The entire story of Adam and Eve confuses me, and I rarely look at it as anything but a story.

Little back story on myself I was raised Roman Catholic, but grew out of organized religion over time finding far too many incongruous ideas. So, Adam and Eve are newly created beings by God. He places them in this garden anew, we can essentially tell they have no knowledge of morals, reason, etc. He tells them not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Now the assumption is that until they eat from the tree of knowledge, they don't know what is right or wrong. My question then is how on earth do they differentiate that not eating the fruit is good or bad? How do they know the serpent is bad? How do they know God is good? How could God blame them for doing something they lacked the knowledge to understand completely? It's like telling a child not to touch the stove because it will hurt them. Some children try to touch it anyway. The usual thing a parent does is not keep the child in a room with a stove, until they are old enough to understand the danger. This entire story paints God in a really weird light because it seems like his plan was for Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit in the end.

Also the other part of the story that is just plain weird is when God casts out Adam and Eve because they could become like him if they eat from the tree of life. That is a really weird and scary implications for Roman Catholicism, who like to believe that God is literally the beginning and the end. I mean it's just weird for them to set the tone of the Bible by saying human kind is half-way to Godhood.