Things there are Seven of:
We at the Seven Deadly Sins Homepage pride ourselves on our commitment to keeping alive the vital historical tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins. But sometimes, like the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, you wonder if the people who framed the original concepts would have felt differently if they could have peered into the future and seen all the crazed goings-on in our age. In an time as rich with sin and evil as ours, it seems that the Seven Deadly Sins might need a little bit of updating.
This is your chance to leave your mark on history and tamper with the doctrine of over half a millenium! Add your personal Sin to the internationally-recognized Seven! You might be able to boast at parties and on dates that you stand among the ranks of Popes and prominent conservative lawmakers in your contributions to the legislation of morality!
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.
"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailor man, the skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour.
A three-hour tour.
The weather started getting rough; the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost. The ship struck ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle, with Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the professor and Mary Ann, here on Gilligan's isle."
In 1965, the American public was first treated to the whimsical story of Gilligan and six other hapless castaways, trapped on a small Pacific island after their pleasure cruise ends in a violent shipwreck. During the show's three-year run (ninety-eight episodes), the island's inhabitants attempted to leave the island by broadcasting radio messages, sending smoke signals, repairing the Minnow, building a raft, and fixing a deep diving suit to permit Gilligan to walk along the ocean floor back to Hawaii. They were visited by headhunters, a wayward trans-atlantic stunt pilot, and astronauts in a returning moon capsule. A television special brought the entire Harlem Globe Trotters to the island. Yet the castaways were strangely unable to get off the island, apparently doomed to spend eternity in each other's company.
In fact, what seemed to be perfectly disarming, if somewhat frustrating, situation comedy was a representation of a Sartre-like nether-world in which the characters represent the Seven Deadly Sins, forced in the days after Armageddon (in the form of the Flood) to live in unceasing torment with each other. The viewers witness the characters' eternal damnation through Gilligan, a name derived from the Scottish "gillie", a hunting or fishing guide. Also symbolizing the sin of Sloth, Gilligan has fallen among the other sinners through his own inability or unwillingness to escape. In the show, it is almost always Gilligan who unwittingly sabotages the castaways' attempts at rescue.
One interpretation of the Gilligan's Island/Deadly Sins correspondence:
Pride - the Professor
Covetousness - Mr. Howell
Lust - Ginger
Anger - Mrs. Howell
Gluttony - the Skipper
Envy - Mary Ann
Sloth - Gilligan
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Sinopsis
What it is: Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Why you do it: Well-meaning elementary school teachers told you to "believe in yourself."
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be broken on the wheel.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Pride is linked with the horse and the color violet. Planet: Sun
Sinopsis
What it is: Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Why you do it: Because other people are so much luckier, smarter, more attractive, and better than you.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be put in freezing water.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Envy is linked with the dog and the color green. Planet: Moon
Sinopsis
What it is: Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Why you do it: Because you were weaned improperly as an infant.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be force-fed rats, toads, and snakes.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Gluttony is linked with the pig and the color orange. Planet: Jupiter
Sinopsis
What it is: Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Why you do it: Oh, please.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be smothered in fire and brimstone. Not kisses.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Lust is linked with the cow and the color blue. Planet: Venus
Sinopsis
What it is: Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Why you do it: You're wired for it. Also, the people around you are pretty damned irritating.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be dismembered alive..
Associated symbols & suchlike: Anger is linked with the bear and the color red. Planet: Mars
One day, it became rather important that I get from Washington D.C. to Miami, where a friend was experiencing a certain crisis. Airfares were prohibitively expensive, so I called our friends at Amtrak to see if they could help me out. They couldn't. In fact, when I was finally allowed to talk to a human being after a wait of over twenty minutes, I was put on hold a few more times while the customer service agent got some coffee, rearranged her closet, regrouted her aquarium, and took a Calculus class. Understand that I really really wanted to get out of Washington D.C. at this point - that night, even - and that each passing minute might have made the difference between catching the night train, or not. No one wants to read someone else's customer service complaint; suffice it to say that Amtrak treated me with the care you would expect them to extend to any convicted serial killer.
