Khan Academy is wonderful! His voice is so soothing, too. And wow, University of Reddit! Is it officially sanctioned by Reddit, or a community project? Although, I'm actually looking for more theoretical computer science, while the ones at U of Reddit are mostly code and applications.

Brilliant. Where is this from? I tried googling but no results showed. Did you make it yourself?

According to Wikitionary, "From Middle English, from Old English hwȳ, hwī (“why”, instrumental case of hwæt (“what”), literally “by what, for what”), from Proto-Germanic hwī (“by what, how”), from Proto-Indo-European kʷey, locative of *kʷís (“who”)." So, there's a unique word for "why" because there is.

It came surprising to me that, in many languages, there is no special term for "Why". In Chinese, "why" is "为什么". "为" means "for", and "什么" means "what". In French, "why" is "pourquoi", a combination of "pour" and "quoi" meaning "for what". We use "why" so often, and I'd never before thought that "why" can be expressed as "for what".

My favorite books are ones that got me back into reading, all recommended by more literary friends. They're mostly simple, concise, and pretty mainstream. In no particular order: 1. Candide by Voltaire 2. The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. The first in the list that I'd read. A bit boring at first, especially for me as an inexperienced reader, probably typical of Hemingway. 3. Catch-22 by Heller 4. Infinite Jest or Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by Wallace 5. The Iliad by Homer

That's definitely one of the things for me. I used to be one of those "STEM major masterrace" people and I'd excluded myself from a lot of friends. I'm looking forward to getting back in touch with them, reading books, getting fit, and generally improving my life.

I think an important thing is what God says as he banishes Adam and Eve. "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Genesis 3:22). God explicitly states that their expulsion is to prevent Adam and Eve from becoming immortal, and not as punishment for going against his word. Whether this is his true purpose, I have no idea, but throughout the Genesis, like striking down the Tower of Babel, God tries to prevent man from achieving immortality. Therefore, I think that the fruit "gave them something God didn't want them to have," as you said, and was not placed as a test. Of course, there are many other interpretations, and I'm not a scholar of the Bible.

Regarding free will, I think that man had free will regardless if the fruit was a test. After all, God had only banned the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and allowed Adam and Eve to do whatever else they wanted. Unless I'm misinterpreting the meaning of "free will"?