Let me give an example with musical sampling - it's totally different with bands like Girl Talk who sample music to create new pieces - because Girl Talk doesn't claim to have made the samples. One of the aspects of why plagiarism is seen as wrong is because you're taking credit for someone else's work. When you're sampling music, you're crediting them. From the perspective of a first reader it makes no difference - someone copying someone else's words into a paper they're writing is invisible & the work still exists on it's own. A work exists on its own, and broken down is always recombinations of other things - but it's someone taking credit for it for gain that's the unethical bit. Kids who sample music don't usually have to credit the sample for a listener to distinguish it, so it's a totally different piece. PS: Anyone watch Californication? Were those episodes written and aired before this whole thing?

There is sin. "Original sin" and "sin" aren't identical. Adam doesn't need to have to have sinned in order for another individual to be guilty of sin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipelagianism
The beliefs of the christian community are far from homogeneous.

Also the "original sin" mentioned in the GGP seemed to be the Calvinist version of it which is quite different from the Arminian version of original sin, to the point where many Calvinists will claim that Arminians don't believe in original sin.