Seven Sins & Virtues

Seven Sins & Virtues

“The desire to acquire what we don’t have determines our future choices...”# and the desire of perfection can be a misleading way to believe in something that is right. The effect people present now affects others in different ways; such as believing one thing is right and only right, especially when religion is involved; or how one has been accustomed to believe in something with such tenacity that it is unbearable for others to hear. This can create chaos within self and people. Sometimes, someone would believe in justice- believing what he or she are doing is better for humanity and et cetera, but justice can be taken out-of context or too far. Presently, most Americans are unaware of the vices they make: there is this unintentional avoidance between what is right or wrong, and since it is obtuse, mistakes bound to happen.

The mistakes can be right or wrong; what is moral and immoral is rightly up to the user. These morals are by observation, education, or by emotional or moral experience. Further, I will discuss the seven dimensions of emotional and moral experience.

I will briefly introduce you to what it is first: there are pairings and positions of energies that create the emotional and experimental level of sins and virtues. There are three: existential, life, and interpenetration#; we will see how they are connected and what the effects are.

Charles Panati, in his Sacred Origins of Profound Things, drew up eight sins or offences, and list them according to seriousness: gluttony, lust, avarice (greed or wealth), sadness, anger, acedia (absence of caring), vainglory, and pride.# The most offensive sin is self and pride, which believed to have taken away God's influence and love. As the sixth century ends, Pope Gregory the Great reduced the list to seven, and ordered them by offence against love from serious to least: pride, envy, anger, sadness, avarice, gluttony, and lust. However, by the late 17th century, the Church replaced sadness with sloth, since sadness was too vague.#

The Church hierarchy emphasized teaching the deadly sins and heavenly virtues throughout the Middle Ages,# and the Roman Catholic Church divided the sins in to two types of sins, the venial and capital sins. (Details will be shortly after.) The seven deadly sins are capital vices, or cardinal sins. They were used for Christian teachings to educate and protect followers from the immoral tendency to sin.# This went as far as implementing fear into the mind of an individual, and segregating and condemning others as well.

I have garnered the present definitions of the sins. They are now (from deadliest-to-not) pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth.
Pride is the excessive belief in one’s abilities. It interferes with the recognition of the grace of God, and is known as vanity;# this could be started when teachers say, “believe in your self.” Pride means to be better or more attractive than someone or others, fails to give credit when credit is due, and is full of them self.#
Envy is the desire of others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation;# an envious individual does this when they are ashamed of who they are, social standing, family, family heritage, and so on. However, once the admiration takes the best of the individual, they can be tenacious, pessimistic, probably forlorn, angry, fake, et cetera. The admiration is now envy. Others may be smarter, luckier and attractive, better, successful, and beautiful, but there is a fine line between admiration and jealousy. Envy means the strong desire for excessive love and success,# and that is something a plethora of people has.
Next of the seven deadly sins is gluttony. Like envy, gluttony is excessive. It is the desire to consume more than required. This could be done by how the person was raised,# how they feel during the moment, or if they are bored. It can also be associated with destructive behaviour, such as substance abuse.#
The one that everyone experiences is lust: it is the craving for pleasures of the body.# Lust, like gluttony and envy, is excessive. It is one of the strongest desires among teens and adolescents. Lust is out of control when the individual commits bestiality, rape, or incest. This is prevented if the individual did not feel ignored as a child, or thought their friendship, love, or acceptance is unwanted#; some will say they have a mental illness, but that will be a different story and requires its own thorough research. Before I go off topic, I will move on to the next deadly sin: anger.
Anger is one of the daily “sins” people come across. Whether wearing your anger on your sleeve or holding it in, and deny it or not, everyone gets angry, and it is only natural for person A to hit a breaking point of person B. Moreover, there would be a build up of irrational, redundant, and a debacle of sorts to finally stress you out and break you apart. I believe anger is the driving force of desire. Why is that? Anger drives the individual to spurn love and opts for fury. This happens when they are irate, wired, stressed, et cetera.# The stronger word of anger is wrath, and that is the denial of truth, self-denial, impatience with the law, revenge, or wanting to do harm to others.#

You can see many of this in history, the news, books, and by the ones around you. Anger, even how deadly it can be, is unavoidable. For instance, people go through emotional and physical abuse by the person that is angry within self, others, or an experience. Think of history figures that have caused so much hatred and anger, such as the notorious Hitler; or, a bully at school, parents, friends, media, et cetera. The list can go on.

