I haven't read every single response on this thread so forgive me if I repeat someone
Ramwhatever, you said:
Consider:The first people who were Jehovah’s witnesses were Adam and Eve. They were given this command:
(Genesis 2:16-17) . . .And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”
They had a choice. Obey and live or disobey and die. They chose to disobey. We see that they did disobey and they died. Why give them a choice is Jehovah’s servants cannot do bad?
First of all how were A & E witnesses to Jehovah? There was no one to witness to. Just a nitpicky sidepoint.
Now, the scripture that you quoted says that they must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad. What was the punishment for eating of the tree? From that same verse it says "for in the day you eat from it you will positively die".
What had the serpent told A&E?
Genesis 3:4
4 At this the serpent said to the woman: “Y OU positively will not die. 5 For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad.”
Being free moral agents they had a choice as you pointed out. They chose to eat. What happened to them?
Genesis 3: 17-19, 22,23
17 And to Adam he said: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. 18 And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”
22 And Jehovah God went on to say: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—” 23 With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of E´den to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of E´den the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.
Now, who lied to who here? What the serpent said was true. They did not die and they came to know good and bad. God told them they would die that day. They did not. They were banished from the garden of Eden so that they couldn't eat the fruit that would give them eternal life.
Now the question should be that since we are free moral agents why worship a god that lies to us?
