The tree of knowledge of good and evil

[Doug]

Before Adam and Eve sinned, was God keeping them ignorant by keeping them from knowledge? Or knowing their true situation? And why?

Also when they sinned did animals start to die?

[Kevin H]

The tree of the expirence of good and evil was a place where Lucifer had access for Adam and Eve to learn the lessons, yet prevent Lucifer from harrasing them all through the garden. It took the angels and the beings on the other planets billions of years before they were ready to start dealing with these issues. God could have lead Adam and Eve slowly had they avoided the tree. God is the one who knows evil fully and he knows it's so ugly that he want's nothing to do with it. Lucifer was expirementing and it was one thing for him and the angels and the beings who were around worshiping God for billions of years to deal with these questions, and God could have worked with them. However when Lucifer moved from the angels and beings on other planets to attack children, that put him in a different catagory, was a step towards making him a more hardened criminal and instead of him learning all about evil he just plays with it using it to horrify us.