I was being too generous, lenient and somewhat forgiving when I said "The degree of human stupidity is truly immeasurable.

There has always been a stand that any one person can be smart, but put three smart persons together and you get a load for the turnip truck (myself included).

What our leaders are doing to us compares only to the Roman rule of their distant provinces. Bread and games. Lottery, flashy scantily clad females, news that are not newsworthy, scandal after scandal (anybody remembers Tawana Brawley?). And it is the collective US that allows it. We, ourselves, allow the history to play this three card monty on us. It's about 100 times the effort to correct these injustices at some future time. It's so much healthier and wiser to nip it in the bud. But we need another 289 million of Dr. Wilson's clones.

Exactly right. The all-good God foreknew, but does not foreordain sin nor death. The all-good God did not create nor does he want sin, suffering, nor death. They are the consequences of failing to "continue in [his] word." God meant what he said when he commanded Adam and Eve not to take of the tree. Instead, they were commanded to take dominion over the whole earth, including the reptiles, and at the tree that meant to judge the serpent and beat it with a club. All God's commandments are binding. Believe in anything else and face eternal death.

But what a wonderful quote JQReb shared:

“When the love of self becomes the ruling passion and the golden calf the only divinity, then will this majestic fabric of Freedom crumble to pieces, and from its ruin will arise a hideous monster with Liberty in its mouth and Despotism in its heart.”
—Kirk Paulding

"Then Jesus said to those Jews, who believed in him: if you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8: 31-32)

In much agreement with the quote which you provided, very much! So "it has been and is: "...Liberty in its mouth and Despotism in its heart."

Behind man's desire to be a god or the god is his envy of God; man envies God as Creator and desires out of that envy to become god Satan, as another poster's theological position suggests, may have well been playing a role in God's ultimately plan; but that role entailed his leveraging Adam's envy. My initial post to this thread was not theological but political: politicians continue to leverage envy Envy has become a "virtue" to serve the aggregate of "god-like selves" by giving them their whims, compulsions and desires at the expense of others. Every entity and institution which stands in the way of these realizations is leveled: God, family, Church, local polity, etc.

This may be true, and if it is, it is a tragic indictment of our history as a people.

My how you leap to illogical conclusions.

Again, Adam was not deceived (Timothy 2:14) he chose to disobey God's commandment, he did not do it to obey Satan. Salvation is obviously through Christ, not by "the tree." Romans 5 makes it quite clear that Adam's transgression brought death and sin into the world and Christ's atonement brings the possibility of redemption.

As for unnecessary suffering--if even God's Son was only made perfect through his sufferings (Hebrews 2:10) can we really believe that God intended a world for us without any?

It is your argument, not mine, that gives power to Satan and denies it to God. For you are saying that, unforseen to God, Satan was able to cause the fall, death, unnecessary suffering, and that God was then forced to come up with a new inferior plan for man's salvation.

My argument is that the fall, redemption, and salvation of man, through Jesus Christ, were all prepared "from the foundation of the world." God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden knowing exactly what they would do. Yes, He commanded them to not partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He, God, let them choose for themselves; that they would be responsible for their own fall. He also allowed Satan to tempt them, again knowing full well what Satan would do. Satan tried to thwart God's will, but of course couldn't (that would make him more powerful than God).
It is the same today. God allows Satan to tempt man, Satan tries to thwart God's will but cannot. Satan can ultimately only do what God allows him. Thus it does not follow that we should obey Satan.

The fall can be a difficult doctrine. How could God, being God, bring death and sin into the world. Could He have commanded Adam and Eve to do it? Could He have created an imperfect world, already full of sin? The way it is presented in the Bible seems to be the only way.

It's a trait I see among the sneaky liberals who creep on to this website.