Origionally written for an unpublished book of mine in the '80s, I think it is still valid.
THE 7 DEADLY SINS AND THE 7 THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
Theologians in the Middle Ages, bored debating the fascinating questions, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (My favorite answer was St. Thomas Aquinas‘ “As many as want to.”), and "What happened to the 10 lost tribes?" started making lists of related things that balanced. The 10 plagues God threw at Egypt in Exodus must have been counter balanced by 10 blessings He gave to Israel, and what could these blessings be? Does 12 tribes = 12 apostles, or were there 13 tribes, or 12 and 2 halves? Should Judas Iscariot count as an apostle? Are St. Paul and Matthias half or whole apostles? Some ideas were silly; others are only understandable by scholars who specialize in Medieval Theology; but some ideas they came up with were both useful and good, and thus became popular and well known.
Two of their good ideas are the 7 Deadly Sins and the 7 Theological Virtues. The sins (also called the 7 Vices) are Pride, Lust, Greed, Anger, Sloth, Envy, and Gluttony. These are the categories all sins fit into. Every sin can be filed under one or more of these. Balancing them were The 7 Virtues. Charity, Faith, Hope, Temperance, Fortitude Justice and Prudence. Like the vices, they were seen as the categories all goodness could fit into.
This century hasn't been kind to either the Virtues or the Vices. Like Bible Verses and terms, they are under a massive reinterpretation process. However, unlike the "God Words" (e.g. God, Jesus, Salvation etc.) this reinterpretation process isn't done by the cults, but by the general public. Let's look at them.
This article will cover the 7 Vices. The next article will cover the Virtues.
PRIDE
Over the past 20 years, the chief vice has become the chief virtue. Everyone used to know Pride was the sin that caused Lucifer to become Satan. (Isaiah 14:13-14 and Ezekiel 28:12-19; especially verse 17) Pride is basically deciding that you are right and God is wrong. Putting you, your ego and desires ahead of God, His Law and everyone else. St. Augustine decided pride was the root of all sins, so there was really only one deadly sin. But now pride has become indispensable; we just can't live without it.
Pride still has some poor associations in many places, so it's re-titled self-esteem. We MUST have self-esteem. The root cause of all the problems school children exhibit is that they don't have sufficient self-esteem. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is impossible, they claim, unless you first love yourself. Unfortunately, when we make self-love primary, we end up loving our neighbor less then ourselves.
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18 No, this is not, as one of my Sunday School students misunderstood it; "When your pride is destroyed, you are doomed" Self-love leads to ruin. Despite that, everything and everyone must meet your expectations. 'You deserve a break today' by virtue of being wonderful you. "You gotta look out for #1." Which can only lead to major league level frustration. Because ultimately, nothing and no one is good enough for you. The world perversely refuses to live up to your impossible to live up to standards. Suicide is resorted to; going to a better world that hopefully meets up with MY demands. Or, since the universe is unwilling to follow your desires, the total suicide of Nirvana is sought. Or, as in New Age and Mormonism, this results in the idea we can become gods ourselves, who can remake the universe in our image and likeness.
LUST
There is a two step program here. First, Christians have somehow been lead to believe that Lust is the be all and end all of sin. The word Immorality has ceased to mean sin in general, and has become limited to sexual sin. A government official can lie, take bribes, manipulate the law for his own advancement and gain, get rich positions for his relatives, and run roughshod over the rights of the citizens, but unless he gets caught committing adultery, he's not seen as an immoral person. The Clinton elections have shown that even immorality of that sort is no bar either.
For the second stage has kicked in. Morality has been redefined as relative morality. Do what seems right to you. Just like in Judges 17:6 and 21:25. Whatever feels good, do it. Hospitals report that victims of Sadomasochist games that get out of hand are at an all time high. Anything done by consenting adults in privacy is none of your business. We must fight to legalize prostitution, and decriminalize adultery and homosexuality in all states puritanical enough to keep them on the law books.
But why limit it to consenting adults? That deprives the underage of their right to sexual expression. Thus NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) protests, pickets and petitions for the repeal of all laws against seduction of underage boys. Other groups try to liberate underage girls.
If you dare to try to protest that any of this is wrong, you're wrong. How dare you try to push your morality on us? What ever is right for you is right.
A personal observation of this. A junior high school girl also used to catch the same bus that I took to go to work. What caught her attention was that I sat at the stop each day reading a book, but each day I had a new book. It took her weeks to understand that the reason for this is that I really was reading a book a day.
