runner
I am not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse. No human being is perfect but not every human being possesses each and every 'mortal sin'. You can still be vain without being greedy. Or lustful without being envious.

We are complex individuals - no one person can possess all good as no one person can possess all bad as you seem inclined to cast your own species.

It seems when humans behave badly you raise the the adamic nature argument but when humans behave in altruistic and positive ways it suddenly is only due to God.

Cake and eating it comes to mind.

Dear George,

Neuroticism as to sex is certainly not limited to the Catholic Church or even Christianity or even religion. It pervades society. Both fascist and Marxist regimes have had puritanical repression after taking power. To me freedom from political or religious repression also promotes freer sexual expression.

I don't think a feeling of guilt is necessary for any purpose. I think one should recognise where one has been wrong and try not to repeat the offense.

I appreciate the beauty arising from Catholic tradition. I have a season ticket to the musical performances at St. Stephen's Cathedral. Once during the year the church puts on a spread for season ticket holders at which the archbishop gives a little talk. Archbishop Bathersby told me how he happened to be in Australia. In his words it was due to 'one of his Irish ancestors having an inordinate fondness for other people's horses'.

However, I object to your sentence, "I think something similar could be said about my feelings towards those who stopped at a certain level with trying to understand their faith."

I did not stop trying to understand my faith. I did understand it. I reject religious faith or other faith in general. I thought I made it plain that I regard faith as a vice, and my rejection of faith was due to understanding it.

I also object to your analogy of feeling freedom from religious belief with freedom from the obligation to study. I think it is just the opposite. I think freedom from religious belief enabled me to look at the human condition with more understanding and a greater empathy with people from other cultures. Just as your graduation meant the opportunity and the obligation of future learning my loss of religious belief meant the same for me.

Dear Foxy

I happen to regard you as one of the few Christians on OLO who actually does "walk-the-walk". Please don't take my criticisms personally even though I can understand the difficulty. In Australia Christianity is the most common religion, therefore it is going to receive most of the attention.

The "seven deadly sins" have been used to control and dull and demean many people by many different religions often in league with political will. An argument regarding these "sins" was bound to devolve into a debate on semantics.

For example, I would like to ask Philo if he never feels good about helping others? Feeling good about something one has created or completed or aided is pride and very human, very normal, it helps us continue to create, complete or aid.

BTW Philo - drink spiking is not about lust, it is about control. But only someone who has been indoctrinated into a very fundamentalist version of Christianity would think that.

Dear Suze,

Of course goodness is not simply the domain
of the religious amongst us. And neither is
evil anyone's domain either. Things in life
tend to be more complicated.

I don't believe in finger-pointing or questioning
someone's beliefs/or lack of them, (as long as they
don't harm others). Live and let live.

The point I was trying to make was - we've all got
flaws.

As I've written in other threads, religious institutions,
as such, are not the only arbiters of religious
experience. They are consultants and frameworks,
but they are not God Himself. We should not confuse the
path with the destination.

Lately I've generally avoided discussions at OLO that concern religion, since they inevitably all end up in the same intellectually irreconcilable space of faith vs reason. However, I'll stick my nose in here, since some of the religiously-inclined seem to be attacking dear old davidf personally for having the temerity to reject religion and to provide lots of sound arguments backing up his position.

I think that the early Christians incorporated the "seven deadly sins" in their religion because their internalisation functioned well to attenuate antisocial behaviour in the small-scale tribal societies that characterised the Middle East a couple of millennia back. In such societies religious beliefs and edicts function effectively to facilitate people living together while avoiding internal conflict and enhancing group solidarity. "Faith" or its equivalent is critical, because such societies rely on people controlling their own behaviour in accordance with social and cultural mores, without recourse to the elaborate legal, civil and moral structures that characterise more complex socities.

Of course, now that we have those structures of social evolution, the internalisation of "sin" and its accompanying feelings of guilt etc are largely redundant, although religious beliefs and their anachronistic notions of morality are still powerful forces in the world - and indeed, in Australian society, where the unfortunate resilience of these elaborate mythological systems generally manifest in conflict between 'believers' and everybody else.

Fractelle,
The pride the Bible talks about is the attitude of superiority that is ill, hurtful and demeaning of others. It is not about feelings of self worth or achievements, unless it has an element of spite.

Quote"For example, I would like to ask Philo if he never feels good about helping others? Feeling good about something one has created or completed or aided is pride and very human, very normal, it helps us continue to create, complete or aid."

Think again Fractelle - you said "drink spiking is not about lust". Wrong! The attitude that schemes personal benifit from others is LUST. The scheming for control of others for power is also Lust.