One day the gods of Olympus looked down on the Earth and though there were many beautiful mountains, rivers, fields, woods and many other wondrous things, there were as yet no beings to inhabit and appreciate all of the Earth's splendor. So they set the two remaining Titans Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus to the task of fashioning creatures out of clay to inhabit the Earth.
Prometheus took his time, pouring great effort into his creatures to make them look as godlike as possible. He decided to call them humans. Epimetheus on the other hand, wanted to get the job done as quickly as possible and made all the other animals very hastily and were nowhere near as beautiful as Prometheus' humans. Now wise Zeus, the great ruler of Olympus, had only given the brothers a fixed number of gifts to bestow the new inhabitants of the Earth with, and while Prometheus was taking his time creating us, his brother was using up all the good gifts on the animals, so that though the new humans looked beautiful and godlike, they couldn't run very fast, or smell, or see as well, and weren't as strong, as many of the other animals. So Prometheus, wanting his creatures to have some some sort of special gift, went and asked Zeus if he could give them some of the gods' fire. But Zeus forbade this, saying that fire was for the immortals only.
And so, in the beginning, humans had to live in cold caves, for fear of the other animals who could out preform them in every way. Prometheus saw this and felt so bad for his creations that he decided to disobey Zeus and stole a torch of fire from the hearth on Olympus to give the humans. With fire, we were now able to see in the dark and warm ourselves at night as well as cook meat that we caught and were no longer the most pathetic creatures on the face of the Earth. But Zeus was furious at Prometheus for disobeying him! He said that if humans were to have fire, they would have to burn sacrifices to the gods with it. But Prometheus didn't want his creations to burn away the edible portions of what the humans had hunted, so he came up with a plan to deceive the other gods, which would ultimately lead to his demise. He said that the gods would have to decide which parts of the animals they would accept as the humans' sacrifices. On one fire he burnt all the yummy cuts of meat a person could eat and in the other fire he burnt the bones and intestines of the animals, which were inedible but were coated in fat which smelled much tastier when burnt. Zeus chose the second fire and when he found out of Prometheus' deception, he knew he had to be punished. Zeus chained poor Prometheus to a great bolder and sent an eagle to eat out his liver every day, which would regrow itself during the night only to be eaten out once again the next day for all eternity! That was Prometheus' punishment, but Zeus had devised an even worse fate for the humans!
He commanded Hephaestus, the great craftsman god of Olympus, to make a beautiful woman. He carved her out of the finest white marble, made her hair out of gold, her eyes out of green emeralds, and her lips out of red rubies. Zeus breathed life into her, but also implanted in her mind insatiable curiosity. He named her Pandora and sent her down from Olympus to live among the humans. But before doing so he gave her a beautifully crafted box, encrusted with jewels and gold as a parting 'gift', but warned the girl to never open it, knowing full well Pandora wouldn't be able to resist. And it didn't take long for her curiosity to get the better of her. She said to herself "I'll only open it a crack to peek at what's inside and then close it forever." This Pandora did, but before she could close the box out sprung Zeus' punishment for mankind: Drugery, Envy, Hatred, Greed and all the other evils that plague mankind to this very day. Shocked, poor Pandora closed the box, but heard from inside a voice saying "help help, let me out, I'm not bad like the others." Pandora, still being curious to find out what was inside, opened the box again and out came Hope.
So, now you know the real story. As you can see, Adam and Eve (nor any snake, for that matter) had nothing to do with causing the all the human suffering we know today. You were right to suspect a cover up!
