Attention All Catholics: New Deadly Sins!

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Personally, I've always thought all sins were of the 'mortal' variety. Y'know, there's that whole part about 'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' Somehow, I never got the impression He was talking about a specific sub-set there.

 

Don't forget that we're talking about a Papal announcement here, and so the interpretation is going to be from a Catholic perspective. I was born and raised Catholic (and I've even recently joined a local Catholic church), and differentiating between mortal and venial sins is part of the Catechism. The point of confusion on your part is because you are (presumably) not Cathloic.

When I was growing up, I kind of assumed all Christians basically beleived the same thing. It wasn't until I was an adult that I started seeing some stark differences. For example, one concept absent from Catholic belief is the Rapture (although we do believe in a second coming). Differentiating between mortal and venial sins may be another difference (albeit trivial compared to the previous example).

 

Sigh, the Catholics are at it again...

1. GM. Okay, lets not cure 3rd world hunger then. Better to let people die to appease a God than to use our knowledge and science to improve the world. Doesnt the Bible teach people to use their talents to better themselves and their fellow man? yes, of course GM can be accused, but so can motor vehicles, television, alcohol and tobacco, and those arent mortal sins.
2. Human Experimentations. Way to go with the wording guys - this is carried out everyday in almost every single country in the world, including the US. How do you think drug trials are done? Do you think testing drugs on rats is good enough to make sure they are ready for mass consumption? Really, this is bordering on idiocy. Perhaps human experimentation without consent, or human experimentation where the risk of harm is known to be great, but it doesnt deserve its own decree.
3. Polluting the environment. Good way to stop anyone doing anything. Cars pollute. Computers pollute (indirectly). human bodily waste is pollution - I hope the Church doesnt produce any of that! The problem with such a decree, is that it necessarily needs to be carefully defined to be useful. In that case, you may as well refer to the bit where God gives us lordship over the plants and animals, and say that we had better look after them.
4. Social Injustice? how vague and meaningless. I consider it socially unjust that non Christians are discriminated against in the US, but hey, I guess thats not a sin.
5. Causing poverty. Not a bad one, again difficult to define. They should tell this to the WTO and the USA - subsidizing your farmers just ensures that the debt cycle continues.
6. Financial Gluttony. Funnily enough, I agree with this one, although its ironic coming from the Vatican.
7. Taking drugs. Now I'm going to hell for taking aspirin and paracetamol, my father will be retroactively moved into hell for having taken marijuana medicinally to help him manage the pain from his cancer, and I'm sure any number of high ranking Church members are now doomed. hey, dont fix the social problems, just ban it, much easier.

 

All the Catholic Church is doing is ensuring its own slow and drawn-out death. Releasing more rules of this variety that are (unbelievably) more hypocritical than most of their existing mandates is just going to sway people away from their religion even more. People have been leaving the Catholic church in droves since the times of Henry VIII and now it's basically considered a stigma to admit being a part of their church. What child is going to desire to become a part of a church whose cardinal rule boils down to one hard fact: Having fun when you could be being saintly is a sin.

On a side note, it seems like there's a few inconsistencies here (as usual). They've basically just said that saving money is a mortal sin and so is needlessly spending it...?

Social injustice! SOCIAL INJUSTICE! coming from the Catholic Church! The infamous witch burners! The anti-semitism specialists! The religion that tells you you're gong to burn in hell just because you don't believe in their GOD!? HOW DARE THEY LECTURE ON SOCIAL INJUSTICE!? If I could speak to the pope I would slap him with a kipper a thousand times purely for his bare CHEEK!

 

Oh please, tone it down already You obviously don't know what you talk about, no offence. As I see that there is little sense in preaching to you the blessings of Catholic Christianity, just this:

It is preposterous to accuse today's church of the sins of the church of 500 years ago, as in the case of witch burning - there are other people, there is a very different doctrine, times have changed, there was this thing called the enlightenment and so forth. Apparently none of that concerns you. They don't burn witches today, and for a reason, and for other reasons than that it is today 'out' to do so. If you care, you can look up why, but it will take some time and serious intellectual effort. What you do is not just unfair, it simply gives testimony of the shallowness of your harangue. You can do better than that.

 

How about homosexuality? I'm sure if you wanted me to, that I could find stories of people who have harmed or killed themselves over guilt about being "wrong".

And I'm afraid what the Catholic church did hundreds of years ago still stands - they havent apologized for it.

In fact, Urithrand only pointed out issues that the Church believes today - that anyone not a Catholic goes to hell. Is that not true? Suicides go to Hell apparently, as do divorcees. How is that okay and normal?

