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Sins are acts or omissions regarded by institutions of faith as
transgressions of their God’s will.
From the standpoint of the Roman Catholics, sins
may be original, referring to the since of disobedience inherited by
all the descendants of Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden
fruit in the Garden of Eden. Following this biblical line, no one
comes out of the mother’s womb sinless. Sins may also be personal,
taking either the form of mortal or venial sins depending on their
nature, gravity, and deliberateness.
In the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church,
they say that Saint Gregory I, The Great, who introduced the edict
of celibacy, listed the original seven deadly sins during his papacy
in the 6th century. And this list was made popular by a great
Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, in his epic poem and literary
masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy” in the 14th century.
The seven deadly sins include: Luxuria
(extravagance or lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia
(sloth), Ira (wrath), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride).
If there are seven deadly sins, there are also
seven holy virtues. They say that the seven virtues were derived
from an epic poem written by a Roman Christian Poet, Aurelius
Prudentius Clemens, entitled “Psychomachia” or the “Contest of
the Soul”, which was intensely popular in Europe during the Middle
Ages. These seven virtues that include, Chastity, Abstinence,
Temperance, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and Humility, are regarded
as “contrary virtues” because they are supposed to protect one
against each of their counterpart in the order of the seven deadly
sins.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, India’s great political
and spiritual leader and one of the most influential figures in
modern social and political activism, devised his own list of seven
sins which he considered to be most spiritually damaging to
modern-day humanity. These include: Wealth without Work,
Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge
without Character, Politics without Principle, Commerce without
Morality, and Worship without Sacrifice.
A week ago, Vatican came up with a list of seven
modern-day mortal sins for Roman Catholics, in addition to the
traditional seven deadly sins, because of their prevalence in this
era of “unstoppable globalisation.” Reports say that these new
mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end
of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at
encouraging a revival of the practice of confession or the Sacrament
of Penance in the Catholic faith.
The seven modern evils include: environmental
pollution, genetic manipulation, accumulating excessive wealth,
inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and consumption, morally
debatable experiments, and violation of fundamental rights of human
nature.
Sins are intrinsically evil because they
deliberately offend the sensibilities of human nature. For this
reasons, almost all sins, if not all, are also legislated and
regarded as crimes against society in the modern world that deserve
corporeal punishment. Although, it does not necessarily follow that
all state-defined crimes are sins per se.
The sins committed by human beings have no
expiration date. Neither does their basic nature change with the
changing world. Sins will be the same throughout the existence of
humanity. What the human conscience perceives as evils before are
the same evils today, only the form, manner, face or packaging of
their commission will change.
As the Christian world celebrates and observes
Easter Sunday, people should be reminded that still the best
prescription to avoid the temptation and occasion of sins, modern or
old, is to conscientiously observe the ethic or reciprocity in their
human conduct as expressed in the Golden Rule of “doing unto
others what you would like others do unto you”. And certainly,
this is in keeping and in accord with God’s will even in today’s
world.
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