One day the subject of the TV miniseries ‘Anne of Green Gables’ came up. She got this odd look on her face, and in a conspiratorial tone mentioned that there was a rumor in school that Anne has a baby later in the series. I said that the rumor was true. (Ah!) I have read the books the series is based on. In fact, she has twins. (Oh!) I then proved what a terrible reader of girls I am, and how "out of date" I am. "Yes, she has the babies about five years after she marries Gilbert..." And stopped. For she now had a really strange look on her face. The tone of her next statement, "What?!?" cleared up what that expression was.
It was a mixture of shock, horror, and disgust. It rapidly came out that I had ruined the whole series for her. That Anne had married before having sex, and didn't get pregnant until years after the marriage was a revolting obscenity. How could anyone get married unless they had to because of a pregnancy, and how could a girl marry someone she hadn't slept with a couple of dozen times first to see if they were compatible? To this product of the San Jose public schools, getting married as a virgin to a virgin was the most outrageous perversion she had ever heard of. It actually made her sick to her stomach. She never spoke to me again.
ANGER
Anger about personal things is still considered a fairly bad thing; but anger about things that have nothing to do with you is now a virtue. Re-titled "Righteous Rage", it's fully acceptable. For example, blacks were freed from slavery in America over 140 years ago. Not one black alive in America today was a slave. Nor were their parents or grandparents. A few may have great-grand parents who were slaves. You have to go back to great-great-grandparents to find a generation where the majority were slaves. Yet the present generation is encouraged by schools, politics and the media to be in a constant state of anger over this.
But, anger must have a target; long dead slave owners aren't satisfying. They can't be made to feel shame and guilt, or pay reparations. Whites living in America today must be hated, and made to feel guilt for crimes they never committed. Most don't even have ancestors who owned black slaves. The vast majority of whites have ancestors who moved here after 1865, or who lived in the Northern States, or if in the South, didn't own any slaves anyway, since the majority of Southerners didn't. Mine, for example, were living in Ireland and Germany when the Civil War ended. Yet liberal blacks constantly demand that I feel personal guilt and shame over black slavery. Surely you would think that fighting a Civil War to free the slaves and passing the 13th, 14th and 15 Amendments to the Constitution would have been considered apology enough.
But very few whites have no slaves in their family tree, either. Most whites have ancestors who were serfs in the Medieval era, or slaves in Roman times, and so on. Yet not one word is heard about how horrible the descendants of these whites must feel and how reparations must be made to them.
Even worse, in African countries with mostly Islamic populations, black slavery is happening today. There are over a 1.4 million black slaves owned by black slave owners in Sudan alone. I have yet to hear a liberal black complain about actual contemporary African slavery. It is much easier to drum up a frothy frenzy of "Righteous Rage" about events of the far past.
Similar "Righteous Rage" is drummed up over Jews in WW2, the treatment of women through the ages, how badly 'gays' were persecuted in the past, etc. As long as the evil is theoretical, or no longer happening, anger is good, and encouraged, especially at those who have nothing to do with it.
GREED
Greed, renamed ambition, is no longer a vice. It is encouraged at every level of business and politics. You must have ambition, drive, the get-ahead-at-any-price mentality. Why should you settle for less? "He who dies with the most toys wins!" "Go for the Gusto!" "You can have it all!" Madison Avenue swears greed is not only good, but can be satisfied with just one more item. Of course, once you get the item, you now need just one more item.
But if you make it to the top of the heap, what good is it going to do you in the grave? See Job 1:21 “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life. The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Praise the name of the LORD.”
Or who can forget the scene prophesied by Isaiah 14:9-19 about the king of Babylon? Now there was a guy who had it all. Unfortunately, had is past tense.
“Sheol below is eager to greet your coming. He stirs up the spirits of the departed for you--all the rulers of the earth. He makes all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones. They all respond to you, saying: "You too have become as weak as we are; you have become like us! Your splendor has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you." Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. You said to yourself: "I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods' assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit. Those who see you will stare at you; they will look closely at you: "Is this the man who caused the earth to tremble, who shook the kingdoms, who turned the world into a wilderness, who trampled its cities and would not release the prisoners to return home?" All the kings of the nations lie in splendor, each in his own tomb. But you are thrown out without a grave, like a worthless branch, covered by those slain with the sword and dumped into a rocky pit like a trampled corpse.”