I was a bit peeved. I hung up. I didn't go to Florida, which turned out to be perfectly fine. But the damage was done: my sales agent was only guilty of a little rudeness, but I was guilty of the Sin of Anger. And while she will probably eventually get fired, I will baste in the fires of eternal damnation. All aboard. Thanks, Amtrak.
Sinopsis
What it is: Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Why you do it: You live in possibly the most pampered, consumerist society since the Roman Empire.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be boiled alive in oil. Bear in mind that it's the finest, most luxurious boiling oil that money can buy, but it's still boiling.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Greed is linked with the frog and the color yellow. Planet: Mercury
Sinopsis
What it is: Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Why you do it: You're shiftless, lazy, and good fer nuthin'
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be thrown into snake pits.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Sloth is linked with the goat (or the goatfish, in the case of the Deadly Sins T-shirt) and the color light blue. Planet: Saturn
Sloth is the desire for ease, even at the expense of doing the known will of God. Whatever we do in life requires effort. Everything we do is to be a means of salvation. The slothful person is unwilling to do what God wants because of the effort it takes to do it. Sloth becomes a sin when it slows down and even brings to a halt the energy we must expend in using the means to salvation.
Seven (movie) Starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Gwyneth Paltrow. This creepy cinematic treatment of the Deadly Sins features Pitt and Freeman as detectives tracking down a serial killer who is trying and executing his victims for each one of the Sins. David Fincher's (Alien 3) stylish noir thriller features razor-sharp performances and dark, glittering cinematography.
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Robert Pinsky Dante's tale of a descent into hell communicates the horror, despair, and terror of the inferno with such immediacy, you can almost smell the sulfur and feel the heat from the rain of fire. Descend into the pit and meet the sinners of each of the nine circles.
According to Proverbs 6:16-19, there are Seven abominations unto the Lord:
If one or more of these doesn't seem like a big sin to you, it almost certainly means you have already rationalized it. Work on that one first. By the way, there is no set list of Virtues corresponding to these. I've just listed the ones that made sense at the time. If you need additional information on Dante's views of these, it is after the table.
| Vice | Virtue against which it is aplied | Brief Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pride (1) | Humility | Seeing ourselves as we are and not comparing ourselves to others is humility. Pride and vanity are competitive. If someone else's pride really bothers you, you have a lot of pride. |
| Avarice/Greed (5) | Generosity | This is about more than money. Generosity means letting others get the credit or praise. It is giving without having expectations of the other person. Greed wants to get its "fair share" or a bit more. |
| Envy (2) | Love | "Love is patient, love is kindÉ" Love actively seeks the good of others for their sake. Envy resents the good others receive or even might receive. Envy is almost indistinguishable from pride at times. |
| Wrath/Anger (3) | Kindness | Kindness means taking the tender approach, with patience and compassion. Anger is often our first reaction to the problems of others. Impatience with the faults of others is related to this. |
| Lust (7) | Self-Control | Self control and self mastery prevent pleasure from killing the soul by suffocation. Legitimate pleasures are controlled in the same way an athlete's muscles are: for maximum efficiency without damage. Lust is the self-destructive drive for pleasure out of proportion to its worth. Sex, power, or image can be used well, but they tend to go out of control. |
| Gluttony (6) | Faith/Temperance | Temperance accepts the natural limits of pleasures and preserves this natural balance. This does not pertain only to food, but to entertainment and other legitimate goods, and even the company of others. |
| Sloth (4) | Zeal | Zeal is the energetic response of the heart to God's commands. The other sins work together to deaden the spiritual senses so we first become slow to respond to God and then drift completely into the sleep of complacency. |
The numbers in parentheses, in the above table, indicate the level where they are found in "Purgatorio." Dante considers these sins as offenses against love, and groups them accordingly:
Perverted Love: Pride, Envy, Wrath/Anger
Insufficient Love: Sloth
Excessive Love of Earthly Goods: Avarice/Greed, Gluttony, Lust
1) Lust - From a Catholic perspective, Lust is the desire for pleasure run amok. Most people, reasonably, think of the drive for sexual pleasure as Lust. Quite literally, sex outside of marriage is useless activity. In marriage, sex can be a useful activity, bringing new life and strengthening the bond between husband and wife. In marriage, the couple has decades to pursue sexual closeness at a leisurely pace, without striving or artifice. Outside marriage, sex is a source of conflict, proof of power or beauty, commodity to be bought or sold, marketing tool or agent of death. The drive for illicit sex fuels a multi-billion dollar sex industry while human beings starve and kill each other. Men go to great lengths for sex, and women spend time and money to be more attractive to these men. What a waste of energy. And those who often succeed in these pointless pursuits find no happiness, just a desire for a different partner or experience.