 

What a religion believes does not necessarily make them evil or socially unjust -- it's their behaviour that does that. I'm not Catholic but I don't see them as socially unjust just because of their doctrine. Their present practices seem to me to be fairly just -- they oppose capital punishment, for one thing, and they truly believe in repentance and forgiveness -- sometimes too much. I disagree with a great deal of their doctrine and practices but they are not the monsters they are painted as by some of their detractors.

These new "sins" seem to me to be merely modern examples of the original 7. Becoming filthy rich on the backs of the poor smacks to me of a modern example of gluttony and greed. The church is in a catch 22 situation here. If they don't talk about modern events, they get slagged for not moving with the times and being hopelessly out of date. If they do talk about modern things, they are idiots. I am sure that the comments on "drugs" were never intended to refer to medications. People are deliberately setting up straw men and then taking a savage delight in knocking those straw men down.

 

Proteus_za,

Have you formally apologised for all the things you did wrong in your life, and while at it, for your ancestor's sins as well? It would be most suitable for someone holding so high a standard.

I personally feel that 'non-native' Americans (or Africans) should start all their conversations with native Americans (or Africans) with the obligatory introduction "Hello dear native American (or African), I repent for and deeply regret and resent what my evil brethren did to you and your kind centuries ago, and for all the things I don't know or forgot..." before they are allowed to continue continue with stuff like "..., but can you please tell me how late it is?"

LKD,

Absolutely. And double that for the bold passage.

 

Ragusa highlights an interesting point -- one that I have harped about before. I am not morally responsible for the actions taken by people before I was ever born. However, as an instutition, I believe that sometimes apologies / admissions of error are appropriate. The problem is that once that admission is made, the claims for $$ compensation come rolling in and that's why so many institutions are hesitant to make those statements.

Of course, admitting error for things done over 100 years ago shouldn't result in descendents of the victims coming forward with their hands out, but it often does . . .

 

There is plenty of things the Catholic Church can be blamed for today, no need to start digging around in history.

As for the sins themselves they do seem a bit like a weak attempt to be "trendy". Never thought I'd see that from the Catholic Church of all institutions.

 

It seems to me that these "new sins" should not have to be explicitly defined and pointed out as the 7 deadly 2.0.

Ideally, religions should be teaching their adherents to be good people and to think and act for themselves after that manner. It is a sad commentary on humanity when religions feel the need to define all the ways that one can do wrong. If an individual is truly striving to live the principles of their faith, they should be able to figure out right and wrong by themselves. They should be able to figure out that doing "X" for their own personal gain/profit just might not be in line with what God would want of them. I am sad to admit that I know of far too many people of my own faith that think that there is a boundary where the ethics taught by their religion should not "interfere" with their business dealings. Fortunately, there are many who do, and they are looked up to as honest and just people.

I am not saying that religions should not define and should not say what is wrong and right. They can certainly do that and sadly, they must. There are many people out there that will do all manner of bad deeds and think it is okay just because their religion has not specifically outlawed it. If people embraced the spirit of the law, the letter would not have to be defined for them. Some sins are so blatantly destructive to so many aspects of life that I don’t understand how some people can think it’s okay. Even commit them in that name of religion.

This is my criticism of religion in general.

Alright, Saint Giles is done ranting…

 

I found this on a blog and thought I'd share it with you all. It's some techno-goof's 7 tech sins.

1: Flaming: The irrational desire to attack people online with verbal violence for what you perceive as their failings. Related to anger.
2: Smarting: The urge to demonstrate how much smarter you are than everyone else. Related to pride.
3: Badgering: The desire to go online and ask for help when the problem is clearly explained in a manual, but one doesn’t want to RTFM. Related to sloth.
4: Everything: Having to be the first on the block with any new technology. Related to gluttony.
5: Bubbling: The desire to inflame investors to the point that they will inflate the value of products or services to create another economic bubble. Related to greed.
6: Bettering: The pathological need to boast about owning technology that is faster, better and more powerful than another’s, even if one doesn’t have it. Related to envy.
7: Firsting: the extravagant belief that anything and everything you say is protected by your God-given right to free speech, including your abusive public postings, because the U.S. constitution guarantees it in its First Amendment, even if you don't live in the Unitesd States. Related to lust.

 

Well, now that I think about it the new sins are more like renditions or interpretations of the old instead of completely new stuff. Some of it, by the way, does make some sense from the position of the Catholic church, even though I don't agree with it. Take GM, for example - from a Catholic position - heck, quite likely a Christian one - that's tampering with life, a province reserved for God. Ergo, it's a sin, if nothing more than as manifestation of supreme pride. Polluting the environment can be interpreted as a throwback to humanity being given stewardship over this world - and thus, being made responsible for maintaining it.

It sounds like a botched PR move to call it new seven deadly sins. Now, if they had made seven illustrations of the deadly sins, that might have been more effective..

