Seven NEW Deadly Sins?!?

[miss fortune]

As if having 7 ways to sin in a deadly manner wasn't enough, the pope has just added 7 more deadly sins to the list! These are:

polluting the environment
social injustice
drug dealing
being obscenely rich
abortion
genetic engineering
pedophilia


Do you think that we needed 7 more deadly sins? The old ones have been in place for ~1,500 years! Was this a necissary move or a last gasp to bring more people back to faith?

Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty? -Times Online

FOXNews.com - Vatican Adds Seven New Deadly Sins Including Damaging Environment and Drug Dealing - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

I woulda added "Questioning the Pope."

 

[miss fortune]

True- this just seems like he's grasping at some way to be a historically important pope even though a lot of people don't like him. I somehow doubt that these Deadly Sins are ever going to take on the same cultural importance as the Origional Deadly Sins.

They aren't even MENTIONED in the movie Se7en!

 

[Grayscale]

at first i thought this was a joke... it's always a pleasant surprise to hear something ridiculous followed up with "someone takes this seriously"


"Pope Benedict XVI said that an increasing number of people in the secularised West were making do without God"

really?!

 

[swordpath]

F*** the pope. Just saying.

Stupidest thing I've read in a while.

 

[kelric]

As if having 7 ways to sin in a deadly manner wasn't enough, the pope has just added 7 more deadly sins to the list! These are:

polluting the environment
social injustice
drug dealing
being obscenely rich
abortion
genetic engineering
pedophilia


Do you think that we needed 7 more deadly sins? The old ones have been in place for ~1,500 years! Was this a necissary move or a last gasp to bring more people back to faith?

I'm not too fond of a lot of his policies (what little I've heard of them, anyway), but he couldn't come up with anything better than this? I mean, some of them are pretty obvious and unobjectionable (pedophilia), but others seem just silly (and I'm not even going to address abortion - let's just say that I disagree with him). "Being rich" is now a sin? I'm not a religious person, but I'd always thought that what one does with one's power was more important than having power. Abuse of great wealth? Willful ignorance of the plights of others who have less? Greed? (oh, wait, that one's been around a while, hasn't it?) Sure, I can see that. But simply being wealthy? (Isn't the Catholic church pretty wealthy itself?)

Polluting the environment? I'm as big an environmentalist (or more) as the next guy (and I'm very anti-pollution in general), but let's face it - it's not that simple. Who's going to tell the peasant who's lived in squalor all of his life that the new coal-burning plant's electricity heating his home is a bad thing, worthy of being sent to hell? Social injustice has its heart in the right place, but it's pretty vague, too. As en ex-geneticist I've got a pretty big beef with the "genetic engineering" one. There are certainly issues that need to be considered, but a black and white "genetic engineering will send you to hell" isn't the way to address it (just tell the folks who take bacterially generated human insulin daily, not to mention other medical treatments, that they'd be better off without it).

Now, maybe I'm being too critical. I'm not a member of the Catholic church, so it's easy to me to see "deadly sins" (which based on the articles W posted translates a violation to a one-way-ticket to hell) as not leaving adequate room for consideration of circumstances and a simplification of often (but not always, see pedophilia) complex, if not mutually exclusive, concepts. I can certainly agree with at least the sentiment in a number of his ideas, but it seems unlikely (or even undesirable, in some cases) for these to take on the same strength as the "originals".

 

[Ojian]

...
being obscenely rich
...


Wouldn't that apply to the Catholic church itself?

 

[Seanan]

As if having 7 ways to sin in a deadly manner wasn't enough, the pope has just added 7 more deadly sins to the list! These are:

polluting the environment
social injustice
drug dealing
being obscenely rich
abortion
genetic engineering
pedophilia


Do you think that we needed 7 more deadly sins? The old ones have been in place for ~1,500 years! Was this a necissary move or a last gasp to bring more people back to faith?

I don't know what the intent was but they all seem to fall under the original 7.... certainly precluded by the 7 virtues which few adhere to... especially chastity and abstinence.

 

[Athenian200]

These seem inferior to the original seven because they don't condemn something abstract, but something specific and based on present issues. It seems to be the equivalent of the church declaring its political views.

Out of that list, I only consider pedophilia, social injustice (depending on how it's defined), and drug dealing wrong... and I would only consider the first one anything like a "sin" as opposed to simply "tasteless, inconsiderate, and potentially destructive behavior."

 

[The Ü™]

Catholics consider pedophilia wrong?

(I thought Jesus loved the little children.)

 

[Seanan]

UBE!

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm very disappointed in that list. I was considering these:

1. Smug Religiosity
2. Commercial Advertising
3. Those crappy fake Sheetz "cappucinos"
4. Truthiness
5. Media politics
6. MySpace.com
7. the Wii

 

[The Ü™]

UBE!

Relax, I was joking. (Based on that old song "Jesus Loves the Little Children" or something like that.)

 

[The Ü™]

I'm very disappointed in that list. I was considering these:

1. Smug Religiosity
2. Commercial Advertising
3. Those crappy fake Sheetz "cappucinos"
4. Truthiness
5. Media politics
6. MySpace.com
7. the Wii

Why the Wii and not the PS3?

(Or maybe because old people, who are also likely nuns, play with the Wii?)

 

[Seanan]

Relax, I was joking. (Based on that old song "Jesus Loves the Little Children" or something like that.)

I know

 

[Totenkindly]

Why the Wii and not the PS3?
(Or maybe because old people, who are also likely nuns, play with the Wii?)

It was the Wii because that's all I could think of right now.

"8. Old-fart senility."

Enjoy your brain cells while they last.

 

[The Ü™]

Roman Polanski should be pope.

It was the Wii because that's all I could think of right now.

"8. Old-fart senility."

Enjoy your brain cells while they last.

8 Deadly Sins are not logical. They are not of a divine number nor divisible by a divine number.

 

[Seanan]

8 Deadly Sins are not logical. They are not of a divine number nor divisible by a divine number.

Depending on one's perspective, 8 could be appropriate as the number of redemption and resurrection. 7 is a very unlucky number to the Chinese... which I'm sure the Pope could give a flip about except to convert them from Buddhism.

 

[The Ü™]

Depending on one's perspective, 8 could be appropriate as the number of redemption and resurrection. 7 is a very unlucky number to the Chinese... which I'm sure the Pope could give a flip about except to convert them from Buddhism.

I bet 7 is an unlucky number in satanic cults, as well.

 

[Seanan]

I bet 7 is an unlucky number in satanic cults, as well.

Probably since they usually "flip" anything Catholic. Not very original thinkers actually.