Christianity & Sin- from an outsider's perspective

In the unlikely event anyone hasn't already figured it out, I'm Jewish. I grew up in a town with a very high Jewish population and most of my friends have been either Jewish, agnostic/atheist, or apathetic. The Christian friends who I have had for the most part haven't been that interested in discussing their religion (with one exception that I don't feel this is the right time to discuss.) What I do know about Christianity has been mainly from my own research. Two of the main things I know:
1. Christians believe in the concept of "original sin" by which all humans are tainted with evil from birth because of the sin of Adam and Eve
2. Christians believe that "Jesus died for our sins" and that by accepting Jesus people are absolved of their sins.
(These are probably somewhat simplistic statements...I would encourage anyone who is more familiar with the Christian religion to comment and correct me if necessary.)

The impression that I get from Augustine's Confessions is that the idea of "original sin" is just beginning to be developed, and his whole emphasis on sin seems to relate to the concept. It seems to me this would help his case if his goal was to convince people to convert- you're tainted by sin no matter how good a life you've led, but just accept Jesus and all your sins (no matter how heinous) are forgiven and you can go to heaven! I'm sure this would be a very attractive idea, particularly as many of the people of the time were illiterate and couldn't do their own theology research to dispute this idea.

I'm not really a big fan of this idea. In Judaism, things work a bit differently. During the High Holidays (coming up very soon) we pray to God and ask forgiveness for our sins. Jews are encouraged to actually go to people that they've sinned against during the year and ask forgiveness from them as well as from God. At the end of the High Holiday period, God pronounces judgment on everyone for the year. What exactly this judgment leads to is a bit unclear- Judaism is rather ambiguous on the subject of heaven and hell. The system is a bit confusing, but I do like it better than the idea of being absolved of all sins just because you say you believe in God.