I've been studying a lot of different religions lately, and while reading up on Satanism I found some particularly interesting philosophy: (wikipedia on the satanic bible) It begins by suggesting that the Seven Deadly Sins are in fact all instinctual to human nature and not sinful at all. It states that they are all unavoidable urges of mankind, carefully selected by Christianity to ensure that all men will inevitably sin, as no one can avoid engaging in these instinctive urges. LaVey submits that this is a device to guarantee that humans within the Christian religious framework will surely sin and have no choice but to beg God for forgiveness; therefore, dependence upon the Church is assured. LaVey makes it very clear that although Satanism is an uncompromisingly selfish religion, he defines selfishness according to what an individual truly wants. Therefore, if a person should honestly care for another person and wishes to express love, then he should do so wholeheartedly; a truly selfish person can acknowledge that if a person is loved by him, then they are important by virtue of his love. This can be compared favorably to the arguments of ethical egoism-that what sometimes benefits others can be beneficial to oneself, but that one must always have one's own interests first in mind Any thoughts?
Unavoidable urges of mankind so dependence on the church is absolute. I haven't thought of it this way but it does open my mind. I don't care for any organized religions, religious and cultural control has always been a method of domination of people.
Would these things still be "unavoidable urges" if they weren't sins and weren't ingrained into our psyche as forbidden by modern society?
^ yes they would because even people who dont grow up knowing what the 7 deadly sins are experience them most people probably cant even name the 7 sins but gluttony is natural, everyone likes to eat til their full, lust is natural, hormones cause it as a teenager, greed is also natural, greed is critical to survival, if you just gave away everything you had you would die, of course theres an over extent of greed that is sinful, sloth is also natural, who doesnt like to lay around in bed on a saturday morning instead of getting up as soon as you wakeup and so on, i was never taught what sins were other than like murder, stealing, etc.. yet i've still always felt the urges mentioned above
I don't believe that one urge, the urge to rebel, is what brings on our want to commit these "sins", if that is what you mean. I believe they are just basic human nature, one can even see examples of them by observing animals.
Come on people the Christian God doesn't exist. He is jealous of those who do not bow down to Him and His son Jesus Christ. Making Him guilty of breaking one of His own deadly sins, envy. Since God is infallable this contradiction proves He is false.
that is indeed a crazy way to look at it. I've never thought of it that way, but it does make sense. however, it is still just a theory, as the 7 deadly sins may also have other theological meanings.
I was looking for something like this and yes they do have other theological meanings that go beyond any means for control and address a philosophical debate about the just city and just state of the soul. Man leaders may have recognized the potential of religion to control the masses and used it this way, but they aren't about controlling people(probably exceptions). The 7 deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, envy, sloth, pride represent the depths to which a soul can be corrupted. Their main use at least in philosophy is how they are used to organize hell and purgatory, in terms of place, and then sins that must be cleansed before entering paradise. Its actually pretty cool when you see how it's done. Dante wrote some good shit. But yeah basically they say pride is the root of all sin, because Adam and eve original sin was committed out of pride thinking that they could have complete knowledge of good and evil and so on. I'm sorry I write so many crazy things about this stuff sometimes it's just kind of relevant to some of the stuff I'm doing in school.
Who's to say that theres a such thing as a soul? The adam and eve STORY actually supports the satanic theory, it was made up to show that envy, greed, and pride are all sins. And when you commit these sins, god gets PISSED and throws you out of his fuckin garden. You dont want this, so when you inevitably commit one of these "sins" you go to church and beg for his forgiveness. God is just a scare tactic that was used to gain power and wealth.