Or if you don’t like the Old Testament, try Jesus’ Parable in Luke 12:15-21
“He then told them, ‘Watch out and be on guard against all greed because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions.’ Then He told them a parable: "A rich man's land was very productive. He thought to himself, 'What should I do, since I don't have anywhere to store my crops? I will do this,' he said. 'I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods there. Then I'll say to myself, "You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared--whose will they be?' That's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
ENVY
Madison Avenue is also devoted to building envy. Snob appeal is in. Look at how much others have. Why can't you have all the latest do-dads as well? Think how much others will envy you if they see you in this car, dress, or whatever.
Further, no one should be allowed to be in any way better than you. All must be equal, no matter how unequal we really are. Kids can't be allowed to get A's. That makes those getting F's feel stupid. Executives can't be paid more than lower level employees, that's unfair.
A few years ago I saw a rabid article in the San Jose Mercury News that was replete with envy on how intolerable it was that Joe Montana, the record setting Quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, was paid a higher salary than a player no one ever heard of on a women's basketball team no one ever heard of. I never knew there was such a thing as a women's basketball league, much less what cities it was in. I only found out there was such a team in San Jose when I read that not only our team, but the whole league had gone bankrupt because no one bought tickets to see them. At the opposite end, the NFL sells millions of more tickets, gets good ratings on TV, sells T-shirts and other paraphernalia by the ton, and is massively popular. Which is evil, in the eyes of the article writer. It was a crime against humanity that "Super Joe" should be allowed to have more than someone else.
This is the whole motive behind the "tax the rich" movement. "The rich must be evil, they have more than I do." To quote the popular song by Alvin Lee and 10 Years After called ‘I'D Love To Change The World’. "Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there ain't no rich no more!" The rich must be destroyed, whether or not that helps the poor. Helping the poor is irrelevant.
No matter how they got the money, or what they do with it, the rich are criminals and must be punished. Envy demands that no one can have more than I. If they are smarter, prettier, richer, or more talented, they must be destroyed. Yet while everyone must be exactly equal, to quote Orwell's Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." The envious one wants everyone equal, but with himself in a superior position.
Of course, the ideal form of envy is not about yourself, it's about the "have-nots". The "haves" must be destroyed or leveled down to the level of the "have-nots". This makes it respectable in the eyes of the envious. After all, they don't want to destroy the "haves" for their own gain, but they do it all for the "have-nots". Of course, once the "have-nots" become the "haves", they will have a new set to destroy.
GLUTTONY
Gluttony is a popular sin, more people are overweight than ever in America. (Yes, you are allowed to accuse me of hypocrisy here and call my scale as witness for the prosecution. I would throw myself on the mercy of the court, only the court would be crushed to death.) However, two forms of gluttony are rarely mentioned as such.
The first, paradoxically, is dieting. How is that gluttony? It's placing food to the centerpiece of the mind. All a person on a diet thinks about is food. How much can I eat? How many calories does it have? How many grams of fat, and how much of that fat is saturated? On and on forever. Doctors have come to the conclusion that dieting fails precisely because food becomes the center of all thought in the dieter, increasing his hunger, and wrecking the diet. In the majority of cases, this diet routine is only for purposes of vanity. "I want to improve my looks."
The other type is the gourmet. Again food takes front and center of the brain. How is it cooked? What are the ingredients? Which restaurant serves it better? What new delights can be found for my jaded palate?
SLOTH
Sloth is still a sin, (see greed and the go-getters above) except in one or two areas. The disadvantaged must be coddled. However you define them, they are victims, given an unfair disadvantage in life and so must be allowed to slack off, and get by for less effort. The stupid or lazy student can't be allowed to fail. Just because they are too lazy to do the schoolwork or study the lessons, they must not be branded unintelligent. You can't scar them for life by giving them the "F" they earned. You can't demand that they study or learn the lessons the smart ones can do. Instead, lower the standards until everyone passes the exams. Better yet, get rid of exams and grades all together. If they still can't cope, skip school, and raise riot, classify them as "learning challenged" and put them on welfare so they never have to work hard at anything.
The other area where sloth is pandemic is labor. The custom among the workers of America is to do as little work as necessary to get by. Hours are shortened, lunches lengthened, more paid time off is demanded.
(This is the opposite from the greed driven trend among some, particularly in Silicon Valley where I live, to work an 80+ hour week, until they are hauled off to the hospital with ulcers, heart failure or physical collapse, screaming that they can't die yet, they have too much of a workload.) Either extreme is wrong.