 

It is outright condemned in religious cannon. To the Catholic Church, God's laws concerning Sex and Marriage are explicit and violation of them is a mortal sin. The Mormons similarly believe such laws to be explicit, but are more lenient in cases about divorce, and acknowledge that there is a repentance process to get back on track if you do break these commandments. If you have issues with God's forbiddance of Homosexuality, then take the matter up with him directly. That is as far off topis as I am prepaared to go on that topic.

Amazing. You condemn an organization for things that would not likely have impacted your ancestors, and will not let it drop several centuries later. Even though I don't agree with what they did, I don't care to keep bringing it up.

Let the Catholics believe that. They'll be in for a surprise who they'll meet in Heaven...

It is important as well to differentiate between a religion/church's action and that taken in the name of the religion/church. When a terrorist blows up a building killing inocent people, is it Islam doing this or simply some self-righteous p***k taking the name of Islam to justify his own damnable actions?

Again, that's sins of the individual mishandled by the institution. There are things that they stand accused of that should be handled better.

The way I've been taught is that the Church teaches the principles of right ans wrong, and it's up to us to do that which is right.

Agreed. There is just so many ways to screw up, it is almost scary. But these dangers need to be pointed out so that the faithful can avoid these things.

I don't know that this new edict is about defining things as bad, but more about getting the faithful to look more closely at the world around them. It's about discussion on things that are a threat to the modern day and age. I've heard it said that the only thing for Evil to triumph is for good to sit idle. The Catholic Church is trying to take action on these topics, and thus should be commended, but know that their job is not over by a long shot...

 

Why is altering your consciousness a deadly sin? And how is altering your consciousness with something that mimics a naturally produced chemical a deadly sin any more so than altering your consciousness through religious experience?

The most dangerous drug, which is an actual poison, obviously gets passed over because all Catholics and most other Christians would be guilty of breaking it everytime they sip that cup of wine for eucharist.

 

Um... maybe not okay, but as far as religions go, I'd say it's completely normal. When you look at the the major world religions, pretty much all of them require you to follow "the one true path" to get to paradise at the end.

That having been said, I don't think there is any official Catholic Church doctrine that says you have to be Catholic to get into heaven. I'm Catholic - I even attended a Catholic university - and never once did I hear that Protestants (for example) weren't allowed to go to heaven. However, I doubt that many Catholics believe that Muslims get to go to heaven. Then again, I doubt that Muslims think Christians get paradise either.

There are many religions in the world that are mutually exclusive of one another. That in order to believe in one of them, you cannot also believe in another. Most religions also have rules that you have to follow to get to whatever their version of paradise is at the end. Since the rules are contradictory at times, almost all religions believe some people who believe differently than they do aren't getting into paradise. To suggest that this is the exclusive domain of Catholics is patently absurd.

 

Woah there. I've committed some of my most idiotic acts when sober, so I'm not quite sure which is the most dangerous and never produced naturally

Anyway, I suppose some of the "new 7" can be qualified. Just as a certain degree of what could pass for "lust" is necessary and healthy for procreation (heck, just read the Song of Songs), so it could be argued that sufficiently minor indulgence in, say, smoking need not doom your soul outright. It's not like the old Seven hasn't been dabbled in by, errr, pretty much everyone.

 

Because Religious experience is not about altering yyour consciousness, but learning a new way of thinking.

I know. And I've had a Catholic slag my faith because we use water for the sacrement instead of wine...

I once heard that we'd be almost as surprised at who gets into the Celestial Kingdom as we are in who doesn't make it. It's not just about the ordinances, but doing the best we can to obey. The ordinances merely open the gates of Heaven. We still have to walk through them...

 

I think this part of the contributions suffers from an overly broad interpretation of the word 'drug'. The catholic church allows the consumption of beer, wine, coffee - that alter the consciousness - and with that new insight fresh in mind one can conclude that quite obviously they were not talking about medication but were only referring to the excessive use of the aforementioned drugs, and of the use of the classics like heroin, cocaine, weed and so forth, and in that respect they are pretty mainstream. On can argue that any shot of H and every snort of C is excessive. I would disagree about weed to some extent.

Christianity generally proposes to incorporate all of humanity into the new People of God, by effecting an inner transformation of every individual. By this transformation, Christians believe, all of humanity can become holy. But that transformation is a conscious and voluntary act. The problem with the excessive use of drugs and addiction in general is that addiction doesn't make man free as God wanted to have him. An addict cannot choose God. It can be argued that for an addict there is no God but the drug, which means that drug addiction falls into the category of idolatry (*hint*). I fail to see how that can possibly be misunderstood, it is neither difficult nor complicated.

And by the way, mortal sins can be forgiven with a conversion of heart through the Sacrament of Confession. The sinner can seek God's mercy and reinstate the state of grace that was previously obtained through the Sacrament of Baptism. That much about Catholic doctrine.