Monday, April 20, 2015

The Ten Deadly Sins

The Judeo-Christian tradition is full of neat and tidy lists.  You get this wonderful conciseness after a couple thousand years, I suppose.  The Judeo-Christians aren't alone.  4 noble truths, 8-fold path, the list of lists is a long one.  

One of the more well-known neat, tidy little lists is the seven deadly sins.  They pop up articulated for the first time as a nice neat list in the Hebrew Scriptures, in which, none other than the wise King Solomon gets them down on paper (or papyrus) in the Proverbs. The Christian church administrator Paul later expands and adds some color to the list in his letter to the Galatians.

The Roman Catholic church puts them in a nice, neat little package, ready for daily application as: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, envy, lust and gluttony.   Pretty hard to argue with, none of those are very good ideas.  [Although on a side note, greed, pride, envy and gluttony seem to have been chosen as the basis for our current economic system.]  

They are specifically not good ideas because they prioritize the self over a participation in a community.  The Judeo-Christians are talking about a community which includes God, which is important, even in God-optional communities, they're not very good ideas.

Whichever community the tidy little list is fostering, I think its missing a few items. When I'm king I would like to add righteousness, tediousness, boringness, complacency and arrogance.  

While we're editing...envy, lust and greed all seem to be branches from the same trunk, so I think we can roll them all into a single - let's call it a meta-sin:  greed.  You know, for simplicity's sake.  So, the new list would be as follows:

1.  Wrath:  Thou shalt chill out.  Anger beith self-indulgent.
2.  Greed:  This is a two-parter.  First, thou shalt not taketh stuff that ain't either already yours or offered freely.  Second, thou shalt not taketh extra  stuff until everyone else haveth what they need.  Of course after everyone haveth what they need, there would be no point in taking extra, but that beith another blog post. [Regardless of what the economy wants you to believeth.]
3.  Sloth:  Thou shalt get off thy ass and participate in thy own life and the lives of others in thine community.
4.  Pride:  Thy poop, actually does stinketh, just like everyone else's.  Also, so does thy breath.
5.  Gluttony:  Thou shalt not believeth that more of a good thing is a better thing.  [Regardless of what the economy wants you to believe.]
6.  Righteousness:  Thou shalt never, uttereth the words:  "I toldeth you so." or anything intended to say "I toldeth you so.".
7.  Tediousness:  Thou shalt understand that there is a difference between sloth and taking a break every now and then.
8.  Boringness:  Thou shalt be aware when thou hast sucked the life out of a conversation.  [Also, thou shalt not suck the life out of a conversation for thy own benefit.]
9.  Complacency:  Thou shalt not "beith ok with it" when "it" doth not pertain to you.
10.  Arrogance:  Nobody believeth thy display of hyperbolic pride.  Thou shalt not use your influence to dominate another just because it maketh you feel all warm and fuzzy.

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