THE 7 DEADLY SINS AND THE 7 THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
Theologians in the Middle Ages, bored debating the fascinating questions, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (My favorite answer was St. Thomas Aquinas‘ “As many as want to.”), and "What happened to the 10 lost tribes?" started making lists of related things that balanced. The 10 plagues God threw at Egypt in Exodus must have been counter balanced by 10 blessings He gave to Israel, and what could these blessings be? Does 12 tribes = 12 apostles, or were there 13 tribes, or 12 and 2 halves? Should Judas Iscariot count as an apostle? Are St. Paul and Matthias half or whole apostles? Some ideas were silly; others are only understandable by scholars who specialize in Medieval Theology; but some ideas they came up with were both useful and good, and thus became popular and well known.
Two of their good ideas are the 7 Deadly Sins and the 7 Theological Virtues. The sins (also called the 7 Vices) are Pride, Lust, Greed, Anger, Sloth, Envy, and Gluttony. These are the categories all sins fit into. Every sin can be filed under one or more of these. Balancing them were The 7 Virtues. Charity, Faith, Hope, Temperance, Fortitude Justice and Prudence. Like the vices, they were seen as the categories all goodness could fit into.
This century hasn't been kind to either the Virtues or the Vices. Like Bible Verses and terms, they are under a massive reinterpretation process. However, unlike the "God Words" (e.g. God, Jesus, Salvation etc.) this reinterpretation process isn't done by the cults, but by the general public. Let's look at them.
This article will cover the 7 Vices. The next article will cover the Virtues.
PRIDE
Over the past 20 years, the chief vice has become the chief virtue. Everyone used to know Pride was the sin that caused Lucifer to become Satan. (Isaiah 14:13-14 and Ezekiel 28:12-19; especially verse 17) Pride is basically deciding that you are right and God is wrong. Putting you, your ego and desires ahead of God, His Law and everyone else. St. Augustine decided pride was the root of all sins, so there was really only one deadly sin. But now pride has become indispensable; we just can't live without it.
Pride still has some poor associations in many places, so it's re-titled self-esteem. We MUST have self-esteem. The root cause of all the problems school children exhibit is that they don't have sufficient self-esteem. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is impossible, they claim, unless you first love yourself. Unfortunately, when we make self-love primary, we end up loving our neighbor less then ourselves.
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18 No, this is not, as one of my Sunday School students misunderstood it; "When your pride is destroyed, you are doomed" Self-love leads to ruin. Despite that, everything and everyone must meet your expectations. 'You deserve a break today' by virtue of being wonderful you. "You gotta look out for #1." Which can only lead to major league level frustration. Because ultimately, nothing and no one is good enough for you. The world perversely refuses to live up to your impossible to live up to standards. Suicide is resorted to; going to a better world that hopefully meets up with MY demands. Or, since the universe is unwilling to follow your desires, the total suicide of Nirvana is sought. Or, as in New Age and Mormonism, this results in the idea we can become gods ourselves, who can remake the universe in our image and likeness.
LUST
There is a two step program here. First, Christians have somehow been lead to believe that Lust is the be all and end all of sin. The word Immorality has ceased to mean sin in general, and has become limited to sexual sin. A government official can lie, take bribes, manipulate the law for his own advancement and gain, get rich positions for his relatives, and run roughshod over the rights of the citizens, but unless he gets caught committing adultery, he's not seen as an immoral person. The Clinton elections have shown that even immorality of that sort is no bar either.
For the second stage has kicked in. Morality has been redefined as relative morality. Do what seems right to you. Just like in Judges 17:6 and 21:25. Whatever feels good, do it. Hospitals report that victims of Sadomasochist games that get out of hand are at an all time high. Anything done by consenting adults in privacy is none of your business. We must fight to legalize prostitution, and decriminalize adultery and homosexuality in all states puritanical enough to keep them on the law books.
But why limit it to consenting adults? That deprives the underage of their right to sexual expression. Thus NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) protests, pickets and petitions for the repeal of all laws against seduction of underage boys. Other groups try to liberate underage girls.
If you dare to try to protest that any of this is wrong, you're wrong. How dare you try to push your morality on us? What ever is right for you is right.
A personal observation of this. A junior high school girl also used to catch the same bus that I took to go to work. What caught her attention was that I sat at the stop each day reading a book, but each day I had a new book. It took her weeks to understand that the reason for this is that I really was reading a book a day.