I disagree with the first part of your sentence. Regardless about God, Jesus or any other religious ideas and how you think about them, you have a soul. It's incorrect to think otherwise, if one thing is absolute and ever-changing in some great cosmic paradox, it's your soul.
there is no god which watches us continuously and judges us based on our action although it is entirely possible that there is a higher power(s) that we merely dont understand to justify existence of life, matter, gravity, energy etc. but yea it is probably true that the catholic church made these "deadly sins" completely unavoidable to cause fear in the followers of hell, thus supporting the church "god is...?" thread: "there is no god that judges us continuously based on our actions there might be higher powers or a high power to explain the existence of matter in general (we will NEVER EVER know) and to say we will or might know in the "after life" when our "souls" travel to "heaven/hell" is ignorant there is NO after life we exist now (we will never know why so just enjoy the fact you believe you exist and have the capability to understand that, or understand it as much as possible at this point in time) we have no souls, to classify our understanding of "me" as something more than matter is ignorant, and to believe in a soul is letting ur ego declare its self something more than it is (an ego and the self understanding of "me" is simply cells within your brain transmitting brain waves between one another) if we have no souls there for there is no heaven/hell the idea of a god judging us based on a moral code of right and wrong and that our "spiritual self" will be punished or rewarded in the "after life" is a tactic used to make us do the right thing, when in fact the right thing is the majority or the worlds populations belief that it is "right" back to god, i personally believe there has to me something bigger than just luck to justify gravity, matter and life"
This actually makes a lot of sense. Contrary to what most people think, there is nowhere in the Christian Bible that a list of the Seven Deadly Sins is given, although lists of virtues contrasted with lists of sins are found in certain books of the New Testament, such as Galatians. Evagrius Ponticus, a 4th century Christian monk and writer, was the first to actually list them and begin teaching about them. Then Pope Gregory I reordered them in the 6th century and officially started calling them the Seven Deadly Sins. Then of course Dante's 14th century epic poem The Divine Comedy made them well known. The Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride The Seven Holy Virtues: (in contrast) Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, Humility But here's a question.... despite all the religious connotations like heaven and hell, forgiveness, etc, which is best? To engage in sin because it's part of the human psyche and a collection of natural urges, or to abstain from it as much as possible? Does living your life by the Seven Holy Virtues lead to more productivity and generally increase the quality of life? I agree they are all basically instinctual, but who's to say instinct is always a good thing? Here's the thing though... I wouldn't consider myself a Christian in any sense of the word, I was never brought up in a religious household or anything. Yet I can honestly agree that every single one of the Seven Deadly Sins is a negative quality. They are things that, although tempted like any other human being, I try not to practice in excess because they ultimately don't make me happy and lead to misfortune. Calling Satanism a selfish religion is kind of irrelevant. We're all selfish and we all have our own interests in mind to some extent, so I guess we're all a little bit Satanist. If your own personal interests are basically the Seven Holy Virtues, then should you be a Christian or a Satanist? Both seem applicable.
+rep to the one above me If your really curious about this concept you should look at neoplatonism it tries to describe something which is beyond our understanding, but that acts as a principle for all existence pretty cool. This concept is actually what the Christian god is based on believe it or not we aren't suppose to be able to understand or conceive of god any more then we can conceive of infinity. The shear concept is simply beyond any and all frames of our perceptual experience. Well for one just about everybody whose ever tried to explain human nature has had to make the assumption that their is something constant about us, it's one way of explaining how a child is the same person as an 80 year old man many years later. All the cells that were the child are gone, but they are still the same person. Often this is the soul. Also, why does everyone always have to assume that christianity is always about controlling people and wealth. Those aspects only existed when leaders of the institutions were corrupted and they were not always corrupt. You guys have to realize that during the middle ages to not believe in the concept of god was simply absurd everyone did and so a lot of ideas are formed out of this way of thinking, if you don't think this way they wont make so much sense. God and sins are not scare tactics they are actual concepts for and means of living the "good life." They may have being used as scare tactics, but that is not their intended purpose or even what they are more commonly used for. Ok finally I know that adam and eve is a story no need to assume I'm crazy and believing everything here. As someone's sig has the quote from aristotle about how "it is a mark of the intellectual mind to be able to entertain a concept without accepting it." This is basically what I'm doing here. Adam and eve have to leave the garden, because they had the pride to attempt to try and know more then god and be their own gods. Obviously this is contrary to how things are suppose to be so this is the first sin. Now all sin is a self-corruption it is argued that it is a corruption of the soul and goes against being a human being. Because, it is not being a human being, sin actually causes a person to be less human so less of what they are intended to be. This is kind of how Dante's hell works where it places the souls in accordance to how far from being(basically everything)=God=the Good they have strayed.