The so-called Seven Deadly Sins of Christian tradition are always popular fodder for modern media. They have played important roles in movies and there are books out about them. Contrary to popular perception, though, Christianity's famous list of Seven Deadly Sins fails to provide very useful guidelines of behavior in either theory or in practice.
In practice, most churches today ignore the seven deadly sins, eliminating even the potential for applying them to the rich and powerful. When was the last time you read or heard of any conservative evangelical churches -- usually very vocal about how Christianity is needed for morality -- say anything against gluttony, greed, envy, or anger? The only "deadly sin" which most have retained is lust, which might explain why it's been expanded in so many directions.
The theory isn't much better, though, because these sins focus on people's inner, spiritual state to the exclusion of their outward behavior -- not to mention their impact on others. Furthermore, there are no intellectual sins of any sort here. Adopting or promoting beliefs on the basis of irrational feelings and without empirical evidence isn't a problem. Not even lying is a deadly sin here -- lying out of love or in the service of God, for example, is less sinful than being angry over injustice and the lies of others. What kind of system is this? This is why secular, atheistic philosophies have not retained or perpetuated these "sins" in any way.
With each sin, in fact, it can be argued that there are aspects of which are positive, not just negative:
- Pride
- Envy
- Gluttony
- Lust
- Anger
- Greed
- Sloth
Although each deadly sin can inspire troubling behavior, that isn't always the case. Anger, for example, can be justified as a response to injustice and as a motivation to achieve justice. Moreover, this list fails to address behaviors which actually harm others and instead focuses on motivations: torturing and killing someone isn't a "deadly sin" if one is motivated by love rather than anger. The "seven deadly sins" are thus not only deeply flawed, but have encouraged deeper flaws in Christian morality and theology.
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