Quoteth Wikipedia: The “Seven Deadly Sins”, also known as the “Capital Vices” or “Cardinal Sins”, are a classification of vices that were originally used in early Christian teachings to educate and instruct followers concerning (immoral) fallen man’s tendency to sin. The Roman Catholic Church divided sin into two principal categories: “venial”, which are relatively minor, and could be forgiven through any sacrament of the Church, and the more severe “capital” or “mortal” sins, which, when committed, destroyed the life of grace, and created the threat of eternal damnation unless either absolved through the sacrament of confession, or otherwise forgiven through perfect contrition on the part of the penitent.

The Seven Deadly Sins are as follows: Luxuria (extravagance, later lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (avarice/greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride/hubris).

So…. the seven deadly sins are things that are “really bad”, and most people would still consider them to be so, even if they have no strong religious leanings. The problem is that sinful things are usually things that people have a natural tendency to indulge in (NB, I’m not saying religion is all about being a killjoy, but something usually doesn’t need to be forbidden unless people might want to to do it – for example most religions have failed to prohibit self-decapitation – because most people don’t have to be told that cutting of your own head is a bad thing). Of course, from a simplistic evolutionary point of view we have a tendency to these behaviours because the genes involved provided an advantage at some point.

Which leads to my posts, basically I’ll be doing some occasionally substantiated ranting on the sin at hand; the good and the bad of such a prohibition (to society and the individual) and why we might of evolved such a tendency.

I’m not a scientist, nor a philosopher, nor a theologian; but I have played one on TV. Essentially I just want to look at these things to work out for myself what I think, and I’ll be posting my thoughts for the interest/amusement of teh intarnets. The schedule for posting will vary depending on how much research I do per topic, how much I already know (some would say I’ve spent my whole life practising sloth for instance), the weather, my boredom level, the clogging of the tubes (because it’s not a truck) and the general affects of chaos theory on the nonlinear dynamical system that is my existence.

I’ll be doing the sins in the order above, so readers (both of you) can feel free to comment/email me anything you think might be useful in researching.

For great justice!