The sixth deadliest sin is greed. How many Americans are greedy? The answer is a lot. Personally, that disgusts me. Greed is a desire of material wealth, gain, and ignoring the realm of the spiritual. Who are doing this? The ones that were pampered, is pampered, and the ones that yearns for status.# Again, another excessive sin. Greed can be associated with disloyalty, deliberate betrayal, treason, scavenging, theft, robbery, and so on.# Am I allowed to be saying that greed is very clichéd? I meet so many people like this that I do not even want to explain or analyze so much more of it. Who has not met greedy people, anyway?
Now, the final sin is sloth. Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. People would do this when they are lazy, upset, or mad.# Sloth is associated with depression and discontentment. Many people experience this, especially teenagers and adolescents.#

"Greed is to be slightly blamed but it is slow to change. Hatred is to be greatly blamed but it is
quick to change. Delusion is to be greatly blamed and it is slow to change." - Buddha

Here is a side note: ponder how the sins create a delusion. People make up many of the sins; first, there is greed; you are hungry for something; then, the false admiration for those in envy, the depressing sloth, the pompous pride, the common lust for pleasure, the passionate anger, and the carnivorous gluttony. There is a delusion in each of these, and they are not so easily to change.

Finally, as I stated above, the two types of sins: venial and capital (or mortal) sins.
People believe they forgiven from their sins, by sacraments; this is called venial sin. This can range from inane types of sacraments, such as giving up smoking or sex. On the other hand, it can go as far as animal or human sacraments. This can be parallel to the famed play, “The Crucible,” with these young girls accusing women of being witches, and condemning them to be unholy; the girls are “pure,” but has their “deadly” secret.

The capital sin, or mortal sin, is killing the life of grace and risking eternal damnation. Unless in a sacramental confession, they believe God forgives their sins; this is common in Catholic Churches. There are people who will tell all that they have done in a confessional booth to a priest, and are later told that they are “blessed” and “forgiven”.#
Each sin has a specific punishment. According to The Picture Book of Devils by Ernst and Johanna Lehner, they concluded that each sin was associated with an animal, colour, and punishment in hell.

For instance, the sin pride is associated with the animal, horse; its colour is violet and the punishment in hell is broken on the wheel. Envy is the dog; its colour is green and the punishment: placed in freezing water. Anger is associated with the bear, colour red, and being dismembered alive. Sloth’s animal is the goat; colour is light blue and the punishment: thrown in a snake pit. The animal, frog, is associated with the colour yellow, and put in cauldrons of boiling water; this is greed. Gluttony is the pig, its colour is orange and the punishment: forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes. Finally, there is lust. Lust is associated with the cow, the colour blue and smothered in fire and brimstone. # Here is a table of the figurative punishments:


SIN ANIMAL COLOR PUNISHMENT
Pride Horse Violet Broken on the wheel
Envy Dog Green Put in freezing water
Anger Bear Red Dismembered alive
Sloth Goat Light blue Thrown in snake pit
Greed Frog Yellow Put in cauldrons of boiling water
Gluttony Pig Orange Forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes
Lust Cow Blue Smothered in fire and brimstone


Durante Degli Alighieri, known as Dante Alighieri or simply by the name Dante, is Italy’s greatest poet. His greatest work is “la Divina Commedia“, translated: “The Divine Comedy.” According to Dante, he turned the figurative punishments in to realistic punishments. He separated them in to three sins; the cold sins (perverted love); sins of improper measure (defective love) and warm sins.# Henceforth, the cold sins include pride, envy, and anger. Those with “pride” will carry heavy stones; envious ones will have their eyes sealed, and the ones who are angry will be “a flamed” (die in fire, injured in fire, die from lung cancer, such as smoking, et cetera). Sin of improper measure is sloth. They will be constantly running from something, thus, achieving nothing. They are what people call, “losers.” Now for the third are warm sins. Warm sins are excess, excessive love. The sins are avarice, gluttony, and lust. An avarice individual will spend life in prostitution, gold digging, lives their life without meaning and real love, and just for the expensive things. Gluttonous punishment is starvation, or leaving with too much “excess” in the body. Lust, like envy, is going to be associated with fire. Like a candle, they will burn the night away, and quickly go out.

