The Devil is on balance a better role model than God

C1. Knowledge and Freedom From Control.The primary reasoning behind my opponent's (eloquently written) counter is that God was not punishing Adam and Eve for gaining knowledge per se. It was because they disobeyed his direct order towards them. He writes: "The true reason for the fall of man lies not in the acquisition of knowledge but the supposed transition from a postulated graceful innocence (see my Argument) to a defiance, a transgression of the set limit to human enterprise by God." A strict distinction between disobeying God and specifically how this comes to be is made in God's defense with the purpose of justifying God's actions as not necessarily antagonistic to the gaining of knowledge. But the problem with this point is that it fails to actually get around God punishing Adam and Eve for gaining their knowledge. This can be seen from the fact that God had a rule against it in the first place. Now obviously when God created this rule he had some reason in mind. There had to have been a reason to penalize humanity for eating of it. If the reason was to simply measure the obedience of his creation then the contents of the tree's fruit it was arbitrary and knowledge needn't have been the result of eating from it. Since God could have just created a normal tree to keep Adam and Eve from eating from (in order to measure their obedience) there must be special significance in his choice to make the fruit of the tree specifically causal in giving knowledge.My opponent's analysis only looks at the secondary reason for God punishing humanity (which is obviously because they disobeyed his rule). But what Con fails to take into account is why they disobeyed in the first place. Why did God choose to penalize the gaining of knowledge? My own analysis looks into the rule itself, what could possibly justify it, and what characteristic implications may we derive from this rule as pertaining to God. The rule is to penalize and prohibit the gaining of knowledge, God never bothers to justify the rule as it is only a command (expanded upon in C2), and there has not been any reason forwarded to suggest that this rule was created for any reason other than to keep humanity in a state of ignorance.Satan as the Serpent in Eden.My justification for the serpent being the Devil was clear and my opponent has yet to refute it. In the verse I provided (Ezekiel 28: 13), God says specifically that "You were in Eden, the garden of God" and in verse 14 (speaking to the same person) that "You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.". Cherub refers to a being which is necessarily supernatural and the only characters in the Garden were Adam, Eve, the Serpent (one of them is being referred to in this passage and Adam and Eve were long dead, leaving only the Serpent). Therefore one may conclude that Satan is the one being spoken to in this passage and was the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. C2. Individualism and Unjustified Authority.The case which Con has made based on reciprocity may be summarized as follows (I apologize in advance if I'm mistaken): authority may be created through reciprocity wherein one actor A provides benefits or acts in favor of another (actor B). If actor B who receives the benefits does not submit to obligations imposed by the actor A then there is an imbalance of obligation which fails to give repayment to actor A. The problem with this contention though is the conception of authority as contractual. Under Con's conception of authority, it is being created in a contractual manner- God creates humanity and endows it with certain favorable traits and in return humanity is supposed to owe something to God (in this case submission).But the problem inherent in this point is that Con is using the contractual approach to arrive at a non-contractual conclusion. Under my opponent's own framework, authority may be conceived as reciprocal. Jim provides John with benefits so John repay Jim by submitting to their authority. But this reciprocal condition is only fulfilled if the two parties contract themselves to each other voluntarily. Now obviously God was a voluntary party to this contract but was humanity? Of course not. The alleged contractual act was made prior to humanity's conception in the first place! Meaning we didn't even exist to make this alleged reciprocal agreement with God.Consider the following analogy, if I just come to your house and offer my services mowing your lawn, you are only contractually obliged to pay me if you first accept my services. If I just mow your lawn and then come and ask for payment you have no obligation to pay me. After all I'm just some weird man who's trespassing. The same applies to humanity's conception and is the reason why our facts of existence (the Earth, our traits, etc.) cannot be taken as terms in a contract. Reciprocity is the standard which my opponent has taken in his argument. He conceives of authority in much the same way I argued, that it can only be made in agreement between parties. But humanity was not a party to it's own creation, therefore the facts of existence or creation cannot be taken to defend God's authority over man.===Sources===[1] http://www.gotquestions.org...