I've been thinking about the seven deadly sins lately. I've always thought that the concept of the "sins" was a bit ridiculous. My most salient argument was that they weren't, technically speaking, sins. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, sins are things that God has commanded against, and the seven deadly sins don't really have any relation whatsoever to Biblical law. However, it was pointed out to me that according to Catholic dogma, sins are things that the Pope commanded against, not God. It might seem silly to non-Catholics that papal law supercedes divine law, but the assumption is that they're really the same thing, anyway. So, they are sins according to the Catholic Church, but people who I've heard invoke the seven deadly sins seem to be under the impression that they're fundamental to Christianity rather than a peculiarity of Catholic dogma. I can't really be sure whether they are unaware that the "sins" never made it into the Bible or if they just missed the Protestant Reformation by about 400 years.
I still think the idea of the seven deadly sins is absurd, even if the Pope will send me to Hell for saying so. First of all, it's not a very comprehensive list. When making a list of deadly sins, how can you miss murder? I'd say that's a pretty deadly sin. I may go so far as to call it the deadliest. In fact, there are plenty of sins that will kill you more easily than the seven, like eating bugs. If you don't want to disturb the integrity of the abstract nature of them, they still missed several important underlying motivations for sin, like ignorance or insanity - and people die as a result of those all the time, too.
What's more, they don't quite fit in with the Judeo-Christian idea of the nature of sin. In the Old Testament, commandments were by and large specific actions that you could conceivably avoid doing. Even with the vaguer pronouncements in the New Testament, there was a specific course of action you could take to atone for any nebulous sin, such as praying for forgiveness or chopping off your own hand. I guess it's assumed that if you go with the chopping-off-your-own-hand option, you would then have to pray for forgiveness for self-mutilation, which was previously commanded against, or maybe you just chop off the hand that you used to chop off the first hand and call it even. The seven deadly sins, on the other hand, have little to no practical value. They're all basic human qualities that almost everyone who has ever lived has experienced to some extent. You can't really tell someone not to feel lust or greed or pride, because we have no control over that. You could tell them not to be consumed by any of the seven, but the point at which you are actually "consumed" by a particular emotion is entirely subjective. It's not so much a guideline to live a more righteous life as a way to justify that everyone ever is going to Hell.
Once I get some clout, I'm going to start promoting my own idea of seven deadly sins, and they will all actually be sins according to Biblical law:
- Murder
- Eating bugs
- Punching people in the face really hard
- Necromancy
- Intentionally putting things in the paths of blind people
- Chopping off your own hand
- Juggling chainsaws on the Sabbath (provided that your job requires you to juggle chainsaws)
I still think the idea of the seven deadly sins is absurd, even if the Pope will send me to Hell for saying so. First of all, it's not a very comprehensive list. When making a list of deadly sins, how can you miss murder? I'd say that's a pretty deadly sin. I may go so far as to call it the deadliest. In fact, there are plenty of sins that will kill you more easily than the seven, like eating bugs. If you don't want to disturb the integrity of the abstract nature of them, they still missed several important underlying motivations for sin, like ignorance or insanity - and people die as a result of those all the time, too.
What's more, they don't quite fit in with the Judeo-Christian idea of the nature of sin. In the Old Testament, commandments were by and large specific actions that you could conceivably avoid doing. Even with the vaguer pronouncements in the New Testament, there was a specific course of action you could take to atone for any nebulous sin, such as praying for forgiveness or chopping off your own hand. I guess it's assumed that if you go with the chopping-off-your-own-hand option, you would then have to pray for forgiveness for self-mutilation, which was previously commanded against, or maybe you just chop off the hand that you used to chop off the first hand and call it even. The seven deadly sins, on the other hand, have little to no practical value. They're all basic human qualities that almost everyone who has ever lived has experienced to some extent. You can't really tell someone not to feel lust or greed or pride, because we have no control over that. You could tell them not to be consumed by any of the seven, but the point at which you are actually "consumed" by a particular emotion is entirely subjective. It's not so much a guideline to live a more righteous life as a way to justify that everyone ever is going to Hell.
Once I get some clout, I'm going to start promoting my own idea of seven deadly sins, and they will all actually be sins according to Biblical law:
- Murder
- Eating bugs
- Punching people in the face really hard
- Necromancy
- Intentionally putting things in the paths of blind people
- Chopping off your own hand
- Juggling chainsaws on the Sabbath (provided that your job requires you to juggle chainsaws)