The seven deadly - which is the deadliest?

[BoyNextDoor]

Which is the one that is the biggest stain on the soul, the most devoid of humanity, the furthest from the path of enlightenment, the denier of Nirvana?

pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Given the standards you've defined (biggest stain, most devoid, furthest from), any of the seven is fully capable of producing the worst possible result given the necessary supporting conditions.

There is nothing about the sins themselves that enable reliable prediction of the most dire consequences.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Well then maybe we recast it as the most reprobate?

 

[Bidin~Time]

this is an interesting question. I can see situations where each one could be considered the worst.

 

[hashtag45]

Wow. Awesome topic.

But that's how some traditional religions, fundamentalists and psychoanalysts (mainly anglo-saxons) often phrase things : that humans have a natural tendency towards "badness" or "sin" or unpleasant instincts. And that our task is to overcome these "bad or damaging thoughts and emotions".

But emotions (in moderation, of course, and no matter how unpleasant or socially unacceptable) are just a sign of being human - they tell us whether our lives are going in the direction that we hoped for.
Why shun them instead of embracing them, and figure out what they're trying to tell us?

And, in the line of Col. Hogan: it's not the type of emotion in itself that can be problematic. It becomes an issue only when it's all-consuming.

 

[doctor_insanus]

Sin is an imaginary disease.

 

[Bidin~Time]

Sin is an imaginary disease.

Sin may well be imaginary. However, those 7 things are personality traits which, when they become too prominent in an individual, can and will cause difficulty in dealing with this thing called life.

 

[FGB]

Easy Question...Pride.

For out of pride grows every other sin or bad thing.

 

[Hypoxia]

Sin in Spanish means without. Sin agua, without water, can be bothersome.

In Xian theology the Seven Deadlies are NOT sins. Sins include murder, theft, disbelief, infidelity, cursing your parents, pissing on temple walls, and various other actions. The Seven Deadlies are attitudes about which the church wants you to feel guilty. They're mind-control tools, rather like Karma in Hinduism. Be nice or you'll go to hell or reincarnate (earthly hell) or some such.

Notice than many of the Seven Deadlies form the basis of capitalism. I count pride, covetousness, lust, gluttony, and envy there. Funny about that.

 

[thør]

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0227/0581/products/Midnight_Sun_Gluttony_Triple_IPA_label_Liquorscan.jpeg?v=1423331292

One of my favorites.

 

[HeyAll]

Interesting question.

I went with Covetousness because, if you look at history, isn't that the cause of so many deaths? Even today it's still a serious thing.

"I want what you have. So I'm just going take it."

 

[Peregrinator]

pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

The thing that strikes me most about this list is that two are behaviors, choices you make, gluttony and sloth, while the other five are emotional states. You can be proud and still a nice, generous, gentle person. Likewise, you can covet something and keep it under your hat, feel lust for Laurel and not post about it, be pissed and cordial, envy stuff and work hard, earn money, and buy stuff. But gluttony implies actually eating, consuming, and sloth implies not getting off the couch and doing stuff.

One could argue that the five are not directly under control of anyone, and that therefore it makes no sense to judge a person on that basis, so calling them "sins" is kind of a setup.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

All of them involve a choice. Life is all about the choices we make. I think that is the unifying factor of the seven.


ETA: Which is the worst choice?

 

[Peregrinator]

All of them involve a choice. Life is all about the choices we make. I think that is the unifying factor of the seven.

I think anger and lust are the easiest ones to use to illustrate my point, which may be largely semantic. You come home and find the neighbor raping your wife. You beat him with a baseball bat.

He gets busted for rape (and trespass, etc) You get arrested (probably acquitted) for, whatever, assault or something.

He didn't get arrested for, or perform, lust. You didn't get arrested for, or perform, anger. They're not behaviors.

Compare:

"Why do think Perg is a glutton? I've never seen him eat anything."

"How can you call BoyNextDoor slothful? Dude works three jobs and runs five miles a day."

You can be sitting perfectly still, not saying a word, and be any or all of the five, but if you're not eating or lazing, generally over time, you cannot be gluttonous or slothful.

 

[WalksOnWater]

He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.

MATT 12:30-32 NASB

It's not an issue up for rational debate, since The Savior dictates exactly what the only deadly sin is: "blasphemy", to "speak against the Holy Spirit" is the only deadly sin because all others other than it - as the Son of God taught - are forgivable.

The question anyone who's interested further should ask is, What's blasphemy, speaking against the Holy Spirit?

That one should then return to Matthew 12 and read the entire Chapter for context. When he does, he will read that the Pharisees were accusing Jesus of using the power of "Beelzebub the ruler of the demons" to cast out demons from the possessed, because they had no doubt whatsoever that they were the most holy, righteous reverers of the Holy Spirit and Jesus was the Satanic blasphemer. Thus, they openly proved that they did not even know the Holy Spirit and were, in fact, directly speaking against its Holy Power - God's Spirit which Jesus naturally knew was casting out the spirits, not Him.

