Adam & Woman, the first humans, are innocent victims of a confidence trick.

Adam and Eve are a myth from a really old book of myths. This alone wins the debate. They are neither the first humans, innocent, victims, or conned... they are figments of a bronze aged system of myths. Thank you. --- Ignoring the contradictory account of Genesis 1 we see the myth pretty damned straight forward. You are reading it less than literally because you are biased to see the myth in the theological landscape it has within Christianity and how you think it should relate to Christianity. However, it isn't Christian, it's Jewish and there's a very good chance the Jews even borrowed the myth. Adam is created out of clay. God tells Adam, do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge or you will die! He gets lonely. God creates a bunch of animals out of the ground and presents them to Adam to name and see if he wanted to have sex with any of them. This fails, and so God puts Adam asleep and removes his rib* and makes Woman out of it. They were naked. A talking snake comes around and says to Woman, "You know that tree you're not suppose to eat from or else you'll die? -- We'll that's not true. You won't die. You will know the truth of good and evil." She ate from the tree and gave some to Adam. They did not die and knew the truth of good and evil. God comes around strolling through the garden and sees they are hiding because they are naked. They fess up and the three are punished. The woman is forced to have children. The man is forced to rule over the woman. The snake is forced to eat dust and be more lowly than cattle. Adam calls the woman Eve. God makes Adam and Eve a few coats. Then says that they have become like the gods and need to be kicked out before they eat from the Tree of Life as well. So Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden, and God put Cherubim and a flaming sword at the east side of the garden to protect it. This story is a myth. It isn't even an interesting myth. The god in the story is one God of many (probably henotheistic where other gods exist but aren't the chief God), the magic tree, and talking snake are pretty tell tale signs. The god in the story isn't all-knowing or all-powerful. He lies to Adam and the woman and threatens them with death for disobeying. The serpent tells the truth and the entire group are punished (not with dying the same day as threatened) and then God protects his other magical tree by kicking them out of the garden. The text is pretty clear cut. There's no gift here. They get the power to know good and evil from a magical tree that they were threatened with death for touching. In the story they aren't conned. They are told that if they touch the tree they will die, and the serpent says that's false and the tree will give them knowledge of good and evil and it does. God gets pissed and starts dolling out punishments. They're was no conning going on. There was lying, truth-telling, eating, and punishing in a myth. * Some have argued rather well that rib is a mistranslation (or another acceptable translation but one that isn't the intent of the original text) of a different bone of the ospenis which makes a lot more sense.