Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Clandestine
Again, many Christians believe that if it weren't for the fall of Adam & Eve, this world would have remained perfect... and we'd have never felt suffering, pain, or death.
I've never liked the idea of original sin. I don't like the idea that one act by Adam and Eve cursed us all to a life of suffering, pain and death. This idea of The Fall from Grace puts the blame on us for all the suffering in the world. Many put more blame on Eve. And I dislike the idea that I bear guilt for a sin that supposedly was committed by someone else.

It's been a long, long time since I read any William Blake, but as I remember it, he had an alternative for the Fall. In his idea, the Fall was not due to some act of mankind. I don't remember how his idea worked, but the result was that everything in creation was somehow fractured. Everything was somehow spilt into components of a single whole, and we were all driven to put the pieces back togather. One example was the male and female components of the single whole of humanity. Love and sex were our attempts to reconcile the split and rejoin together and reachieve Grace. But the result is always another copy of our imperfect fractured selves. Again, I do not remember this very well, so if someone wants to correct any mistakes I made, please do.

I think all of the ideas of a fallen state of grace are just allegories and ways to explain why the world is not perfect and why we suffer. None of them are really literally true in my opinion. But I guess I preferred the Blake allegory over the traditional Christian allegory.