One day the subject of the TV miniseries ‘Anne of Green Gables’ came up. She got this odd look on her face, and in a conspiratorial tone mentioned that there was a rumor in school that Anne has a baby later in the series. I said that the rumor was true. (Ah!) I have read the books the series is based on. In fact, she has twins. (Oh!) I then proved what a terrible reader of girls I am, and how "out of date" I am. "Yes, she has the babies about five years after she marries Gilbert..." And stopped. For she now had a really strange look on her face. The tone of her next statement, "What?!?" cleared up what that expression was.
It was a mixture of shock, horror, and disgust. It rapidly came out that I had ruined the whole series for her. That Anne had married before having sex, and didn't get pregnant until years after the marriage was a revolting obscenity. How could anyone get married unless they had to because of a pregnancy, and how could a girl marry someone she hadn't slept with a couple of dozen times first to see if they were compatible? To this product of the San Jose public schools, getting married as a virgin to a virgin was the most outrageous perversion she had ever heard of. It actually made her sick to her stomach. She never spoke to me again.
ANGER
Anger about personal things is still considered a fairly bad thing; but anger about things that have nothing to do with you is now a virtue. Re-titled "Righteous Rage", it's fully acceptable. For example, blacks were freed from slavery in America over 140 years ago. Not one black alive in America today was a slave. Nor were their parents or grandparents. A few may have great-grand parents who were slaves. You have to go back to great-great-grandparents to find a generation where the majority were slaves. Yet the present generation is encouraged by schools, politics and the media to be in a constant state of anger over this.
But, anger must have a target; long dead slave owners aren't satisfying. They can't be made to feel shame and guilt, or pay reparations. Whites living in America today must be hated, and made to feel guilt for crimes they never committed. Most don't even have ancestors who owned black slaves. The vast majority of whites have ancestors who moved here after 1865, or who lived in the Northern States, or if in the South, didn't own any slaves anyway, since the majority of Southerners didn't. Mine, for example, were living in Ireland and Germany when the Civil War ended. Yet liberal blacks constantly demand that I feel personal guilt and shame over black slavery. Surely you would think that fighting a Civil War to free the slaves and passing the 13th, 14th and 15 Amendments to the Constitution would have been considered apology enough.
But very few whites have no slaves in their family tree, either. Most whites have ancestors who were serfs in the Medieval era, or slaves in Roman times, and so on. Yet not one word is heard about how horrible the descendants of these whites must feel and how reparations must be made to them.
Even worse, in African countries with mostly Islamic populations, black slavery is happening today. There are over a 1.4 million black slaves owned by black slave owners in Sudan alone. I have yet to hear a liberal black complain about actual contemporary African slavery. It is much easier to drum up a frothy frenzy of "Righteous Rage" about events of the far past.
Similar "Righteous Rage" is drummed up over Jews in WW2, the treatment of women through the ages, how badly 'gays' were persecuted in the past, etc. As long as the evil is theoretical, or no longer happening, anger is good, and encouraged, especially at those who have nothing to do with it.
GREED
Greed, renamed ambition, is no longer a vice. It is encouraged at every level of business and politics. You must have ambition, drive, the get-ahead-at-any-price mentality. Why should you settle for less? "He who dies with the most toys wins!" "Go for the Gusto!" "You can have it all!" Madison Avenue swears greed is not only good, but can be satisfied with just one more item. Of course, once you get the item, you now need just one more item.
But if you make it to the top of the heap, what good is it going to do you in the grave? See Job 1:21 “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life. The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Praise the name of the LORD.”
Or who can forget the scene prophesied by Isaiah 14:9-19 about the king of Babylon? Now there was a guy who had it all. Unfortunately, had is past tense.
“Sheol below is eager to greet your coming. He stirs up the spirits of the departed for you--all the rulers of the earth. He makes all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones. They all respond to you, saying: "You too have become as weak as we are; you have become like us! Your splendor has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you." Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. You said to yourself: "I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods' assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit. Those who see you will stare at you; they will look closely at you: "Is this the man who caused the earth to tremble, who shook the kingdoms, who turned the world into a wilderness, who trampled its cities and would not release the prisoners to return home?" All the kings of the nations lie in splendor, each in his own tomb. But you are thrown out without a grave, like a worthless branch, covered by those slain with the sword and dumped into a rocky pit like a trampled corpse.”
