The Bible just doesn't make any sense

Being an atheist and never attending church as a child, I certainly cannot attest to really knowing anything in the bible. However, one cannot but at least hear of some of its writings, and absurdities.

Let's start with the tree of knowledge. Apparently god had this tree sitting in the garden where Adam and eve are frolicking around, and told them not to eat from it. A snake then speaks to Eve and convinces her to eat from it, after which Adam does the same. Shame on them for disobeying god, so they are condemned to be ashamed of their nakedness, and not live forever.

WOW!

So let me get this straight. God creates a tree of knowledge. God creates Man. Man disobeys God's will and is then punished.

Um, excuse me, but wasn't it God that was responsible for this whole mess to begin with? If he created Man, and Man then ventures out due to temptation, then wasn't this trait inherent due to God's creation? Doesn't appear to me that God was so perfect after all, and created a defective being. Then when this defective being messes up, he condemns Man instead of thinking "Oops! Dang, I could have sworn Man wouldn't have done such a thing. Hold on Adam and Eve, I'll get back to you once I figure this thing out. Sorry about that."

Let's not even get into the whole rib from one to create the other, a talking snake, and the fact that the bible would have all of us put to death if we so much as say God's name in vain.

And to think that there are actually people out there that take the literal interpretation of the bible.

Seems to me if one was to embrace the bible AT ALL, then one would need to view it through symbolism. Perhaps the snake just represents the temptation that all Man feels at times. The tree represents that which is not only good, but also evil, as everything has two sides to it. To know of good is to know of evil, just as one cannot know of light unless they know of darkness. It's a two edge sword. Perhaps the message isn't that one should never partake in knowledge, in as much that one must be very careful as learning good also means learning of evil, and thus one must choose wisely.

Of course none of this helps with making any sense of the fact that god apparently punished Man for trying to learn.

Come to think of it, maybe god is the devil, and vice versa. It's god that appears to be the dictator, and wants us to be blindly following him like sheep, whereas the devil wanted us to expand our horizons and learn.

Or perhaps the bible has been misinterpreted by so many people all along.

I just don't know. What I do know is that the people who take this to the extreme, and really believe that the universe is only 6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs didn't really exist, and that there is no such thing as evolution (at least on the level of viruses and other lower like forms), need to get help.