The 7 Deadly Sins: Fabricated Nonsense
By: Keith
A lot of people think the 7 Deadly Sins are written indelibly in the Bible. Well they aren’t; they came from the mind of a 4th century Greek monk named Evagrius of Pontus. Evagrius even came up with the notion of ranking the sins in order of seriousness: gluttony, fornication avarice, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride. But that’s 8 sins, not 7. The list we know today, and which is a retooling of Evagrius’ list, was helpfully whittled down to 7 and clarified by Pope Gregory I in 590AD. Vainglory and pride, and listlessness and sadness got rolled together, and envy got added. It wasn’t until the 17th century that lust made its debut. But, it isn’t as if the Bible doesn’t list a bunch of stuff we shouldn’t do, it simply doesn’t make a list of 7 mortal sins. It also doesn’t list things in order of seriousness. In fact, according the Bible, failure to pay taxes is just as bad a murder.
Why Should you Care?
You shouldn’t. The stern notion of sinning goes against preprogrammed human nature, and much of what we think of as sin today is nothing more than the ravings of paternalistic clergy. What you should really care about, Christian or not, is the Golden rule. Every major religion, and most minor religions, incorporate the Golden Rule as a foundation of moral thinking. Besides, even if you aren’t religious, it makes sense. Unlike the 7 mortal sins, The Golden Rule is actually found in the Bible and filed under The Great Commandment, Leviticus 19:18 of the Torah: “Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” There, that was much easier than the 7 mortal sins and the punishments found in The Divine Comedy (Dante, author and protagonist, held a grudge against a lot of people). Christians seem to have made something simple into something unbearably depressing and complicated.
Too Many Rules: On Parenting
What I just said wasn’t all pointless rambling. The point that I’ve finally come to is that good parenting need not be fancy just like religious precepts need not be complicated. When you look at the 7 deadly sins, and the weird punishments that come along with them, you can’t help but wonder what our friend Evagrius must have had hidden in his closet. Why did he think it was necessary to expound any further on the Golden Rule? Was he so preoccupied with sin that he forgot what his religion was all about? After all, shouldn’t “Love Thy Neighbor… .” cover just about everything? Instead of a list of things to not do, a simple guiding principal is, in the long run, more effective. Like religion, parenting does not have to be full of meaningless rules, intended only for the petty purpose of keeping the locals in line. Parents, at their best, are nothing more than seeders and caretakers. But, I won’t deny that we also need to be disciplinarians. We don’t however use discipline as a foundation for our parenting. If that were the case, our kids would be correct when they call us fascists (what? Your kids don’t call you a fascist?).
Get in Line, Stay in Line:
My kids fall out of line frequently, and I have to correct them for the sake of the family. For instance, if my son got his way, he’d play video games all day. If I ask him nicely to go do his homework and he refuses, I have a responsibility to discipline him. He knows perfectly well that video games come after homework, but the lure of the box is great in him, and he pushes against the rules, testing for the breaking point. Religion, if you need that sort of thing to be good, is right to install the fear of punishment for the benefit of people who lack internal morality and need the rod. For that reason it is completely understandable that religion and parenting both employ the same dueling methods, fear and reward, that lead to the same place – salvation. The difference of course, is that parenting teaches kids how to be adults whereas religion teaches adults, who should already know better, how to be good. The kids have an excuse; they’re kids, but frankly, if you’re an adult and you need to be told not to kill the mailman, you’re lost – sorry.
I got off to a meandering start, but finally said what I wanted to say. Parenting and religion need not be complicated with fancy rules, but they do both require discipline when the obvious rules, through fault of the disciple, are broken (discipline, of course, meaning the training of a disciple). The obvious parallels between religious teaching and parenting cause us to sometimes miss the big difference, that parenting is a duty we have to our kids to help them grow while religion is a kind of parenting (padre, paterna, patria, parere, patriotic, Pope, patriarch etc… ) forced on us because the church (papists) figure that’s what we need. Either way, the origins of many religions were, at some point, confused from their most basic principal – love your neighbor as you love yourself, and now they resemble something completely off putting to those of us who are not children and are beyond needing to be parented. Holiness and spirituality are worthy goals in life. I admire the people who seek enlightenment. Enlightenment, however, is found in beauty and simplicity, not rules and flagellation.
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You’ve said something that I’ve been trying to say for YEARS. I don’t believe people NEED regulation to do good. In fact, I believe in some cases the use of punitive discipline in a religion is the same, and worse, than trying to beat a child into following your “laws”. In all things there needs to be a sense of free will. Without it the human spirit becomes like a dog who is finally free of the chain that has held him for so long. The child, and the believer, need structure, but not strict conformity. Free will can’t be considered a luxury. It has to be considered a requirement. Like you said, nearly every human adult will be able to see what is good and correct and they will nearly always choose the good. There are those who won’t. That’s where it becomes the good and correct decision of the “non-mailman-assasins” to deal with said “mailman-whacker”. I don’t know… I’m rambling here. But great post!
.-= Spuds Crawford´s last blog ..Follow Up To Last Nights Post Ramona Can Feel It Working! =-.
Spuds: Thanks, Man! It took me a while to finally get around to what I meant to say, but I think I pulled it out in the end.
There are entirely too many parenting rules…and “experts”…the thing they all ignore is that there is no black and white, you have to adapt. Our daughter is tracking differently than our son in terms of what she has needed from us, so even what I thought I knew isn’t necessarily working for us this time around.
.-= PJ Mullen´s last blog ..Best jammies ever =-.
While I agree that the the clergy has obscured the true nature of sin (falling short). Man’s obligation to God involved more than just applying the Golden Rule–as important as that is!
Matthew 22:35-40 (New International Version)
35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36″Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Love for God, and a feeling of accountability to him important values to instill in a child. Along with the “Golden Rule” this gets to the heart of the Bible message.
Ron: You are absolutely right. I guess I just focused on the sin aspect here, but, yes, you are right. Thanks for stopping by!
While we probably disagree on a lot of the details — for instance, I believe true Christianity is based on the most simplistic message around, but that some well-meant rules were established by God with our best interest in mind — I agree with your general thoughts on the importance of love. It should be the driving force in our lives, rather than the selfishness that every human struggles with.
Interesting stuff. Much deeper than my pop-culture-related, sarcasm-induced posts.
Wow, how correct
Of course there is a reason for the Seven Deadly sins…For me to write about something in my Sr. Project. Just Kidding.
I feel that it’s human nature to associate things with other things such as the Deadly Sins. People want to know why things are the way they are and they like to label things with Pretty Words that some people feel are unnecessary,
While you feel it’s unnecessary to list stuff, I am some what grateful it is listed. It makes a pretty damn interesting story if you put it together with something (In my case I have is with Multi-Personality disorder).