Did Adam and eve really have a choice?

Better yet:I create a computer program that chooses a number one or two. It makes this decision by taking the number of seconds since the first of January 1970 and then looking on a list of pre selected numbers in a file. Each time it makes the decision it looks at the next number in the list. The product of the number of seconds since 1970 and our selected list number is examined. If this final number is odd, the program chooses '1' if the final number is even it chooses '2'.The system makes choices, and the fact that as the creator I can predict what that choice is does not mean the system is not making a choice. However, the system is not free to choose any number. It simply has to pick a certain number.Now, if I say that I will ask at 15:00 today I have predetermined that the result will be '1'. Who has made the choice then? Is it me, or the program?I have a decision, do I serve money, or the Lord? There are many factors that decide which I choose. What I have been taught is right throughout my life, my brain chemistry, psychology, experience, and so on. God knows all of these variables and thus knows what I am going to choose. I still make a decision, still choose, but it is hardly freewill, any more than my creation has freewill.God set the variables up, then set the program to make the decision. He knows what that decision is going to be. Did God make the decision? God is omnipotent and could thus easily have changed the starting variables so that I would choose whatever he wanted. His choosing the starting variables was actually making the choice for me as much as I was basically choosing for the computer program when I had foreknowledge.So really, all choices were made by God, and there is no free will.

Exactly. Then one conclusion that doesn't involve the world becoming 'non-sensical' AND maintains a monodeity/allfather is that God does not have full knowledge of all that is to come. What claim? The claim that there is an all powerful creator of the universe who knows everything past, present and future yet somehow entities that he has created have the ability to choose independantly of this God's will? That is a heck of a claim and certainly needs some sensible rationale, since it seems - as you said - to be a self-refuting nonsense claim.The only rationale I can think of is that God didn't know everything that would happen when he created everything but then came to know everything later. In which case it must suck to be God, kind of like watching a grand tragedy play, the events in which you are directly responsible for. Bummer.

Perhaps born under the reign of sin, but under the control of Satan? If that is the case, why does God say or The only thing I can see to almost support this Biblically is Have I missed something vital?

Let me get your position straight in my head here:God can do two logically contradictory things because God can do anything.God can be fallibly infallible
God can be omnipresent, but need to ask where Adam is hiding
God can be omnipotent, but powerless to give us strength without pain
God can be benevelont but creates a world with full foreknowledge that millions upon millions will inevitably fall and be damned for it.I'm not sure I buy it. When God created the universe He knew what was going to happen...He had a choice to have it happen differently. He is God, He can do it anyway He pleases, if He can do the logically impossible, He can ensure that all will be saved and no pain will be felt.So either
a) God is not benevolent
or
b) God cannot do the logically impossible.Either God deliberately set us up to fall, or He didn't. If He did, then he is not benevolent. If He did not, then He did not have perfect foresight as to what will happen (after all if He did have the foresight, being benevolent He would do it differently).

I think it is implied. God created everything with full knowledge of what will happen, but isn't responsible for it? Can He make a mistake if He wants to? OK, so God is omnipresent and cannot choose to be otherwise. His power is thus limited? So God is constrained by logic. He created a universe knowing that he would cause pain and suffering so that a few could join Him in Heaven. All of this was inevitable, and there was no other way for Him to achieve these ends?OK, that's all good.However God has basically said the following:I need to achieve end X. To achieve this end I will create the universe, and man. Man will fall, I'll expel him from Eden and shortly afterwards I will see that the world is full of corruption and destroy all the wicked men (and lots of animals too) and leave only a few. They will repopulate the earth, it will get corrupted again, and eventually I will descend in the kingdom of heaven, cast the devil into hell for a thousand years and the righteous will join us in the kingdom of heaven and I will have acheieved end X.Since God has to have these things happen for his end to be acheived, surely he is responsible.But no, this isn't your version. God created the universe so that man would have a choice in what he would do. It doesn't matter that he knew before hand that His creation would fail, fall, and many would be damned. That isn't God's repsonsibility, since it was our choice and He only created us and put us in the Garden, created a walking, talking snake and put temptation right in front of us. He only created us, knowing what would happen, but creating us in that manner anyway. He could have created us with free will, but with the strength and resolve to resist the temptation, but He decided not to, but He isn't responsible because it was our choice, despite the fact that He created our decision making ability - complete with all its evident flaws.

