Scully said: Really? Has Satan been proven a liar? Read the conversations between God and Adam and the one between Eve and the serpent again.
And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it. And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: "From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die." ~ Genesis 2:15-17.
Now the serpent proved to be the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made. So it began to say to the woman: "Is it really so that god said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?" At this the woman said to the serpent: "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But as for [eating] of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that you do not die.'" At this the serpent said to the woman: "You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad." ~ Genesis 3:1-5
It seems to me that God's threat was an empty one - he did not kill Adam and Eve immediately upon discovering that they'd eaten the fruit. And, why, pray tell, would a loving God want his most superlative creation, the ones made in his own image, to NOT have the capacity to know good and bad in the first place? It seems that if God was making man in his own image, that moral compass would be required equipment, don't you think? So, in other words, God deliberately made Adam and Eve defective [not in his image, after all] by not installing the knowledge of good and bad that he had himself, and actually withheld that capacity from them, plus God was the one lying about (a) making man in his own image and (b) that eating from the tree would result in pretty much immediate death. Satan wasn't the one lying. And it was proved in the fact that Adam and Eve did not die "in the day" that they ate from the tree. Satan also didn't lie about their eyes being opened to the knowledge of good and bad, he actually showed Adam and Eve that God was withholding something from them that was for their benefit - knowing good and bad for themselves - the part of Adam and Eve that made them to be not-quite-made-in-God's-image after all.
So perhaps another, more appropriate question would be, why would God hold someone accountable for not merely "following orders" (especially dumb orders like "don't eat that fruit or I'll kill you") when they had no moral sense to begin with? Why would God try to control people whom he claimed were made in his own image with FEAR rather than give them clear REASONS for obedience and loyalty? Your husband is right about it "not being fair" - but not exactly for the reasons he feels are unfair.
Bravo.