That is one of biggest problems I have with Christian theology (and Judaic and Islamic, of course): why would a perfect beign create an imperfect creature and then punish it for not being perfect?

As I said before, man was created to be perfect, only given the opportunity to be imperfect. This may sound like a thin line, but it’s important to understand the difference. Sin entered the world through us, not by God. He gave us the freewill to disobey him, apparently deciding that it is better to give us the choice of service rather than forcing us into obedience. Would it have been more just to make us into robots that obeyed His law without any will of our own? Christianity says the answer to this is “no.”