2) Gluttony - Although it applies to food, let us consider the consumption of anything past the point of usefulness. Clearly, this is wasted energy. People eat more than they need, drive bigger cars than necessary, waste electricity on all manner of useless trinkets and have more shoes than they truly need. All of this while so many starve. Sadly, the world economy might collapse if people only consumed what they must. Not every treat is useless, though. Parties and desserts serve a worthy purpose, but lose their charm when commonplace. Gluttony is like a musical piece played entirely loud, with no soft passages.
3) Wrath/Anger - There is a kind of useful anger, as demonstrated by Christ in the Cleansing of the Temple, but most anger is a waste of energy. Shaking a fist at drivers who displease us, yelling at children for being children, resentment because someone didn't do as we might have liked, these are all a waste of energy. People say, "No, it feels better to express it." Maybe, or maybe not. Expressed anger causes stress for others and is not calming to the one who expresses it. It would be better to consider the "Serenity Prayer," and accept what we cannot change.
4) Sloth/Laziness - This is a funny one, because some might consider wu wei laziness. But only taking effective action is taking action and far from laziness. And laziness is a kind of action, too. It can be difficult to do nothing, especially when others require our assistance. Children ask their lazy parents for a cup of water. Customers have a question about a product. The boss wants that report. Zeal does not seem wu wei, but it is. Not the foolish "zeal" of zealots, idealogues who "having lost sight of their goal, redouble their efforts," but focused and effective action, and no more or less than necessary.
5) Avarice/Greed - Like Gluttony, this is about desiring to possess more than is useful. No matter how much is acquired, it is never enough, and there is no real enjoyment, only the fear of loss. This useless striving can never result in happiness, and is truly a useless activity.
6) Envy - In the first place, we can never have what is possessed by another. Possession is a matter of both what we have and who we are. This is why the same object may bring happiness to one person but grief to another. So to desire what another has is foolish because it will not be the same for us. Riches, fame, or power wielded well by one may destroy another, so wearing out our souls in envy is a waste of effort.
7) Pride - And so we come to the biggest waste of all. In the poem, "Ozymandias," we hear the boasting of a mighty king long since dead. Death is indeed the great equalizer, coming to the great and small, and none avoid it. Ants and corporate giants both die, but for us there is also judgment. All pride is a waste because our view of ourselves matters not at all in the end, when our lives are revealed for all to see. All pretense, all show, all vain posturing is gone, and there is none but the self remaining, naked before its Maker. Far better to live in truth, simply and without spin or image. This is humility, prized by many but understood by few.
Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving You glory. Therefore, keep me, above all things, from sin. Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul. Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds and poisons my heart. Keep me from the sins that eat a man's flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured. Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice [greed] and ambition that suffocate my life. Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labor in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal. Staunch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding. Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy.
Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice. But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.