You can't get more blasphemous of the Holy Spirit than to proclaim it is of Satan.

The life of man is in his blood; the Life of God is in His Spirit.

Alas, like all gnostics, the Pharisees were totally consumed with attacking, crucifying the Messenger no less, and were not concerned at all with actually listening to, let alone learning, the Truth of the Message.

Let all those who have ears, hear.

 

[pointless]

avarice. it's a good word. you should use it.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

The Seven Deadly Sins (who were homunculi) made for excellent enemies and adversaries for brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e2/66/9a/e2669a847f87db175bf5e07ac948126a.jpg

By the way, here are the virtue counterparts for the seven sins when you reel in your inner demons, dial them back down from 100 and moderate them under reason:

Envy - Kindness
Gluttony - Temperance
Lust - Purity
Greed - Charity
Sloth - Diligence
Wrath - Patience
Pride - Humility

 

[Noor]

Envy starts wars

 

[pointless]

Envy starts wars

as does greed. just ask mexico. we took half their country just 'cuz.


see also the opium wars. i'm looking at you, britian.

 

[phrodeau]

It's not an issue up for rational debate, since The Savior dictates exactly what the only deadly sin is: "blasphemy", to "speak against the Holy Spirit" is the only deadly sin because all others other than it - as the Son of God taught - are forgivable.

The question anyone who's interested further should ask is, What's blasphemy, speaking against the Holy Spirit?

That one should then return to Matthew 12 and read the entire Chapter for context. When he does, he will read that the Pharisees were accusing Jesus of using the power of "Beelzebub the ruler of the demons" to cast out demons from the possessed, because they had no doubt whatsoever that they were the most holy, righteous reverers of the Holy Spirit and Jesus was the Satanic blasphemer. Thus, they openly proved that they did not even know the Holy Spirit and were, in fact, directly speaking against its Holy Power - God's Spirit which Jesus naturally knew was casting out the spirits, not Him.

You can't get more blasphemous of the Holy Spirit than to proclaim it is of Satan.

The life of man is in his blood; the Life of God is in His Spirit.

Alas, like all gnostics, the Pharisees were totally consumed with attacking, crucifying the Messenger no less, and were not concerned at all with actually listening to, let alone learning, the Truth of the Message.

Let all those who have ears, hear.

That's your opinion, and the Bible is filled with contradictions on these matters.

 

[Que]

pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

The thing that strikes me most about this list is that two are behaviors, choices you make, gluttony and sloth, while the other five are emotional states. You can be proud and still a nice, generous, gentle person. Likewise, you can covet something and keep it under your hat, feel lust for Laurel and not post about it, be pissed and cordial, envy stuff and work hard, earn money, and buy stuff. But gluttony implies actually eating, consuming, and sloth implies not getting off the couch and doing stuff.

One could argue that the five are not directly under control of anyone, and that therefore it makes no sense to judge a person on that basis, so calling them "sins" is kind of a setup.

The ones that are internal states are sins because they tend to be the root of misdeeds against others. Control those passions, and no untoward behavior can follow. Theft follows envy, and so on.

They are, by far, harder to control than sloth and gluttony. Mastering self takes a lifetime.

 

[Hypoxia]

That's your opinion, and the Bible is filled with contradictions on these matters.

Correction: There is no such thing as "the Bible". Rather, there are various collections of biblical texts, none of which all those calling themselves 'Christian' can agree upon as canonical. Pick up the 'bibles' (in Aenglish) used by Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists, Episcopalians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, Eastern Orthodox, etc and try to tell me they're the same. Hah.

It gets even more interesting out in the world. Some Eastern sects claiming to be the oldest Xian congregations rate the Pauline letters as apocrypha, along with the epistles of Judas and Clement or letters of early Church Fathers -- these and other pseudepigraphic and apocryphal writings, rejected by imperial councils, are to them worthy of study but not belief.

(When Xianity was designated the official state religion of the Roman Empire, the imperial wizards, mostly from Roman senatorial families, tossed out all texts that didn't support the authoritarian hierarchical system they built. But I digress.)

In practice, any sect may focus on certain versions and subsets of those texts and ignore the rest. Ignore any contradictions, too. Some try to claim infallible literalism but they're nutz -- this shit can't be rationally harmonized. Only one thing is clear: no biblical texts call the Seven Deadlies 'sins'. These were listed in the same time as the bureaucratization of belief under Imperial auspices. Seven sins; seven virtues; whatever it takes to control believers.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Gluttony and lust kill folk. But I'm betting pride has killed far more. From drunken brawls to wangsta drive-bys to authoritarian dictators.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

How does lust even make the list?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Envy is the parent of most of the seven deadly.

It's lack of it probably contributes to sloth.

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