The idea behind original sin wouldn mean that people could not fight against "human/animal" nature in order to improve their lives as well as those around them. As human nature is instinctive behaviour that thousands of years of evolution has caused to be part of our character. However as human have gained the ability for critical thinking, the long term storage of information and knowledge, we do not have to be slaves to our base instincts if we so choose not to be. Those of strong will and mind can overcome the base instinct that evolution has created for us.
Original sin would mean that we are not responsible for our actions as they are derived from god, that we are sinners by nature and that seeking to improve ourself to be above it is impossible
Too absolute.
In my experience, there is almost no man so depraved that there is no good in him at all. I've personally known mass-murderers who loved their Mother and were polite and well-mannered.
Also there is no saint so saintly that his baser nature isn't there waiting to trip him up, if he isn't very careful.
Within every human is a war between their baser nature and their better nature. Most people are neither demons nor angels, but somewhere in between... but at the same time, most people don't have enough POWER to really abuse others in big ways. They are constrained by fear of resprisals, either from injured victims, their associates, or the Law.
When someone has political power, they ARE the Law, to some degree at least. The more political power they possess, the more power they have to help or harm according to which side of their nature is dominant at the moment. Great power is a great temptation; justifications suggest themselves for using it and abusing it according to one's inclinations.
Whenever any individual or group or class gains too much power, and is too insulated from being held accountable for its use and punished for its ABuse, it is all but inevitable that that power will be abused and many people will suffer. The power elite may do it from the "best of motives": you know, one of those trite sayings like "the greatest good for the greatest number", or some ideology, or some principle. The end result tends to be oppression of dissent or differing lifestyles or beliefs, suppression of dissenting speech, and in the more extreme cases: gulags and death camps.
Even those who begin with clean hands and pure motives can end as the worst sort of tyrants, when they possess too much power and too little accountability.
The Founders knew this, that's why they set up a LIMITED government. A LIMITED government
can't solve all your problems... but it also tends to allow you the freedom to solve many of your own problems and live your own life.
This is one of the main reasons I favor small government with limited powers. The bigger and more powerful government is, the more likely it is that that power will be abused by fallible and corruptible humans running it.
I knew a good man. He was a local lawyer and mayor of a small town. Over time he rose to the Senate... and a few years later I was stunned to find out that he was being indicted for a variety of abuses of his position. I could not reconcile the good man I had known years earlier with what he had become, until I remembered this old adage: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The more power you give government to deal with problems, the more of a problem Government itself will become. The only solution is a careful middle road:
just enough government to deal with what must be done, and not one iota more.