Thomas Merton, 1961, Gethsemani. Imprimatur Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York
(Not really a question.) Early Christians and Greek philosophers would disagree. If you can have too much, it isn't an instrinsic good. When people talk about "too much love," they really mean the "wrong kind of love," which isn't love at all. Obsessive self destruction, maybe, but not love. In the same way, some people claim a certain amount of Pride is good. Again, there is no basis for this in the Scriptures or Church teaching. Pride was the downfall of Lucifer, the first humans and their children. Oedipus' overweaning Pride destroyed him and those around him. Over and over again, Pride causes grief. Why would we want to defend it? Then again, some people keep dangerous pets that eventually eat their child (or their neighbor's) so it must be (fallen) human nature to "sow the seeds of our own destruction." The same for Gluttony or Anger. In what way are these ever positives? Righteous anger may appear to be an exception, but the vice of Anger is common, self-centered and destructive, while righteous anger is rare, centers on justice and others' rights, and is cleansing. Jesus clearing the Temple is an example of righteous anger. Most of us will never experience it.
In Christian tradition, those sins which have the most serious impact on spiritual development have been classified as "deadly sins." Which sins qualify for this category have varied - Christian theologians have developed different lists of the most serious sins which people might commit. John Cassian offered one of the first lists, and he came up with eight: gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, dejection (tristitia), sloth (accedia), vainglory and pride. Gregory the Great created what is considered today to be the definitive list of seven: pride, envy, anger, dejection, avarice, gluttony and lust. Each of the deadly (or capital) sins was always accompanied by a series of related, minor sins.
Pride, also sometimes known as Vanity, is simply the excessive belief in your own abilities. This is a sin in that it causes you to fail to give adequate credit to God and God's powers - God made you and God created the world. Pride is also about competition with others and failing to give them credit - thus, if someone's Pride bothers you much, that means that you are also guilty of Pride. It is often argued that all of the other sins ultimately stem from Pride in one way or another. Thomas Aquinas, for example, wrote that "inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin ...the root of pride is found to consist in man not being, in some way, subject to God and His rule." According to tradition, those guilty of Pride will be "broken on the wheel" in Hell.
Envy, the second sin, is an unacceptable desire to possess what others possess - this can include material objects (like cars) but it can also include character traits, like a positive outlook on life or patience. This is regarded as a sin because, through envying others, we both fail to be happy for them and we fail to actually make the effort to improve ourselves. Thomas Aquinas wrote that envy "...is contrary to charity, whence the soul derives its spiritual life... Charity rejoices in our neighbor's good, while envy grieves over it." Tradition has it that those guilty of Envy will spend their time in Hell sitting in freezing water.
Gluttony has traditionally been associated simply with eating too much, but it has a broader connotation and in fact includes trying to consume more of anything than you actually need, food included. As Thomas Aquinas wrote, Gluttony is about "...not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire ...leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists."
Lust, one of the more popular of the deadly sins, involves the desire to experience physical, sensual pleasures (not just those which are sexual in nature, although they are among the more common). General desire for physical pleasures is considered sinful because it causes one to ignore the more important spiritual needs and commandments. Sexual desire is sinful because it results in the use of sex for more than just procreation. The popularity of this particular sin can be attested by the fact that more gets written in condemnation of it than for just about any other sin out there.
Anger, the fifth deadly sin, is also known as Wrath. This simply involves rejecting the Love and Patience, we are supposed to feel for others and opting instead for more violent or hateful interactions. One would think that many actions undertaken by Christians over the centuries (like the Inquisition or the Crusades) were motivated more by anger than love, but quite often they could be excused by saying that the reason for them was love of God, or love of a person's soul - so much love, in fact, that it was necessary to harm them physically.
Greed, also known as Avarice, involves the desire for material or monetary gain. This is similar to Gluttony, except that in this case mere gain, rather than consumption, is the point. It is also similar to Envy, except that in this case a person wants to possess more and more independent of whether or not others also possess similar things. In an unusual expression of socialism, Thomas Aquinas condemned Greed because "it is a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them ...it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things."
The final sin, Sloth, is the most misunderstood. It is often regarded simply as laziness, but it is more accurately translated as apathy. When a person is apathetic, they no longer really care about doing their duty to others or to God, causing them to ignore their spiritual well-being. Thomas Aquinas wrote that Sloth "...is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds."
