Quote Originally Posted by rosarugosa View Post
This just sounds like a normal part of human development. I don't see anything wrong or "sinful" about it.
That's the point. There isn't anything "wrong" or "sinful" about it in the religious sense of being evil. It's natural and inevitable. But it's "sinful" in the biblical sense of the child (us) going astray by intentionally defying and separating ourselves from our loving parent (God). That's what Adam and Eve did by eating the only thing in the garden that was forbidden, and every human child does it, much to the dismay of their parent. That's why it's the original sin and the sin no human can avoid committing. We "go astray" by intentionally separating ourselves from God, just as we intentionally separate ourselves from our parents when we're toddlers. It's a necessary part of our nature, and we can't avoid it.

But have you ever thought about the second sin? It's blaming someone else or something else when we go astray. As soon as God realizes Adam and Eve broke the rule by eating the forbidden fruit, Eve says the serpent tricked her into eating it. And Adam not only blames Eve, he also blames God by saying to God "This woman that you gave me..." tricked him into eating it.

But why was the forbidden tree there in the first place? If God made a perfect paradise for Adam and Eve to live in, he must have had a reason for putting that tree in the middle of it. Did he do it to test whether Adam and Eve would resist the temptation, and therefore be worthy of greater things? Or did he do it because he knew they would need to eat the forbidden fruit later, when they were mature enough to use the knowledge it gave them wisely? Or did God put the tree there because Lucifer told God his perfect little children would defy him if they were tempted in the smallest way?

It's all a myth, a metaphor, an analogy intended to explain a spiritual phenomenon in earthly terms by comparing it to our familiar parent-child relationship. Or if you prefer, it was an attempt to make religion more believable by saying our relationship to God is just like every toddler's relationship to it's parents.