Seven deadly sins

There are countless religions that are spread out the world today, and they are not so different from one another after all. They are all similar in core logic that a divine being, commonly referred to as Messiah, will bring salvation through reconciliation, and demand that believers will restrain themselves from pleasures of life and repent through periodical rituals. While Christianity is the only one among them I am quite familiar with, and after reluctantly attending Catholic school and weekly mass for quite some time, I ceased my faith in it after facing full of contradictions between its doctrine and fundamental logic. My objection towards the doctrines of Christianity is partly due to its disapproval of other religions, and all the violence it was involved with, at cost of numerous lives. Today, Christianity is indeed the most widespread religion across the continents, and it is mainly because historically it had strong ties with major political powers, including Roman empire, British empire, then now United States. These political powers helped Christianity spread out to every culture on this planet; meanwhile, the history also shows its nature with political ties and corruption. Most important of all, the key reason for my detachment from Christianity is that its creed continually interferes with my true value of life, which is to enjoy the pleasure of life and seek to fulfill desires, and one among them is defined as Seven deadly sins.

It dates back to the 6th century when the Roman Catholic Church, headed by Pope Gregory the Great at the time, defined the seven deadly sins. I first came across this term in theology class during high school years, and recently this topic caught my attention while attempting to define my religions stance. This is also heavily dealt with in Dante's Divine Comedy and a film Se7en by David Fincher. The seven deadly sins are defined as follows:

• Lust luxuria desires of a sexual nature
• Gluttony gula over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste, usually dealt with excessive desire for food
• Greed avaritia excess desire for material goods, applied to the acquisition of wealth in particular
• Sloth acedia failure to utilize one's talents and gifts, simply laziness or indifference
• Wrath ira inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger
• Envy invidia insatiable desire
• Pride superbia considered the most serious of the seven, a desire to be more important or attractive than others

In my personal belief, all of these contribute to basics of human nature. These are what all humans are just born with, and not necessarily they are all bad. In today's world of capitalism, people need all of these to be able to define and live the life they want, which, in my opinion, is the essential goal and meaning of life. Without these, people will lose ambition and fail to progress and strive for greater. As I see my baby nephew grow, sometimes I realize that I cannot scold him for everything he has done wrong because most times it is not evil soul but his human frailty which leads him to misbehaviors. We often hear clergymen site the famous quote "We are all sinners; we are all born sinners." This just sounds so pessimistic; even if these seven characteristics may distort human interactions and darken this society, the church should not harshly account these as sins, but rather as values which humans should learn to control.