Parallel to the sinful is the virtuous. First, there are three types of virtues: the contrary virtues, theological virtues, and the cardinal virtues. The cardinal virtues are prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Classic Greek philosophers believed these were equally important to all people, not just Christians. Theological virtues are love, hope, and faith; this is through baptism, and the Church believed these there were not natural to men. Contrary virtues, also known as the holy virtues, includes humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, liberality, and diligence.#

The basic and modern type of virtues is holy virtues.
Chastity means purity, courage, boldness, embracing moral wholeness and wholesomeness, achieving purity of light and practicing abstinence.
Abstinence is self-control, constant mindfulness of others and one's surrounding, and moderation.
Liberality means will, generosity, and nobility of thoughts and actions.
Diligence is a zealous and careful individual to one's actions or work; they have decisive work ethics, and act energetically without excessive reflection.


Patience is peace, forbearance, and the endurance through moderation. The ones
with patience resolves conflicts peacefully, forgive and show mercy to sinners.
Kindness is personal satisfaction, charity, compassion, and friendship.
Last, humility is having the modesty, selflessness, respect, giving credit when credit is due, and not glorifying their self-worth.#

The seven heavenly virtues are faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence. This combines the four cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, fortitude or courage, and justice, with a variation of the theological virtues of hope, faith, and charity.#

For every vice, there is a virtue.

Pride is the vice against the virtue humility.
Greed is the vice against the virtue generosity.
Envy is the vice against the virtue love.
Wrath is the vice against the virtue kindness.
Lust is the vice against the virtue self-control.
Gluttony is the vice against the virtue faith and temperance, and
Sloth is the vice against the virtue zeal.

Pride means seeing ourselves, as we are not or as we are. Humility means not comparing ourselves to others. Pride and vanity are competitive and can mean differently. Greed, or avarice, usually revolves around money or things. Generosity, the opposite of greed, meaning letting others receive credit or praise; something greed does not have. Generosity is giving without expecting anything in return, or expecting their fair share. Envy resents others and the good of others receive or might receive. Love, the opposite of envy, actively seeks the good of others for their sake. Wrath, or anger, is against the virtue kindness, or patience. Ones that are kind take a tender approach with patience and compassion. Wrath or anger, suppress’ the tender approach and instead are impatient and tend to react with anger, as their first reaction to problems. Lust is against the virtue chastity or self-control. Self-control prevents the soul from “suffocating,” as lust is about sex, power, and image, if not used well. Gluttony can pertain to entertainment or provisions and company. Temperance achieves balance with control of natural limits of pleasures. Finally, sloth is against the virtue zeal, or enthusiasm. It is the response of the heart to “God’s command.” Other sins work together to zap the spiritual sense to become slow to respond to the command of God and “drift completely into sleep.”#

In the beginning, I briefly introduced the emotional and experimental levels of developing human character with vices and virtues, and the three axis’: existential, life, and interpenetration. I will now explain the emotional and moral experiences’, and how connected the vices and virtues we make, are, and their affects and effects.

First off, what do the axis’ mean? Well, existential is the axis of anger with patience and pride with humility. They are emotional polarities of the identity of self and other. For instance, we become angry towards others and feel ashamed of ourselves for what others might think. This is the up and down axis. From front-to-back is the life axis; it is envy with abnegation (avoidance) and greed with sobriety (abstinence, seriousness, dullness). The axis represents emotional polarities that define “trajectories,“ or simply, how our lives are shaped and developed over time: what we envy, what we don’t have but might get, shapes our futures and our greed- is to amass and accumulate, and build structures out of unconscious memory. The left-right axis is interpenetration, or experience and perception. This axis connects “identity” and “life.” It experiences with the being of or with energies of sense perception and associated moral dimensions. Desire is the left hand, or lechery, which is largely unconscious, contact with the sensuous reality; this is the internal and external axis. The right hand shows what perception is: an action towards an action, or to stimulate a response; avarice is the action of grasping, which is another way to look at it.


