Oct 5 Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . —Romans 5:12

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man.

And yet, I'll bet if you ask ten people, at least nine will say that God allows bad things to happen in this world as punishment for our (Adam's) sin.  They'll probably even tell you to "look it up in the bible, it's there."  We can think of many other examples of things that aren't in the bible but--through the lens of (pop) culture and oral tradition, these beliefs get propagated.  One of my favorite sayings is "perception is reality."  Everyone has their version of the truth--formed by experience, culture, education, etc.--and it's what they live by, make decisions by, vote by, raise children by, etc.  How many well-intentioned people are missing (or ignoring!) the gospel message because their perception-turned-reality is actually not correct?  How many people harbor hard-heartedness toward God because they mistakenly think that He's punishing us all for something Adam did?  This situation is what I call "an education piece;" it's up to us as Christians to educate the lost about what the Truth really is.

The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, “I am my own god.”

Yes, I like this distinction.  And again, I think many people look at the former as being reality rather than the later.  Self-realization begets immorality and wrongdoing; it was acting upon self-realization that Lucifer was cast down from heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15).  

But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away . . .

In case you missed it, recent studies have shown that it is genetically impossible for all of humanity to have descended from a single couple (Adam & Eve).  Some liberal thinking Christians have sought to re-interpret the creation story based on this genetic evidence.  I'm not going to debate science & religion here, but I do think it's worth pointing out what Albert Mohler had to say about this issue--without Adam and the Fall, there is no cross and redemption.  That's not to say that we simply ignore what science teaches us, but equally we should not be ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater and casually reinterpret fundamental tenets of our faith.