Hi clolibre,

You asked:
Also, I am bothered by a "Loving God" that will punish me for something someone did centuries before I existed. Would anyone of us punish our kids for something someone else did especially if they never even knew the person?

I believe that if you look at the Bible story as a whole, you will see that it was never God's intention to just punish everyone for Adam's sin. The result of what Adam did was that it put sin into the world and sin into the lives of every single person born after him. I believe we are all held accountable for our own sins, which we commit on our own because we want to. But I also believe that it was God's plan right from the start that He himself was going to provide the solution for the sin problem, by taking on all the sins of the world and paying the ultimate price for them. Thus we can be freed from the penalty of our sins by believing in Him and giving Him our hearts and lives, and accepting His forgiveness. This is no small thing that he did and it is by no means a small thing that we do by accepting it.