It is at this point, where the seven deadly sins receive their authoritative delineation in the English language, that their significance began to wane. The forces of the Renaissance and the Reformation initiated the fundamental moral mutation in European culture that led to modernity. The England of Queen Elizabeth gave way to the England of King James, and it was not so long from there to the Long Parliament. There and elsewhere people started to take a less sacrosanct view of sin and the seven deadly sins. Most important, the effort to reground morality independent of theological conceptions had taken root. It is not necessary here to go into the post-history of the notion of sin, which includes both the reaction against it as well as the effort to salvage some meaning out of it, and a great deal else. Rather, this is the point at which the structure of the concept should be examined, internally, in relation to what went before, and in relation to the present conception of violence.
Envy
By Joseph Epstein
Writing in a conversational, erudite, self-deprecating style that wears its learning lightly, Epstein takes us on a stimulating tour of the many faces of envy. He considers what great thinkers--such as John Rawls, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche--have written about envy; distinguishes between envy, yearning, jealousy, resentment, and schadenfreude ("a hardy perennial in the weedy garden of sour emotions"); and catalogs the many things that are enviable, including wealth, beauty, power, talent, knowledge and wisdom, extraordinary good luck, and youth (or, as the title of Epstein's chapter on youth has it, "The Young, God Damn Them"). He looks at resentment in academia, where envy is mixed with snobbery, stirred by impotence, and played out against a background of cosmic injustice; and he offers a brilliant reading of Othello as a play driven more by Iago's envy than by Othello's jealousy.
Gluttony
By Francine Prose
In Gluttony, Francine Prose serves up a marvelous banquet of witty and engaging observations on this most delicious of deadly sins. She traces how our notions of gluttony have evolved along with our ideas about salvation and damnation, health and illness, life and death. Offering a lively smorgasbord that ranges from Augustine's Confessions and Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, to Petronius's Satyricon and Dante's Inferno, she shows that gluttony was in medieval times a deeply spiritual matter, but today we have transformed gluttony from a sin into an illness--it is the horrors of cholesterol and the perils of red meat that we demonize. Indeed, the modern take on gluttony is that we overeat out of compulsion, self-destructiveness, or to avoid intimacy and social contact. But gluttony, Prose reminds us, is also an affirmation of pleasure and of passion.
Lust
By Simon Blackburn
Lust, says Simon Blackburn, is furtive, headlong, always sizing up opportunities. It is a trail of clothing in the hallway, the trashy cousin of love. But be that as it may, the aim of this delightful book is to rescue lust "from the denunciations of old men of the deserts, to deliver it from the pallid and envious confessor and the stocks and pillories of the Puritans, to drag it from the category of sin to that of virtue." Blackburn, author of such popular philosophy books as Think and Being Good, here offers a sharp-edged probe into the heart of lust, blending together insight from some of the world's greatest thinkers on sex, human nature, and our common cultural foibles. He takes a wide-ranging, historical approach, discussing lust as viewed by Aristophanes and Plato, Schopenhauer and Sartre, Freud, Kinsey, and modern "evolutionary psychology." But most important, Blackburn reminds us that lust is also life-affirming, invigorating, fun.
Greed
By Phyllis Tickle
Grasping. Avarice. Covetousness. Miserliness. Insatiable cupidity. Overreaching ambition. Desire spun out of control. The deadly sin of greed goes by many names, appears in many guises, and wreaks havoc on individuals and nations alike. In this lively and generous book, Phyllis A. Tickle argues that greed is "the Matriarch of the Deadly Clan," the ultimate source of the other deadly sins. Tickle takes a long view of greed, from St. Paul to the present, focusing particularly on its changing imaginative representations in Western literature and art. Looking at such works as the fifth-century Psychomachia, the paintings of Peter Bruegel and Hieronymous Bosch, the 1987 film Wall Street, and the work of the contemporary Italian artist Mario Donizetti, Tickle shows how our perceptions have evolved from the medieval understanding of greed as a spiritual enemy to a nineteenth-century sociological construct to an early twentieth-century psychological deficiency, and finally to a new view of greed as both tragic and beautiful. Engaging, witty, brilliantly insightful, Greed explores the full range of this deadly sin's subtle, chameleon-like qualities.
