Georgiansilver - Mike: I don't want to get personal at all, of course, although belief by its nature is personal.

I read plenty of confusion rising from the New Testament (the Old even moreso), from Jesus habit of using parables that are often hard to fathom and very subject to interpretation, such as the cursing of the fig tree; the exhortation to hate one's family to follow him; the bringing of a sword, not peace, and so on, all of which can be interpreted to mean something other than what they sound like (although that poor fig tree, which wasn't even in fruiting season...), but why did he sow seeds of misinterpretation?

But Jesus own words are for the most part (and in my opinion only) not usually so difficult, it is more often the words of those that came before and after. I frequently cannot agree with Paul's doctrines, particularly those regarding women, and the Old Testament is full of references to a deity who is jealous, wrathful, vengeful, merciless, coferring favour on 'his' people regardless of their behaviour, while ordering the wholesale massacre of entire populations based on their being in the way of his plans for 'his' people. Who is not horrified by the orders to kill every male Canaanite including infants, and every female who is not a virgin? Who is not horrified by the casual toying with Job; a bet with Satan no less, during the playing out of which dozens of innocent bystanders (Job's family)are killed?

Who can begin to understand why an omnipotent entity wants or needs to create such a set-up as the Tree in Eden?