If the doctrine's central point is that man was perfect then he disobeyed and so all of his sons were cursed because he is all of our anscestor then the lack of a garden of Eden, forbidden fruit and talking snake makes the story impossible (unless it is read allegorically, but that still needs to have a God who talks to people).
That's not the doctrine's central point, though. At its simplest, the doctrine of original sin is simply the claim that everyone has an inherent tendency to do what is wrong (which is technically termed
concupiscence). That seems to me not only plausible but quite probable. The version of the doctrine that's needed for our purposes is the stronger claim that a person can be legitimately punished for the wrongdoing of their ancestors. You don't need the notion that humanity was created perfect for that. You're confusing the doctrine of the Fall with the doctrine of inherited guilt, and calling them both "original sin", but they are quite distinct, even though they may commonly be associated together. That doesn't make the doctrine of inherited guilt much more plausible, of course, but in my view there are perfectly good reasons for rejecting the doctrine of inherited guilt without worrying about the Fall.
Absurd does mean that you should not base an argument on it; it's like selling your house to buy lottery tickets because you have a 1 in 170 chance of hitting the jackpot and trebling your money.
Indeed, but I wasn't basing an argument on it - I was pointing out that it is a hole, however small, in your own. You cannot
completely rule out something that is still a possibility, however implausible you may think it. In this case, you may think that the notion of reincarnation (and, with it, the notion that suffering in this life could be a just punishment for sins committed in a past life) is highly implausible, but as long as you admit that it's
possible you must also admit that you can't be
certain that the existence of suffering disproves God's existence. Neither you nor anyone else has to hold that reincarnation is probable or actual for this point to hold. Of course, this is quite apart from the fact that there are an awful lot of people who don't think this doctrine highly implausible, and who hold it to be actually true. That means that the claim that it's highly implausible must be backed up by some kind of argument. I'm sure there are plenty available, but again, you can't just assume them.
The comment on reform fits because God is supposedly just, and so he would (I assume) subscribe to the idea that people should have a second chance.
Is that necessarily part of justice? I think you're on much shakier grounds if you're now assuming that a perfectly just God would not only refrain from punishing the innocent but also from punishing the guilty as well. Furthermore, it's easy to adapt the reincarnation story to take account of this, even if we all agree that God should give everyone a second chance. Perhaps he does, and the people who are currently suffering are those who had a second chance in the last life and blew it.
Morals are, in my opinion, judged on the intent save where recklessness or negligence are involved. If you meant to, for example, shoot your wife but missed and shot Adolf Hitler, you are still evil, and if you aimed for Hitler but shot your wife you are still good. The exception would be if you laid a landmine in a forest on the off-chance that Hitler would walk into it and your wife stepped on it. I've just proven Godwin's Law, by the way.
That's a common and plausible view - and one which, by the way, goes back to St Augustine (via Abelard). One problem with it is that it's not reflected in the ways we punish people: you get a harsher sentence for murder than for attempted murder. So it seems we punish people for competence. Why this is and what it means is a much-discussed topic, although probably not one that's relevant here.
I see... as I have said before, I don't hold with the argument which says "God has a mind which we mere mortals cannot fathom". From our end, we can see no difference between that and no God, and so were are compelled to simplicity.
It's not an argument, though. It's just a possibility. And whether you "hold" with it or not, surely you must accept that it
is a possibility that God, if he exists, could have reasons for doing things that we don't know - even for doing things that seem to us to be abhorrent. Just as the small child doesn't understand why its parents refuse to give it ice cream for every meal. Indeed, if God did exist, I would think it wildly unlikely that there was nothing that he could understand with his eternal omniscience which was beyond our understanding, based as it is on a couple of kilograms of mushy grey stuff.
Besides this, though, there is surely a difference between a God who has motives we don't know (or even understand) and no God at all, just as there is a difference between a parent whose motives a toddler cannot understand and no parent at all. There would even be a difference between a universe governed by a completely amoral God and one governed by no God at all - surely.
And as I said before, I am not convinced that the "simplicity" criterion is relevant at all to this subject, even assuming it can be stated uncontroversially in the first place. Which it can't.
This is one of my big dilemmas, philosophically speaking. We know that there is no gold standard of morality (I leave God aside) since some people honestly believe that abortion is right and some that it is wrong; and they cannot both be right and there is nothing which compels either of them to accept the judgement of the other. Therefore; I cannot say that my values are true, and so I think that to be moral is to act in accordance with your values. However, if you believe that it is good to help your friends and tell the truth, then that is in my view 'superior' to believing in promoting self-intrest and greed, but I can't say what reason I have to think that.
Well, this is a vast topic in philosophy, and a vast number of answers have been given to this. Incidentally, appealing to God to do so is one of the least popular and least successful. Just to begin with, you could look
here,
here, and
here. You see what I mean!
Interesting... in Islam, however, this is not true. But that is a very interesting take on it; in fact it is an awful lot better than any other I have heard. The only problem I have with it is that Jack the Ripper is equal in the eyes of God to the pope; which does not seem right to me.
It doesn't necessarily have that consequence. To say that everyone has sinned, and that everyone is (or would be) justly condemned, is not to say that everyone has sinned
to the same degree. You can say that all children are naughty without being committed to the view that all children are equally naughty, or indeed that all whales are big without being committed to the view that all whales are equally big. The notion that everyone is
completely sinful is known as the doctrine of "total depravity" and it is associated with the Reformed tradition, and it is not held by most Christians (certainly not by most Catholics). However, even those who hold total depravity would not say that Jack the Ripper is equal to the pope in the eyes of God. They would say that,
theologically speaking, they are equally unworthy in God's eyes; but this is still distinct from their
moral value. On a human, natural level of course we can distinguish between differing degrees of depravity, and God recognises that; it is only when we consider them in terms of the duty to God that the distinctions become irrelevant.