Original sin: The tendency to evil supposedly innate in all human beings, held to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall.
Here I'm not focusing on the why of original sin, how we got here, but the fact of original sin (or evil). That we all do evil. And it's not that we merely do evil by mistake, but that we do wrong even when we agree with ourselves that the act is wrong. We, as humans, have all experienced this: I know A is wrong, I agree that A is wrong, yet I do it anyway. The morally rational is superseded or rejected - and we choose the wrong. But why, what is driving these bad choices, if we agree and know A is wrong, what compels us to go against our best moral sense? If we say selfishness or lust then the question becomes - how/why do these so often rise to ascendancy? What makes us forgo the rational in these moral situations?
Here I'm not focusing on the why of original sin, how we got here, but the fact of original sin (or evil). That we all do evil. And it's not that we merely do evil by mistake, but that we do wrong even when we agree with ourselves that the act is wrong. We, as humans, have all experienced this: I know A is wrong, I agree that A is wrong, yet I do it anyway. The morally rational is superseded or rejected - and we choose the wrong. But why, what is driving these bad choices, if we agree and know A is wrong, what compels us to go against our best moral sense? If we say selfishness or lust then the question becomes - how/why do these so often rise to ascendancy? What makes us forgo the rational in these moral situations?
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