Create automatons? No. I would think it makes more sense for God to create man, and not know what the outcome would be. I'm sure God can choose to not have foreknowledge...but even then things might be a little problematic...he would still be responsible for the decision making ability and willpower of the individual.

That makes absolutely no sense. Why would I blame Yamaha? Yamaha did not create both you and the bike. Yamaha are not omnipotent. Yamaha did not create your choice, did not create your discretion, your personality, your brain etc Two reasons why this is erroneous. 1. Yes they can. One can deliberately set up conditions that would cause them to make a mistake. I could close my eyes whilst driving, knowing that doing so was a mistake.Second - you are applying your human and fallible standards to God. You warned us against doing this. And green means green. He created a situation where He knew that they would choose to cause pain and suffering. Could He not have created a diferent situation, or is God's power limited? Right. So God is responsible for all the pain and misery in the world. That's what I've pretty much been driving at. How can we be responsible? How can Adam/Eve be responsible? They were merely following a script written by God. I agree. However, if you give someone this choice, and you have the power to create any scenario possible, including scenarios where the information received by Adam/Eve would lead to a different choice being made, or where their brain is wired a little differently...why choose the scenario where you know, before they do, that they will fail their tests and cause suffering and pain to countless numbers of souls. Modified again:I WANT to achieve end X RELATIONAL LOVE - JUST LIKE WE HAVE. To achieve this end I will create the universe, and man WITH CHOICE TO LOVE ME OR NOT, I will know before I create man which decision he will make, and have the ability to create man differently, or to tell him some vital piece of knowledge that would mean he would choose differently. Man will fall BECAUSE I made a faulty product, knowing full well it was a faulty product and I didn't do anything to rectify my clearly faulty product, I will then punish the victims of my shoddy design by telling them that it was their fault because they had freedom to choose anyway they wanted. I CAN PLAN AHEAD TO ENSURE NO MATTER WHAT CHOICE IS MADE, END X WILL COME ABOUT, since it doesn't matter to my ends what choce is made, I'm a right royal bastard for choosing to create the situation which involves the most suffering. RIGHT HE CHOSE AGAINST ME as I knew he would before I even started this farce, THE PLAN CARRIES ON. I'll expel him from Eden and shortly afterwards WHEN my crappy design of man and lack of leadership results IN THE WORLD BEING full of corruption I'LL EXERCISE WRATH (Because I foresaw that I would, and I now have no choice in the matter) destroy all the wicked men (and lots of animals too THEY'LL NEED OIL IN A FEW THOUSAND/BILLION YEARS and I know that they'll NEED oil, we couldn't have them create bigger and better ways to destroy my creation if I didn't provide them suitable ammunition in the form of the remnants of my last creation destroying efforts) and leave only a few WHO ARE RIGHTEOUS but who are sinners, instead of ending the farce here, I will allow it to continue knowing that corruption will seep back into the world, and eventually I'll have to descend in the form of man and have myself nailed up. They will repopulate the earth, it will get corrupted again DUE TO my EXERCISE OF CHOICE, and eventually I will descend FROM the kingdom of heaven WITH A KEY PART OF MY PLAN - SALVATION for the ones I knew would be saved an eternity ago, but damnation for all those I created to be damned BECAUSE IN ADDITION TO WRATH AND entrapment I AM ALSO pointlessly vindictave, cast the devil into hell for a thousand years and the righteous will join us in the kingdom of heaven and I will have acheieved end X - who cares about the totally heartless way that I acheived it, I'm friggin God, the Omega baby

Am I complaining that between the choices1. Paradise, living alongside God in a wonderous Paradise with no work and just happiness and wonder.2. Struggle, pain, suffering, misery, death, eternal damnation.God decided that number 2 was the reality for us. Yes, I think I am. Personally, I think this is a pile of crap. Almost universally people look back to their childhood innocence with longing...it usually only where the childhood was filled with struggle, pain, suffering, misery and death where people don't long for childhood, since it wasn't innocence.I would like to see if you have any basis for your belief that most people would rather work most days, and ceaselessly struggle, just to keep them and their family alive than to live in paradise. Bare very keenly in mind that America is not most people...the wages are quite high, so many people don't have to work so hard to keep alive. Most people are not in that position.

May I re-word this?Either trust the Holy Bible is the word of God despite the fact that it does not claim to be- or trust that the Holy Bible is the word of Man, passed on by oral tradition from prophets who were in direct communication with God. If we accept the latter we can get down to the nitty gritty of figuring out what it means.