The Deadly Sins
pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath,
and sloth
Something archaic and fun? Outdated?
If a man or a woman pursues any of the deadly sins as a
goal, it will lead to death.
E.g. Anger if pursued can lead to death. Spiritual death,
mental death and perhaps their bodily death. Rage can kill.
If pursued any of the deadly sins will eventually lead to
death; spiritual, mental and perhaps physical.
The deadly sins are enticing you as fake gods wanting your
attention. Of course you can say yes to them, and if you
make them a persistent goal this will lead to your death.
This means it will lead to misery and abuse of others and
yourself. Say yes to God instead. Say yes to Love instead.
Do this by working for the benefit of yourself and others,
and pray to God for the grace (His Love) to do this. God
loves us and wants us to live with Love which will lead to
willing service of others. Choose Life, not Death. There is
happiness in choosing Life. Is it not your choice? If you
say it is not, who or what is choosing for you? And if you
have no choice, no direction of your own life, then I'd say
you have no life and remain a slave. You might have been
told that you can't choose Life, but you can. Do it and do
it everyday. God will help you.
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Interview with Fr Aiden
Fr Aiden:
What you’ve written isn’t outdated at all,
it’s actually a very old framework expressing something that
still shows up in modern psychology, ethics, and everyday
life. The idea of the Seven Deadly Sins comes from early
Christian theology, especially figures like Evagrius
Ponticus and later Pope Gregory I, who organized these
tendencies as core distortions of human desire. But if you
strip away the religious language, your core point still
holds in a very contemporary way. If you orient your life
around anger, it corrodes relationships, health, and
judgment. If you orient your life around greed, nothing is
ever enough, and you exploit others. If you orient your life
around envy, you lose your own sense of meaning.
Modern psychology might call these maladaptive drives,
addictive patterns, or self-destructive behaviors rather
than “sins,” but the pattern is the same:
what you repeatedly pursue shapes what you become, and can
hollow you out. Your framing of them as “fake gods” is also
historically grounded. In older traditions, “idolatry”
didn’t just mean statues, it meant treating something finite
as if it were ultimate. Today we might say making status
your god, making pleasure your god, making control or
validation your god. And yes, those promise life but often
deliver anxiety, dissatisfaction, or harm.
Where your reflection becomes more philosophical is in the
idea of choice. You’re asserting that people can choose
their orientation (toward “Life” or “Death”) and repeated
choices become a direction, then a character, then a
destiny. That aligns with a long tradition, religious and
secular. Think of Aristotle; we become what we repeatedly
do, and Viktor Frankl; meaning is found in choosing one’s
attitude and responsibility. Even modern cognitive
behavioral therapy; thoughts and actions can be consciously
redirected.
But not everyone would be so comfortable with the idea that
every indulgence leads to “death,” or that people always
have full freedom to choose (since biology, trauma, and
environment matter). But even with that nuance, your central
insight still stands strong. If you repeatedly aim your life
at destructive impulses, you will suffer, and often cause
suffering and if you aim your life toward love,
responsibility, and care, things tend to become more
meaningful and alive.
Whether someone interprets that through God, ethics, or
psychology is where perspectives differ, but the underlying
pattern is widely recognized.
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Br Nicholas:
Indulgence is a rich word. It strongly hints that it is more than pleasure and is over and beyond what the body and mind need for health. If the body and mind truly benefit from the 'indulgence', I would not call it such, but I would call it restorative healing or something similar to that. In my definition of indulgence it is the (perhaps tiny) step towards gratification at the expense of others. Perhaps only the first tiny step, but perhaps the journey to practiced behaviors that take us away from the Love of God. Indulgence is gratification that pulls us away from truth, love, or right order, even if the cost isn’t visible yet.
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Fr Aiden:
You’re zeroing in on something important:
“indulgence” isn’t just pleasure, it’s misdirected or
disordered pleasure.That distinction has been central in
philosophy and theology for a long time. Your definition, a
step toward gratification at the expense of others (or
ultimately oneself), is actually very close to how classical
thinkers understood it. For example, Aristotle wouldn’t
condemn pleasure itself; he saw it as natural and even good
when it aligns with what helps us flourish. The problem
begins when pleasure becomes detached from what is good, or
when it overrides reason and concern for others.
Similarly, Thomas Aquinas made a careful distinction.
Enjoyment that supports life, health, relationship; good,
even necessary, and enjoyment pursued out of proportion or
at the wrong cost supports
vice.
So in that sense, your rewording fits well. Restorative
enjoyment is aligned with health, balance, love and
indulgence is gratification that begins to bend your will
away from what is right.
What’s especially perceptive in what you wrote is this idea
of the “tiny step.”Most destructive patterns don’t begin
dramatically, they begin subtly. A small rationalization, a
quiet turning inward, a moment where desire outweighs
conscience. That’s why traditions often warn not just about
the extreme, but about the direction. Because direction
compounds.
Your addition, “at the expense of others”, grounds it
morally. But it can go even further. Sometimes indulgence
harms others directly, sometimes it slowly reshapes you into
someone less capable of love, which indirectly harms others,
and sometimes it fragments your own inner life (what you
called spiritual or mental death). And that ties back to
your earlier idea that these things “pose as gods.” Not
because pleasure is evil, but because they ask to be treated
as ultimate, as if satisfying them is the highest good.
Your final line, about being “taken away from the Love of
God”, is really the core of your framework. In that view,
the issue isn’t pleasure versus denial, it’s alignment versus
misalignment. Does this deepen love, clarity, and life? Or
does it narrow me into craving, isolation, or
self-centeredness? That’s a much more precise, and honestly
more compelling, way to talk about “sin” than just calling
things forbidden.