a sin, because God gave us this life. Even though it is entirely in disobedience to God that we live here rather than in a perfect world, an imperfect world is designed specifically so we can learn and grow.
There are two ways out of this:
1. We accept Jesus as our Savior, and believe we are forgiven our sins.
2. Understand that sin is literally a fact of our life, stop the self-rejection, the denial, the trying to hide our sin, and just learn to love ourselves.
