My religious upbringing does not include Original Sin. However, i've run into it again and again since I get into conversations a lot like this thread that I've tried to put my own cast on it. We want to be good, but we already contain some evil. (Like Yin and Yang, everything contains within itself a portion of the opposite). Most of us believe the foundation of the United States to be a wonderful thing, but it wouldn't have happened without a compromise that included slavery.

I know there is also a sexual component to Original Sin among Christians (maybe in light of Don's post I should properly say, I THINK I know...). I ignore that part.

There is a Jewish approach to evil inherent in the beginning. It comes straight from God:

Deuteronomy 30:15 states:

See, I [God] have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.

Followed by an admonition, therefore choose good that you may live.

I love the immediacy of 'this day'. From that day to this each human being has the capacity (necessity? burden?) of choice.

And like Don, I can't resist a Star Trek parable: The episode where the crew is captivated by a paradise planet, (the feel good spores). As they are leaving at the end of the episode Kirk observes "maybe we were not meant to live in Eden. We were meant to 'fight our way out'.

Which I fully subscribe to. I think if we'd stayed in Eden God wouldn't been disappointed and what is worse, bored.