Or if you don’t like the Old Testament, try Jesus’ Parable in Luke 12:15-21
“He then told them, ‘Watch out and be on guard against all greed because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions.’ Then He told them a parable: "A rich man's land was very productive. He thought to himself, 'What should I do, since I don't have anywhere to store my crops? I will do this,' he said. 'I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods there. Then I'll say to myself, "You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared--whose will they be?' That's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
ENVY
Madison Avenue is also devoted to building envy. Snob appeal is in. Look at how much others have. Why can't you have all the latest do-dads as well? Think how much others will envy you if they see you in this car, dress, or whatever.
Further, no one should be allowed to be in any way better than you. All must be equal, no matter how unequal we really are. Kids can't be allowed to get A's. That makes those getting F's feel stupid. Executives can't be paid more than lower level employees, that's unfair.
A few years ago I saw a rabid article in the San Jose Mercury News that was replete with envy on how intolerable it was that Joe Montana, the record setting Quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, was paid a higher salary than a player no one ever heard of on a women's basketball team no one ever heard of. I never knew there was such a thing as a women's basketball league, much less what cities it was in. I only found out there was such a team in San Jose when I read that not only our team, but the whole league had gone bankrupt because no one bought tickets to see them. At the opposite end, the NFL sells millions of more tickets, gets good ratings on TV, sells T-shirts and other paraphernalia by the ton, and is massively popular. Which is evil, in the eyes of the article writer. It was a crime against humanity that "Super Joe" should be allowed to have more than someone else.
This is the whole motive behind the "tax the rich" movement. "The rich must be evil, they have more than I do." To quote the popular song by Alvin Lee and 10 Years After called ‘I'D Love To Change The World’. "Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there ain't no rich no more!" The rich must be destroyed, whether or not that helps the poor. Helping the poor is irrelevant.
No matter how they got the money, or what they do with it, the rich are criminals and must be punished. Envy demands that no one can have more than I. If they are smarter, prettier, richer, or more talented, they must be destroyed. Yet while everyone must be exactly equal, to quote Orwell's Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." The envious one wants everyone equal, but with himself in a superior position.
Of course, the ideal form of envy is not about yourself, it's about the "have-nots". The "haves" must be destroyed or leveled down to the level of the "have-nots". This makes it respectable in the eyes of the envious. After all, they don't want to destroy the "haves" for their own gain, but they do it all for the "have-nots". Of course, once the "have-nots" become the "haves", they will have a new set to destroy.
GLUTTONY
Gluttony is a popular sin, more people are overweight than ever in America. (Yes, you are allowed to accuse me of hypocrisy here and call my scale as witness for the prosecution. I would throw myself on the mercy of the court, only the court would be crushed to death.) However, two forms of gluttony are rarely mentioned as such.
The first, paradoxically, is dieting. How is that gluttony? It's placing food to the centerpiece of the mind. All a person on a diet thinks about is food. How much can I eat? How many calories does it have? How many grams of fat, and how much of that fat is saturated? On and on forever. Doctors have come to the conclusion that dieting fails precisely because food becomes the center of all thought in the dieter, increasing his hunger, and wrecking the diet. In the majority of cases, this diet routine is only for purposes of vanity. "I want to improve my looks."
The other type is the gourmet. Again food takes front and center of the brain. How is it cooked? What are the ingredients? Which restaurant serves it better? What new delights can be found for my jaded palate?
SLOTH
Sloth is still a sin, (see greed and the go-getters above) except in one or two areas. The disadvantaged must be coddled. However you define them, they are victims, given an unfair disadvantage in life and so must be allowed to slack off, and get by for less effort. The stupid or lazy student can't be allowed to fail. Just because they are too lazy to do the schoolwork or study the lessons, they must not be branded unintelligent. You can't scar them for life by giving them the "F" they earned. You can't demand that they study or learn the lessons the smart ones can do. Instead, lower the standards until everyone passes the exams. Better yet, get rid of exams and grades all together. If they still can't cope, skip school, and raise riot, classify them as "learning challenged" and put them on welfare so they never have to work hard at anything.
The other area where sloth is pandemic is labor. The custom among the workers of America is to do as little work as necessary to get by. Hours are shortened, lunches lengthened, more paid time off is demanded.
(This is the opposite from the greed driven trend among some, particularly in Silicon Valley where I live, to work an 80+ hour week, until they are hauled off to the hospital with ulcers, heart failure or physical collapse, screaming that they can't die yet, they have too much of a workload.) Either extreme is wrong.
