All though I have a certain fascination for religion and spirituality, in truth I am a devout atheist. My interest stems from an anthropological curiosity for mankind, its history and psychological necessities.
A thing that I have spent many hours philosophizing about is the role of religion in defining the boundary between good and evil. As I am most familiar with Christianity and I run into its symbolism almost on a daily basis, I have often pondered about the value and appeal of the seven sins.
Dismantling the seven sins
I have come to the conclusion that of the seven, there are four that I don’t consider to be all that bad;
Lust – Why would you demonize sex?- Gluttony – what’s wrong with enjoying good food?
- Pride – I suppose they mean arrogance, which is an annoying trait for sure. But a cardinal sin? Mwoah….
- Sloth – Aaaugh, don’t judge my laziness; I need it! Even neuro-scientists agree.
The one in the list I haven’t made up my mind about yet, is wrath.
- Wrath – Merriam-Webster dictionary say wrath is “strong vengeful anger or indignation”. I think everyone has the right to feel anger and definitely indignation. However, I know people that douse their words with the poison of bitterness and hate and that is really sucky, to say the least. At the same time, I am convinced such words always come from people that are hurting themselves and in a very distorted way are actually crying for help.
And then there’s the two that would also qualify as evil, dark and nasty in my book;
- Envy – No doubt about it; envy is ugly and anyone that feels this needs to work on eradicating it from their system. No good comes from it.
- Greed – The core of almost all of mankind’s suffering, if you ask me.
The eighth sin.
Envy and greed are both dark paths, that every person has walked down, albeit briefly.
A state of mind that may come across as innocent to some but deserves strong condemnation is the passive aggressive feeling of:
Indifference
All though I know many people that let matters of the world get to them in a degree that I feel is unhealthy, indifference is probably the feeling I fear most in the world.
Epiphany 