Why do religious christians eat fruit?

It was not just any fruit. It was fruit from the tree of knowledge which, as you said, gave knowledge of good and evil.

The two have nothing to do with the other. No one knows what the fruit on the Tree of Knowledge was, for all we know it may have been durian.

But if you are going to go back to make suppositions from non sequiturs in Genesis, why do we eat beef cattle when only two were left for Noah?

In the New Testament, Jesus swept away these (old) rules when He “declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:18–19): “There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.”

Fruit is not forbidden.

You’re focused on the wrong thing. The problem wasn’t that they ate fruit. It’s that they ate something that had been forbidden to them. Think about it this way: Cain was both a farmer and a murderer, but the fact that he was a murderer doesn’t mean no one should be a farmer. So even if Adam and Eve were both sinners and fruit eaters, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t eat fruit. The lesson is about sin.

@KNOWITALL so was Mark saying that dietary laws (Kashrut, kosher food) were no longer to be followed? (for early Christians, many of whom were Jews)

@elbanditoroso Mark didn’t say it, Jesus did. And let’s put it into context. The Pharisees were attacking Jesus because his disciples were eating food without washing their hands first. Washing hands was a tradition of the elders, not a commandment of God. Jesus pointed out to them their hypocrisy and how they had left the teachings of God and adopted the rules of Man. He told the crowd that nothing outside of them can defile them by going into them, it is what comes out of them that defiles. This was a parable. He explained it better to his disciples shortly after this:

“17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

And yes, he is saying the dietary laws were no longer applicable.

@elbanditoroso. Yes. Jesus was a radical to many Jews of His time, I believe. This is just another example.

@elbanditoroso In most denominations of Christianity, the cleansing of all foods is considered one of the miracles of Jesus. It’s also part of his task of fulfilling the law and the prophets in order to establish the New Covenant.

As far as I’m aware Adam was told that he could not eat from one tree, the tree of knowledge.

He could eat of any other fruit available to him provided it did not come from that particular tree,

As far as I m aware virtually all humans eat fruit, Christians included. Jewish, Catholics, Shinto’s,
Etc.

No only Christians but Atheists, and Agnostics eat fruit too.
.