I have thought about weed being the tree of the knowledge of good and evil countless times because me and weed go through some pretty heavy mental bouts. I was taught so much bad about weed before I started using it that now I'm torn about it and can't really make up my mind on how to feel about it. Once I make up my mind that it's good something happens that makes me think twice, and once I make up my mind that it's bad something again happens to make me think twice. I have come to the conclusion that weed should not be abused and should not be used for the pure sake of enjoyment atleast for me. But on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil I have come to this conclusion. It was not about the fruit that was on the tree, it was about the choice that was made. God said, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The way that this is worded shows me that God planned for them to eat from the tree because he spoke of "the day" in certainty. Like when you're playing a video game and you walk to a certain point and it triggers a cut scene. Also, when he says "in the day" I think he is speaking as if someone was to say back in the day. So he is not saying they will drop dead but they will fall from grace they will trigger a cycle of pain and suffering and this cycle is what he refers to as death. The serpent (which I highly doubt was an actual physical snake or dragon) gave them the other side of the story. "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for GOD doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as GOD, knowing good and evil." They can now make their own choices decide which is good and which is bad, unfortunately people make a lot of wrong choices which leads to a twisted corrupted unjust state of society which can be likened to pain and suffering. The world being dominated by wrong choices and pain and suffering for the masses is the death that I believe the LORD was speaking of. If we were to make right choices then we would not have died this is why the serpent worded it in the manner he did by including the word "surely". GOD telling us not to eat and the serpent telling us to eat was the true nature of the forbidden fruit. It placed the first opportunity to go against the word of GOD. I think of Adam and Eve as children and GOD being their father and mother. When we are children we usually do what our parents say without question only because it is coming from our parents mouths, but as we get older we become curious to the nature of the world and eventually we go against the word of our parents and do what we want to do. As we enter what my mom refers to as the real world and begin to make our own way we are faced with a lot of new things and these new things are often underhanded or distracting, and everything in between. Underhanded referring to things like bank contracts which can be confusing and sucker you out of a lot of money, distracting referring to things such as crack cocaine which can keep you from pursuing a decent standard of living. In this world we must set out to build something like what our parents gave us or even better with all the challenges that come with free will. Though it would be nice if our parents could provide for us forever giving us everything we need, this is counterproductive it deprives us of experience and doesn't usually produce funtional people. Without the serpent we would live in a utopic society but we wouldn't have progressed as people very far, our utopic society would be stunted never able to progress any further than the current state. With the serpent, we have begun to progress and realize things about our world on our own, but our society is far from utopic we don't have the perfect world that was given to us we only have what we have built with our own hands and we have to work to keep it. Because our society is ever evolving the harmony that existed in eden can once again exist, and on a grander scale since it will come with the progress we have attained in our long journey since we departed eden. To me that is the poetry that is Genesis, the choice that birth all choices, the original road to success, the long journey to victory, and best of all the apparent misdeed that was humanity's first step towards common enlightenment and wealth. As I stated before the Tree and the fruit thereof was of no importance, it was the choice that came with it which was the true test of mankind.