Mr. Govenor in particular. I give you this
Vatican Lists Seven Social Sins, Including Drug Abuse (Update2)
By Flavia Krause-Jackson
March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Vatican has put together a list of seven ``social'' sins that includes excessive wealth, drug abuse, littering, genetic tampering and creating poverty.
Echoing the concept of the seven cardinal vices -- set to paper by Pope Gregory I in the sixth century -- the new list adds a social dimension, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said in an interview yesterday with the Vatican's official newspaper l'Osservatore Romano.
``You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos,'' said Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions.
Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out on social issues throughout his three-year papacy. He backs a current political initiative to outlaw abortions after 90 days and encouraged Catholics to abstain from a 2005 referendum on easing restrictive laws on fertility treatments, which failed to achieve the 50 percent participation level to make the vote to change the law binding.
The seven social sins are:
1. ``Bioethical' violations such as birth control
2. ``Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
The original deadly sins:
1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Gluttony
4. Lust
5. Anger
6. Greed
7. Sloth
Discuss
Huh, heard about this earlier today, and having read the list now, I gotta say I'm in disagreement with some of it.
1. 'Bioethical' violations such as birth control
Now, the way I see it for this, what's the problem? The world is already overpopulated as it is, and logically speaking, it'd be better off for all of us if there weren't as many. Not to sound cruel or anything, but at the rate we're going, we've already overpopulated and screwed our world over. And we're not even making best use of all the land masses, either.
2. "Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't stem cell research meant to be beneficial for all of us in the long term? How can something like that which is meant to better us be considered so bad?
6. Excessive wealth
And going by that, this means that Bill Gates is evil? Lulz.
#3: Of course it's a deadly sin. But by that logic all sins can kill you.
#4: What? We need for it to be sin to harm mother nature in order to not do it? (even though polluting was pretty much an unwritten sin in the first place)
If you earnt it and didn't harm anyone else in the proccess I don't see how being rediculously rich is a sin. There's that man who won the lottery and so far he's only spent money buying things for family and friends, none on himself. He even has the same bloody anorak as the one he had when he won it however many years ago it was. Is he a sinner? I don't think so.
Gluttony or what have you @ reasoning for 6th. If someone takes more than they need in their life time that creates a shortage for others.
Also, I should totally put out a list of sins.
Actually, I think a better way to explain the sixth would be that anyone that has enough wealth for it to be considered "excessive" has hoarded everything themselves and not given enough to those in need. Of course, depending on the defenition of "excessive", this might still end up targetting people who continously give significant ammount of support to various charities.
Some of them are interesting - I think it's the first time I've heard any sort of religious institution specifically say that pollution is evil rather than just implying it is by proclaiming humans the guardians of earth.
That said, some of them seem to have a little bit of an ability to indirectly trigger others, most still seem very loosely defined, some I flat out don't agree with and to be perfectly honest.. seeing the phrase "experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos" instantly made me picture some internet meme image: "They're harming our embroys!!" / "Are you bad enough dude to rescue our embryos?!"
...
Some of them are interesting - I think it's the first time I've heard any sort of religious institution specifically say that pollution is evil rather than just implying it is by proclaiming humans the guardians of earth.
...
I believe Islam, Hinduism (partly with vegetarianism), and Neopaganism have beaten the Catholic Church to it. At least with what the environment is concern.
That's a good point, actually. While I do recall something with Hindu(sp?) monks brushing the path before them not to step on insects even and that christianity has had the whole "humanity is the guardians of the earth" concept for quite some time aswell (and the Catholic church only formalizing it now to put attention to it I s'pose) I didn't know Islam had directly environmentalist clauses specified, rather than just implied.
Still, the more who take environmentalism as less of a guideline and more of a rule the better, I'd think.
