In the beginning, according to mainstream religions, Eve really messed up. She had to go pick the apple and share it with Adam, getting them kicked out of Paradise and creating the great difference between God and his children: sin.
Since that fateful day so many thousands or millions of years ago,
humans have been considered sinful creatures by nature. The Bible doesn’t actually list any deadly sins as we know them today, but instead offers commandments in Exodus 20:2-17:
Commandment One: you shall have no other gods before me.
Um, Pride.
Commandment Two: you shall not make yourself an idol. But we just love our American Idols, celebrity idols, and political idols….
Commandment Three: you shall make no wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. OMG, really?
Commandment Four: keep the Sabbath day holy. Now we use it to recover from last night’s drunken shenanigans.
Commandment Five: honor your father and your mother, even though you now have to dish out hundreds of dollars to recover from your childhood role as bargaining chip.
Commandment Six: you shall not murder. Hey, what’s so bad about jail? At least in jail you have no obligations, no bills, no responsibility, a free gym, and three meals guaranteed every day. Doesn’t look so sinful now, does it?
Commandment Seven: you shall not commit adultery. Unless you do it right, wherein you end up with half of your poor spouse’s income and livelihood. And full custody of the children.
Commandment Eight: you shall not steal. Unless it’s business from your competitor, oil, or in an effort to beat out the competition for resources, of course.
Commandment Nine: you shall not bear false witness. Unless it’s a little white lie: no, your butt doesn’t look fat in those jeans, wink…wink.
Commandment Ten: you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. Not even their Beamer, hot gardener, trophy wife, perfect children, or fabulously blossoming career.
Although no specific consequences are listed for these acts, if God said not to do it, and you did it anyway, there’s got to be some kind of consequence. After all, when you disobeyed your parents, you were disciplined. And if you mess up at work, you get fired.
So is the punishment for evil sins an afterlife spent in hell or a life on earth spent in confession?
Pride, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, envy and wrath are seen as sinful behaviors that will land the wrongdoer in the fiery brimstone for good. But the seven deadly sins aren’t actually a part of a religious education. Why do we think of sin as deadly and connected to major religions?
Sin is defined as a deliberate transgression of a religious or moral law that is regarded as shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong—but not deadly. So why does it seem as if sin and death are so closely related? After all, they aren’t listed in the Bible, the Qur’an, the Book of
Mormon, or the Torah.
In the Catholic Church, sins must be confessed in order to avoid judgment or eternal damnation. A priest acts as the go-between for sinners to admit guilt and take accountability for their actions, granting forgiveness from God who absolves the confessed sins. Most sins can be forgiven but some believe that we will pay for our transgressions in the end. Is there no forgive and forget in Catholicism? I guess that's what they call "Catholic Guilt."
On the other hand, the Koran emphasizes that one sins not against God, but against himself.
Church leaders condemn sin and tell members of their congregation that sin is active disobedience and defiance against the Lord; it is punishable behavior. As children of God, mistakes we make require repentance or else: you are up the River Styx without a paddle. But if the seven deadly sins aren’t the guidelines to live by, what are? And where the hell are they?
Hiding where we thought they weren’t. In 1 John 5:17 we find a very broad definition of sin: "All unrighteousness is sin . . .." So, anything that is wrong is sin. And who tells us what is wrong? God, Allah, or another deity, like society. Ultimately, these definitions tell us that sin is anything that is contrary to the will of God or doesn't express the holy character of God.
Proverbs 6:16-19 of the Bible lists seven things the Lord finds highly offensive: “haughty eyes (could be envy,), a lying tongue (greedies), hands that shed innocent blood (wrath, obviously), a heart that devises wicked schemes (more like lusty schemes to get people into bed), feet that are quick to rush into evil (sloth. Yes, I know lazy people aren’t quick—to be anything but lazy. But laziness can be evil, too), a false witness who pours out lies (gluttons do everything in excess), and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers (pride is a dangerous weapon).” Maybe the seven deadly sins made their way into the Bible after all.
But a lot has changed since biblical times. The deadliest sins we now face are cloning and harming the environment, while the traditional definition of sin is more about personal morals and beliefs, not a set of strict rules for the masses.
Not everyone can even agree on what sin is. Sin used to be universally agreed upon—do a crime, pay the time. But now it’s almost as if sins are neither here nor there. But sin is everywhere. We watch it on TV, see it on the streets, and vote in public officials who partake in the new “social sins” every day.
We live in a world that thinks of sin with much more skepticism. That could be because we also look at religion differently as well, if we look at it at all.
According to the 2000 census, about seventy-five percent of the United States population calls themselves Christian, while nearly fifteen percent were non-religious. Since 1990, there has been a one-hundred-and-ten percent increase in the people who call themselves non-religious and only a five percent increase in the Christian faith. As we move away from religion to a place where we don’t value organized faith, we care even less about sinners. Sin has become relative, something that each person looks at differently, similar to the way people have begun to treat their religious views—highly customized.
Sin is outside the boundaries of faith or religion—and now, sin is.

The seven deadly sins hugely influenced early modern European societies during the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, yet today they are mostly ignored except in various literature and film.
Pope Gregory the Great (540-605 AD), officially declared Seven Deadly Sins within the Catholic Church, inspired by themes identified by St. John Cassian (360-435 AD), a Christian theologian. Pope Gregory modified the sins, ranking them based on their disagreement against the idea of love, starting with the most serious: pride, envy, wrath, sadness (later replaced by the Church with sloth), greed, gluttony, and lust. The sins were taught in conjunction with the seven heavenly virtues: faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence.
Since then, the sins worked their way into literature and society, particularly during the Renaissance. Artists, writers, and intellectuals began to explore abstract ideas and concepts of morality. However, the Protestant Christians were seeking to separate from the older Catholic philosophy and vice versa; so much theology was debated, particularly in literature.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321 AD), writer of The Divine Comedy, one of the most famous illustrations of literary history including the seven deadly sins, explains the severity of each sin based on standards set by the Church—their disagreement with love. In this ideal, pride, envy, and wrath are expressions of perverted passion, while sloth is considered insufficient love, and greed, gluttony, and lust are categorized as excessive adoration of earthly goods.
In 1590, The Faerie Queene, an English poem by Edmund Spenser, was published. The poem follows the Knight Red Crosse on his journey to Christian salvation, through moral obstacles and temptations from the Devil. The poem is known as one of the most specific and possibly greatest occurrences of the seven deadly sins in literature and was hugely influential in its time.
Later, C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia (written between 1949 and 1954) incorporated themes of the deadly sins into his stories which namely deal with good and evil. Lewis’ stories are geared toward children, helping to teach virtues and morals based on Christian themes.
Today, our culture is less concerned with the seven deadly sins and their repercussions, although every so often the sins are still discussed in the media.
According to Catholic News Agency, in March of this year a Vatican official presented a list of seven “social sins” to draw attention to
contemporary acts considered sinful by the Church. They 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
More contemporary references to the seven deadly sins include the movies Se7en (1995) and Bedazzled (1967), the Japanese manga/anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, and many video games and commercials.
The meaning of sin varies from person to person. For example, some believe all sin is equally damaging in God’s eyes, whereas others believe that God unconditionally loves everyone. Many take sin seriously, attempting to live by every virtue and repent after a blunder. Yet others see sin as a mirage, a way of focusing on unrealistic virtuous ways of living.