Pick the deadly sin that is the most characteristic of you, and if you like, rank them in decreasing order of how much you think they apply to you.
My ranking:
Sloth
Pride
Envy
Lust
Gluttony
Avarice
Wrath
While I am an atheist, I was raised Catholic and have great appreciation for the Catholic moral tradition (and the Aristotelian secular philosophy it draws heavily upon). The cardinal virtues (justice, fortitude, prudence, temperance) and the deadly sins are pretty wise observations of the human condition.
What do you think about these virtues and vices? Are there any you dispute?
EDIT: kingdaddy, please read the post before replying, thank you
None of the above, you don’t understand the idea of Sin, only cretin religious sects put a hierarchy on Sin but in reality they all have a common root so they are all the same to God.
I appreciate your ranking Sloth in first place. The Travellers’ Guide to Hell (the most important Travellers’ Guide for me, obviously; though I don’t need it anymore) says:
“Note that originally this sin was Accidia - spiritual sloth, a lack of concern about the Big Issues. Eventually the Church found that almost everyone was guilty of this one, so they gave in to pressure from the business interests and changed it to something a little more practical.”
[page 8.]
I once wrote the following about this sin:
As for my personal favourite sins, I like Pride as much as I dislike Envy (ruled by the Sun and the Moon respectively; Sauwelios does not mean “Sun” for nothing). I don’t like Gluttony and Greed (Jupiter and Mercury), but I do like Lust and Wrath (Venus and Mars).
“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.”
[William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Proverbs of Hell.]
Senselessness. [a lack of sense, lack of awareness.]
Mental-Retardedness. [low computation power for dealing with sensory memories]
Extremism.
Degenoration.
Stiffness.
Disconnectedness.
Weakness.
Depending on the degree of any of these, one can be worse than the other. Right now, I’d say Humanity’s problems mainly have to do wtih disconnectedness and stiffness. Then extremism and senselessness.
As regards interdimensional politics: Envy seems to still be the worst one to me, because of how superiors and uniqueness get hated and suppressed by this envy, otherwise many species and realms could be allies.
Yes, it’s the intent that is bad and a lie is just as damaging and can cause far worse then death. Do you think death is the worst thing there is? Besides if they all have the same root then they are the same literally so one can not be put before another.
It’s the root that is the biggest flaw of human kind and this root is the cause of all strife and grief caused by one to another.
Anything that causes mental/physical suffering is bad, if someone values there own life so little and is willing to die it’s one of the most selfish things they can do, does one who commits suicide or puts their life at risk and dies not think of the loved ones he would be leaving behind and the agony they will go through because of him/her.
Death isn’t the worst thing there is if nothing can be done about it, but an unnecessary death is tragic. If someone with the intent to murder someone came to me and asked where that person was (and I knew fully well where) I would lie in order to save that person’s life, the only thing they’ve got full stop, and spare the suffering of him/her and his/her family.
So if the intent is good but the act is considered a sin is this the wrong thing to do, is it as black and white for you as you say it is?
I thought I made it clear, no strings attached; it’s the intent that makes a sin a sin. Everyone is wrong or makes mistakes, it’s our fighting the Truth and trying to make our own truth or selfish reasons that is the path to separation.
Your scenario does not include making your own truth for selfish reasons so it is not a lie, God does not get caught up in semantics of our perverted language like we do.
Well even if someone’s actions in an ethically challenging situation do not include making up one’s own truth for selfish reasons, they can also be careless or misinformed actions that can lead to bad if not worse consequences than what would have originally come about if they chose not to lie in the first place. Thus that person made a mistake, but they were ultimately responsible and so should be made accountable for their incompetence/punished for their sin?
Many of these things do not interest me, my pride however is somewhat overbaring and so deserves consideration. as for the observations of the human condition, simply combine human nature with social order and their lies the human condition. that is if you care to look.
Behind all moral complexity, there still exists your desires and your cravings. These are and always will be “one’s own truth for selfish reasons”. Moral sacrifice is when one desire is put above another desire. That’s all.
One question that gets me is who defines what sin is? We have a debate here about intent vs the inherent goodness or badness of the action, and we all like to make these very intelligent sounding statements about what is good and what is bad, but I really don’t think that we ultimately have the right to define these things. What would put my reasoning over yours or anyone elses? God? I guess that’s one answer. Certainly better than a lot of other answers.
My cardinal sin is envy. I hate it about myself but it just really bothers me when other people do better at stuff than me. Like i don’t care if people have like better material possessions or anything, but if someone like gets a better grade, or has a great opportunity or something like that, I definitely see green. I try to suppress it though. Pride comes in at a close second and is definitely related to my problem with the first. Right now I’m going to have to put sloth at third due to the fact that I suck at life and procrastinate and stuff.
Irony, as our top 3 are the same, I totally know what you mean. As a theist I used to feel pretty bad about being a sinner and such. As an atheist I look at pride, envy, sloth as just the lack of certain life skills that I need to practice. To make life better, I somehow need to appreciate people more for themselves rather than in comparison to me. I need to be less worried about how good I am in comparison to others. And I need to just have a more active aggressive attitude towards life, rather than avoiding and fearing new things. I feel like now these are skills I need improvement in rather than sins I’m being condemned for. That makes a lot more sense to me.
On the other hand many people do not imagine god as condemning as I imagined him, and maybe they hold a pretty similar view to my current one, just from a theistic standpoint. But for me switching to atheism just allowed me to relax and find a more balanced life.
The key insight from a secular humanist standpoint is that there is nothing that makes my reasoning inherently better than yours. All that matters is whether you can find some agreement with others about what the good life should be like, then live it together. There is no given standard of the good and moral life; we have to develop it as we go along or we are not really living.
Wrath,sloth, pride, Really, that would be it. I don’t have the others.
Just these three are all I ever really experienced. And Pride is only there because well I am proud of the work I do. No disputes since they are moral emotional guidlines.
I didn’t vote in the poll, because the predicate for all sin in my opinion is blatant stupidity, and thus, all sins are antecedents of that eternal human aberration.
See that sounds good in some ways, but it also reminds me of sophism (man is the measure of all things- rhetoric is all that matters). I would like to think that there is stuff that’s good and stuff that’s bad for real. Although perhaps that all springs from my (‘sinful’) need to feel like I’m better than others.
Just an interesting sidenote, last night I was bored (i.e. procrastinating i.e. sloth) and I was looking at the religion links at the top of the forum and of course I clicked on the one that said “Church of Satanism” because it sounded interesting. And basically the philosophy of that church is egoist and actually endorses all of these ‘sins’. One example they gave was like gluttony is good because if you eat too much then you will get fatter which will activate the other sin pride and you will work to be better. A very interesting way to look at things.
