Original Sin as Metaphor!

I'm trying to remember being a young lad in Catholic grade school. The Nuns taught us about "Original Sin," which if I remember correctly had something to do with Adam eating from the Tree of Good & Evil. I was taught we had "souls" which I imagined were kind of like an invisible t-shirt, which was marked every time we committed a sin. Sins were committed frequently. Sometimes thought by thought. So yes, my little invisible t-shirt had lots of big black marks scrawled across the front.

I suppose I took this literally when I was a child. Briefly. Or maybe like for a few years, until I began to suspect the whole Catholic enterprise was just an elaborate trick to try to instill guilt and fear into my being. I later understood all this indoctrination as a way to make me obedient to the power structure of society. It didn't really work, later I rebelled pretty intently, but on the other hand, it all worked quite well. It helped form my internal universe which I carry with me to this day.

I now can look back and see all that Bible study thing as a story, an elaborate myth. Not to be taken literally, but which can be read "metaphorically."  Interpreted like a poem. Read like Shakespeare or Blake.

So yeah, all of us are born, and all of us are capable of "good & evil." Every moment of every day, we make decisions, we have thoughts, we contemplate and act.  Everyone of us is capable of everything  and anything we can imagine. The great and beautiful, the sordid and ugly.

Why? Because we are Human Beings. Flawed. Imperfect. Complicated. Every day, human beings prove this to each other. It's a weird story. We have been banished from the Garden of Eden. We live in our own Heaven & Hell. That's our world, baby. 

This doesn't let us off the hook. It's put us squarely on it. We are responsible, we are held accountable for everything.  It's kind of an Existentialist thing.

I do think having a sense of guilt, a sense of sin, a sense of responsibility and having a conscience are all good things I retrieved from my Catholic upbringing. All that was successfully transferred to the core of my being. I carry that shit with me. Even if I do believe it's all metaphorical, symbolic. 

It's actually useful, has made me a better being, because I know that I'm no better than any other being, I'm flawed, just like everyone else is flawed. So some of this shit emerging now is not surprising, even though it is surprising. You know what I mean? Welcome to Human Paradise! Welcome to our Human Hell.