Forthcoming in the series:
Pride By Michael Eric Dyson
Anger By Robert A. F. Thurman
Sloth By Wendy Wasserstein
Contrary to popular belief, there are no Biblical references to the Seven Deadly Sins. Seven days of creation, yes. Seven churches of Asia. Seven horns, seven seals, seven stars, seven trumpets, seven devils, seven cows, seven ears of corn, seven years of feast and famine, seven eyes on the Lamb, seven years of service, seven Levitical purifications, seven spirits before the throne of God, seven times seven of almost everything that requires a large number, sure. But seven sins? Sorry. The closest we get is in Proverbs (6:16-19) where there are six - or, well, maybe seven - things that the Lord hateth:
Yea, seven which are an abomination unto him:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood;
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations,
feet that be swift in running to mischief;
19 A false witness that uttereth lies,
And he that soweth discord among brethern
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here-Dante Alighieri
The movie Se7en is about a serial killer obsessed with the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins were also occasionally referenced in the Shazam/Captain Marvel comic-book franchise by seven statues displayed in the hero's secret headquarters. There is also a board game named after the seven deadly sins, see Seven Deadly Sins board game. In 2003, Unilever marketed Magnum 7 Deadly Sins, a series of seven differently flavoured ice creams. Villains in the animated series Fullmetal Alchemist are named after the seven deadly sins.
The Seven Deadly Sins board game can best be described as a New Age Snakes and Ladders with attitude. The board is made up of a long, winding and overlapping path of 234 consecutive squares divided into seven different incarnations (first killer, then thief, liar, servant, lover, healer, and prophet). On squares where the paths cross over, called Time Warp squares, players must change path if required.
Players start at Creation and must race to Nirvana collecting at least 50 Mojo along the way. Life Cards are also collected along the way which give players the ability to introduce strategy into how they, or other players, move (rather than relying solely on the dice). Some of the Life Cards, called Wicca Cards, allow players to cast spells on themselves or their opponents to either advance or retard their movement. Protection Cards can be used to stop spells or other bad things happening to you. Money and Elements of Nature are other resources involved in the game play. Seven Deadly Sins was designed and produced by Piranha Bros
Throughout the Middle Ages, representatives of the church emphasized the importance of teaching "average citizens" the need to avoid The Seven Deadly Sins.
The sins are based on problems that occur in human relationships. The Seven Deadly Sins are: ______________ which is based on the belief that you consider yourself better than other people. The second sin is ______________ which involves a self-destructive desire to constantly satisfy the body's physical desires. The third sin is _____________ which is considered an antonym of "love". _______ is the next sin which is another way of saying that a person is very "lazy". People have always suffered from ________________ because the desire to eat whatever one wants, is a very difficult urge to control. When you are never satisfied with what you have, you suffer from __________, which is the sixth Deadly Sin. The final sin is ____________, which refers to the desire to have what someone else has.
Language Extension Activity:
Instructions: Indicate which of the Seven Deadly Sins is related to the idiom. Make sure you understand the meaning of the idiom. Your teacher might ask you to use it in a sentence!
| Idiom | Deadly Sin |
|---|---|
| Fed up with someone | |
| To be green with envy | |
| Couch potato | |
| To pig out | |
| To have a one-track mind | |
| Big-headed | |
| The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence |
Wall paintings of the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy were popular in Britain from the fourteenth century to the Reformation. As the extract above suggests, they were not simply decoration but were intended to provide material for contemplation. These paintings were among a group of 'didactic' or 'morality' images prominent in British wall painting in the later Middle Ages. Other contemporary 'morality' subjects included the Seven Sacraments and the Warnings to Gossips, Swearers and Sabbath Breakers.
