Recently, the Vatican released a list of an additional seven sins. These amendments come 1,500 years after Pope Gregory handed down the original list of the seven deadly sins, which are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth, if you’ve never seen the Brad Pitt flick.
The new list includes genetic modification, human experimentations, polluting the environment, social injustice, causing poverty, financial gluttony and taking drugs.
My question is in which form of communication did God decide to use when passing down his word. God doesn’t seem like he’d be much into fax machines, and phones are so two years ago, so my educated guess would be either by text, or by Facebook message. Although, I wouldn’t completely rule out God having an email account. He would have to be God316, or some other combination of numbers, because you know some guy’s already got God@gmail.com. So I’m thinking text message, mostly because I couldn’t find God on Facebook.
Or, maybe, it might make more sense that man is just being man, thinking he’s more important than he is? And when it comes down to it, no man is divine.
This clarification feels a lot like someone saying something, feeling like no one heard them, then repeating it a little louder in a fluctuated tone, in hopes that this time someone will hear.
People of the Vatican City, trust me, no one’s doing those things because they think they’re religiously sound. No corporation has justified exploitation of resources, the environment and employees as being righteous and consistent with the teachings of Christianity.
This comes down to fear, and how the Catholic Church is, and has in the past, manipulated people by fear and intimidation. Christianity preaches that their path is the only one to be saved from eternal damnation, and by expanding the criterion what is eternal-damnatic behavior, they theoretically expand their need in the world.
If it were up to those who are religious, there would be no separation of church and state. We would have prayer in school, and we would be teaching creationism. But, because of this overlapping of church business into state business, I would argue that it should work the other way too.
And I’m going to exercise a little legal thing called a grandfather clause. Basically, we can all do drugs while winning the lottery while littering, then fund genetic scientists to clone us a Dolly while on the phone with a stockbroker who’s investing in Wal-Mart for us, and it’s not a slide against God because these new sins were created after we were born.
All kidding aside, we’ve hit a new low when it takes divine intervention to combat pollution, poverty and addiction.