Anyone with spare foresight points left over should be environmentalist (lol vague). Without mother earth, we would be invaded by the ether of space and explode in a cosmic reverse fart of death 
tho technically, polluting will give the earth more mass to save us from that 
...
tho technically, polluting will give the earth more mass to save us from that
Polluting the Earth == Temperature increase == Hot Earth == Less places to live == Less resources == Violence == Happy Boom Boom Times!
While I do recall something with Hindu(sp?) monks brushing the path before them not to step on insects even
That's Jainism, actually. The effort to avoid harming any living thing goes beyond brushing your path to clear insects away; they wear masks to avoid breathing in small bugs, don't eat at night (so lights aren't required; otherwise insects will be drawn to the lamps and hurt by the heat) or even eat root vegetables thought to have many micro-organisms living in them or disturb the dirt in which the insects live. They also make a point of buying animals from meat/fur markets to save them from slaughter and have at least one bird hospital.
5, 6, and 7 are kinda the same thing, and stem cell research isn't that dubious now with that new way they have. o.o
Nice how one of the richest countries in the world think excessive wealth is a sin. Someone should point out the irony to the Vatican.
DW
Being one who was religious before and comparing the new sins, just makes me shake my head.
All of the new ones are vague and seem to just not make any sense. o.o They are all no brainers and have little consistency. It's like they came out of thin air as something that people should have know already, now they are written down to so people have to worry even more.
The only ones I would seriously have a problem with are 1) and 2), but that all depends on who you ask.
... on the one hand, it does make it seem like the church is kinda-modernizing... at least when it comes to the issues they're talking about... but on the other hand, the part on stem cell research, that's kinda reaffirming their position on an issue that's part of why I'm so anti-religion in the first place. Of course I've been suspicious of it ever since noticing how religious indoctrination seemed like brainwashing, but religion's influence interfering with ESCR just crosses the line for me. It's simplistic to say that if I don't like religion I don't have to take part in it; I'm affected by religion's influence in that I'm one of at least millions of people who has potential cures for their diseases delayed because the church is holding ESCR back.
And why? To protect embryos which most likely lack sentience or consciousness, at the expense of those of us who have a sentience, consciousness, etc. to lose? Whenever I bring this point up in debates about ESCR elsewhere I can't help but get the impression that a lot of these people don't really understand what I mean by sentience and consciousness. Many of them talk about how "human life is human life, and a human embryo fits the characteristics of life, just because it doesn't have a consciousness doesn't mean it's less entitled to protection than you, just like black people aren't entitled to less protection than you"
... but why the hell does the fact that they fit into human life by biological classification mean they should be protected? In physics "work" refers to the product of unbalanced force and resulting motion, should everything that applies forces resulting in motion be counted as work and given a paid wage? Of course not, because there's different meanings to the word "work"; similarily, there's differenct meanings to the term "life"; I think there's a definition that says it's the sum of one's experiences, and obviously one without consciousness can't "experience" something... granted, such arguments wouldn't necessarily reflect anti-ESCR arguments, but I can't help but wonder why other anti-ESCR people aren't coming in to rebutall them, such as to say "hey I'm anti-ESCR but I think that was a weak analogy" or "I'm anti-ESCR and I think they might be sentient anyway" so as to clarify just what is and what isn't mainstream within anti-ESCR?
As for the part about birth control, I read something interesting on another forum I go to, except more so about the use of condoms with respect to STDs; it's about how when the church travels around to tell people not to have sex, they (EDIT2: according to this person) don't match that with trying to promote women's empowerment in many countries where that would be necessary in order for them to be able to refuse sex; this person suggests that shows that they're lying about what they're trying to achieve in the first place... I'd link to a few screenshots of it, but I'm somewhat hesitant because if I showed just the posts themselves, I'd be quoting something without showing specifically who I'm quoting FROM, (not sure if that'd constitute plagiarism even though I'm not claiming it to be my own) and even if I screenshot the posts WITH the usernames, since said person posted it to that site I'm not sure if they only meant to show it with their username to that site and as such I'd be spreading it with the username to other sites without them knowing...