Come to think of it, although it didn't make the list of Seven, if it were up to me I would include an eighth deadly sin: "Silence in the face of injustice" a sin of which I have been guilty and must continue to wrestle with.
Rev. Barbara Carlson of UU Church of Bloomington IL
Marilyn Sewell, gave her reflections on the seven deadly sins of Unitarian Universalism in a sermon at our General Assembly a couple of years ago. See if you think her list still "fits." Marilyn says
Anger and Sloth. Are these not all excesses of drives that are in balance, basically good, basically virtues? Drives that are not to be denied but to be checked and held in balance.
Take PRIDE. The opposite is self-abnegation, which is also a sin. The balance is self-respect, appropriate regard for one's own inherent worth and dignity.
AVARICE or greed, is inordinate desire, the opposite would be lack of all desire or anhedonia which accompanies deep depression and withdrawal from life. The balance is the desire to accomplish, the will to do, ambition.
LUST is unrestrained, intemperate, irrational, sexual desire or craving; I guess the opposite would be catatonic unresponsiveness. In balance, lust is the longing for intimate communion, the desire for connection and closeness in mutual care and valuing.
ENVY is desire and admiration turned sour; in its positive side or balance, envy becomes admiration and appreciation.
GLUTTONY is ingesting an excess of any substance, over-indulgence, making a pig of oneself or becoming high or intoxicated. In balance gluttony is bon appetit-good appetite, which is essential for the affirmation and living of life.
ANGER - the opposite would be apathy. As Charlie Brown remarked to Lucy, "The trouble with this world is apathy." Lucy responds, "Who cares?" In balance anger is protective; a protective device of the self to guard what one loves. The story of Jesus overturning the money changers' tables in the temple is a story of protecting the sacred place.
SLOTH in its original meaning is akin to despair. Sloth is to look upon the wonder and goodness of creation and turn our backs. Sloth is a rejection of the joy and goodness of life. In Erik Erikson's developmental stages, the final stage in mature years is Integrity versus Despair (or Sloth). The person who achieves integrity is able to recognize and hold all the occasions and reasons for despair in this life without finally yielding to them. The person of integrity knows despair but ultimately is able to say with conviction that despite suffering and disappointment life is a good gift.
In excess all of the seven deadly sins deaden our lives. They aren't things that others do to us but what we do to ourselves. They tend to be interconnected, one leads to another and the destructive cycles interlock in downward spiral. All of these seven deadly sins lead to isolation, lead to separation from ourselves and others, from the ground of being.
You probaby commit some of them every day without thinking about the rich tradition of eternal damnation in which you are participating.
The number seven is a powerful one in the Bible - there are the seven days of creation, seven seals, and seven years of feast and famine, to name just a few occurrences of the number. But one seven you won't find in the Bible is the Seven Deadly Sins.
Rules to live by abound in the Old and New Testaments, but the well-known list of don'ts isn't specifically among them. It was Pope Gregory the Great, back in the sixth century AD, who came up with a list of seven spiritual offenses: pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sadness (which was later changed to sloth). Pride was always listed as the first and gravest of the seven, because, the thinking went, without pride, you wouldn't have the arrogance to commit the other six.
Unlike many of the no-nos alluded to in the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins weren't committed against other people. These were the ones you committed against yourself, as they destroyed your spiritual health and led to eternal damnation - truly a fate worse than death. However, before people could avoid these sins, they had to know about them in the first place - and know that they were sins - so they became part of the teachings of the Catholic church sometime in the 13th century. The Church preferred to call them "capital vices" rather than sins, since they weren't in themselves sins, but personal vices that led a person to sin.
As they entered popular consciousness, the Seven Deadly Sins also found their way into the literature and art of the time, figuring in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the painting of Heironymous Bosch, to name just two examples. The Seven have also served as inspiration for more recent artists such as Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, and the creators of the 1995 movie Se7en. While the Church doesn't have the same influence on us that it once had, many people still look upon the Seven Deadly Sins as character flaws. Others, however, view them as benign and some as even admirable.