Sloth is the seventh deadly sin, and its correspondent virtue is joy, which defines emotions that are at the centre of our being. Anger and shame, envy and greed, or lechery and avarice are not in relation with sloth, and its virtue, joy. Lechery is giving into desire as avarice is acting on one, and of this implies neither the temporality of envy and greed, nor the self-other problems of anger and shame.

This is a map of experience, or sense perception, and existence (the self-other) in life (the future and past). Since sloth and joy are at the centre of our being, it is our psyche (human soul and mind). Sloth and joy are the "manic-depression" of the soul and the energy that is bounded by freedom of ego. #



Neurobiological research indicates that the conscious is largely unconscious and emotional. The graph above shows a very close connection of what the seven vices and virtues really are: emotions, or the feeling of what is to happen or what happens. What they called as sins in classical times, is now called emotions; they are treated with drugs, prescribed or un-prescribed, or by entertainment.

The sins ought not to indicate as deadly, because they are not; the sins are destroying the mortal soul. They ought not to indicate as seven deadly sins, rather, they ought to indicate as the seven capital vices, which convey the thought that the sins are not sinful, but habits; bad habits, I might add, and they are merely spontaneous actions one will make without thinking. Perhaps they say seven deadly sins to scare people or maybe it is snappier and simple than the seven capital vices.

Vices are what people make them to be. Human beings are meant to make mistakes, and sometimes these mistakes can be harmful to others and them self.

According to Dante, anger, pride, and envy are the hottest sins because they determine the "evolutionary" development of the individual.# Meaning, ones anger, pride and envy creates an aura, confidence, and thought of this person. This person, likely, is pessimistic. When pessimism becomes stronger, this could lead to depression, or as the vice, sloth. Depression can lead in to something stronger-- something that can be inevitable and self destructive in the human soul: suicide. This is what happens when delusion has not been back to reality.

It does not have to go that far, but other choices can lead to what the future will hold, or not, for an individual. "The desire to acquire what we don't have determines our future choices," and our greedy and sober actions define the past actions one has done. Others are impatient with others or self-objects and fills them selves with ambition.# This is why Dante believed anger, pride, and envy are the hottest sins, because they are the common things we see everyday, and they are strong and the driving forces of other's belief.

Many things are unwanted and denied. Many things affect us, from the affects others do if they believed it to be right or wrong. Some will be in denial of something or a person; like a death. After some one has died, how long would it take to have that person who lost the one they love, on their feet, again? That is depressing. Some will act on their denial, some will go to extremes for what they want or not want. Many of the things people do today creates an effect in the future. Many will condemn others for what they are or for what they do, and sometimes, they are the same as the one's they are condemning, out of guilt, past, and more.

Francois duc la Rochefoucauld once said, “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue,” how many times will you meet someone like this in your lifetime? How many times will you do this? Is it out of guilt, or do you truly believe in it, while knowing that you are not like that, whatsoever? How many times will you hurt someone because you have been hurt many times before? Does that person deserve it out of your malice, your spite or bitterness?
Homage is the gift and price vice ought to pay virtue. Homage means to give respect, or be allied. Maybe hypocrisy is enough.

There are two positions: distinctions and differentials. Distinction deals with an overlap of categories of sensation, emotion, and feeling. Differential is the question of repression, associated mechanisms, and the relationship of splitting and projection. Over all, this is how the future connects with the past; and only in time can you have either an affect or effect, since the affect reflects the effect.#

There are many who wish the entire struggle within, struggle in society, the war that stands for peace, and all those good things, hope that this-- the pain, suffering, careless mistakes, and condemnation and its ignorance, would just simply go away. Will it ever go away? Can it go away? There is only one thing you can do: tolerate. There are many messed up people, many heartless people, and many ignorant people; the best you can do is make today, tomorrow, and the next, the best you can. Make the best choices from the bottom of your heart and clearness and openness of your mind. Let the big guys of our nation handle the hunger, the prices, the war et cetera; and let us hope they handle it the best way they can. Let us hope the voices who are speaking for humanity, animals, and the natural environment are given a chance to be heard, and at least help change one part of the world. On the other hand, not change, but simply make better.