You Can't Tell Me What To Do

Theologians have been wrestling with the fundamental question of Original Sin since Augustine or Thomas Aquinas had too much time on his/their hands and didn't realize there were bigger fish to fry. So we've condemned deceased unbaptized children, born and unborn, to (a) burn in Hell, (b) be kind of happy in Limbo ... depending on what era you've lived in. Hey, we invented O.S. so we can invent the consequences (and Limbo), as well.

Here's the real answer:

We refuse to learn from those who have gone before us. We even refuse to listen to those who try to warn us. We will not accept the wisdom of those who have learned and want to share. It's The original sin, the one which came before all others; had we listened from the first, we would not get into so many messy situations.

Speed limits? Those signs were put there because someone realized anything faster was not safe. So we exceed them and end up wrapped around a tree. Alcohol use? We know how to use it responsibly, but we've all seen people who decide not to; at best, they look like fools but at worse, they wreck families or DUI and cause a road fatality.

Yeah, that's gotta be it. Every person, when born, needs to "invent the wheel" all over again. Everybody starts at zero, despite the amount of knowledge their elders, our civilization, have built up. It's the sin of not listening, of refusing to learn. Nobody ever went to Hell or Limbo because they did not have Original Sin wiped away by Baptism; all they did was hit their foreheads and go, "Duhhhhh," when they realized they should have listened.