QUOTE : Accuser’s litigation against the third part of God’s covenant with humanity. He took the bar and spoke with the particular disdain he had for rules. “Ethical stipulations,” he said. “The laws required by the suzerain of the subject if he is to maintain his status as protected vassal before his lord.” The Accuser launched into a new diatribe. “In this most primitive of law codes in the Garden, Havah was told by Elohim, and I quote, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge you shall not eat, neither shall you touch it, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” The Accuser paced around shaking his head with ridicule. “We will have much to say about this curse of death in our fourth complaint. But for now, we would like to focus on this silly demand that humankind stay mired in unenlightened ignorance by submission to an impossible command. I ask the court, did Elohim actually say this? Could his childish motives be any more obvious?” “Now, I have said this before, and I will say it again, this whole thing is a set-up by a god who is spiteful, mean, obsessively jealous, and self-protective. He wanted to keep humanity from becoming like us — from becoming gods. Elohim must have known that knowledge would allow man to control his own life and to discover all the secrets of the universe, and well, we just cannot allow that kind of competition, can we?” The Accuser paused for effect. His cohorts smiled at the progress, but the heavenly host sat unmoved. He delivered his conclusion, “I submit to you that Elohim’s covenant is not the legal treaty of a master protecting his servant, it is the declaration of a monomaniac oppressing his servant, and protecting himself from being outdone by his own creation!” The Accuser sat down.