Well, from the news, Vatican updates its thou-shalt-not list .

*genetic experimentation
*tampering with the order of nature,
*pollution
*social injustice
*causing poverty
*accumulating excessive wealth
*drug abuse

The changes are in part to a changing world, and in hope of getting people to address what the church views as how God's law is being violated in today's world.

If your wondering about our old sins and punishments.

Just a continuation of the fact that most Christians "pick and choose." Ugh, whatever. That is why I will never be a Christian. I can't deal with the hypocrisy and the rules, and especially the rejection.

Wow... just unbelievable. How is it not so wrong to change the laws of God, when God Himself is unchanging? It seems like the Vatican thinks the same God they call Almighty is their little pet to parade about on a leash and put words in His mouth. I am completely stunned, though not wholly surprised, that they would do such a thing as this. It's one thing to condemn genetic experimentation and the like- it's another matter entirely to arbitrarily strike it down as nouveau-mortal sin. I can see their intentions with some, such as pollution and poverty... but making them part of church dogma does NOTHING to help the cause, it only angers people, and it isn't as though the Vatican is zero-emissions and not upper-class, so they're already guilty of their newly christened "sins". I'll tell you right now, I may recognize some of these as problems, but unless they're already covered by the old deadly sins, they are NOT sins in my book and never will be. The law of God doesn't change for a bunch of geezers in fancy red robes.

If Jesus were still in his grave, he'd be rolling...

While I am a professed follower of Her Invisible Pinkness, it is a relief to know that the Church is now giving me the thumbs-up on sodomy!

How do Christians ever expect to convert people when they do these things? It's stupid! If anything, they're just turning more and more people away from God. There are more and more Agnostics and Atheists every day because of these types of evil things. So they better not complain about that because it's their fault to begin with.

not every christian is like that,a lot of christians around here, do believe and are christian, but don't accept certain things the pope says. Cause I am a christian, i pray;, lead a christian live etc. but i also disagree with the pope saying that. we didn't choose the guy.

There are a lot of religions that practice things some may view as meaningless, unnecessary or just plain stupid, but there are very few religions that house everything you want (unless you create your own or something). So it may sound a little strange, but sometimes you need to choose the overall religion which best suits your needs/wants. Give-and-take.

I think a lot of people get wrapped up in the black & white, rules, regulations, traditions, etc. of religion and need to remember the support, love and general feeling of wholeness that come along as a side-effect of spirituality. Many people battle with the specific rules and regulations (it's called being human or "sinning") as a balance to the overall happiness they get out of it.

Now that being said, I don't necessarily agree with this change (plus I'm not Catholic), but it's not something I personally feel I need to get hot-under-the-collar about. Just my opinions of course

This is a perfect example of how traditions get twisted somewhere done in time. I can't believe these new mortal sins. I really don't agree with this (I'm also non-Catholic, by the way.).

Except with a few things: Drug abuse is definitely bad. So is social injustice. Accumulating excessive wealth? Maybe, depends on how you use that wealth. Tampering with the order of nature? How? There's a lot that you can do to disrupt natural order (cloning is one example). Pollution a sin? Gets the attention environmental-wise, but really now, pollution a mortal sin? :gonemad:

I guess the Catholic church thinks its the only one that needs to be rich.. For everyone else, its a sin! lol.. Cracks me up. :D

Have any of you actually read the article?
It is about a Vatican official being interviewed by a newspaper, what, in his opinion, are the "new sins", how "god's law is being violated in today's world".

This is not a new "official" list of sins the Vatican has a whim to make into dogma. It is the personal opinion of one Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti how he thinks the (old and unchanging, bla bla) are violated today. And while I wouldn't agree with some of it, it does make sense to think about how the old laws (if you want to abide by them) relate to the modern world.
In particular pollution and genetic experimentation are subjects not covered in the bible for obvious reasons (except from some quotes that can be interpreted in any way suitable). But it seem silly to believe they are thus not subject to religious treatment.

How can that be a sin?

Isn't medicine, agriculture and civilisation itself also tampering with the order of nature? Even baking a loaf of bread does that (because God may have created wheat and yeast, but we still have to 'tamper' to get them how we like it).

I'm already of the opinion that most religious people are not thinking straight, but come on now!

I'm going to put these to the 10 comandment test (because honostly, there is no biblical basis for the seven deadly sins that I am aware of), so:

*genetic experimentation: Loosely, this seems to be under don't kill and or Adultry. The first being the dangers of harming life that messed up genetic experimentation. The second being the "sex is for the creation of life". But this is loose at best.

*tampering with the order of nature: This is too vague. I think it is along with the same explination as above, but honostly, its too vague. And remember, the Vatican does not condon abortion when it is necessary to save the woman's life (this being a rarer and rarer case as medicine advances, but there are cases).

*pollution: Harms life. Honostly, who is going to argue that dumping toxic waste into a river is a good thing?

*social injustice: Well DUH! That's seven of the 10 comandments right there.

*causing poverty: Thou shalt not steal? Again, anyone want to call the Enron people saints?

*accumulating excessive wealth: I had to chuckle at this. But I think the caveat involving helping the community. Remember, the Catholic Church does do mission work (converting aside, missions do help) as well as relief and aid. They sent alot of money to Katrina victims if I remember correctly. So while the Vatican is one of the richest organizations, if not the richest, it does try to help. As much as I don't like the current Pope, I don't think he got the job because he wanted money (and if anyone says that about John Paul II, I'll e-sock ya).

*drug abuse: Don't kill. Loosley false gods (yeah, drug addicts don't pray to needles and worship Wacky Tabacky bushes, but their lives do revolve around getting the next high and that makes drugs priority numero uno.).

But this list is too loosley defigned to be a Vatican edict. Someone above me said that it wasn't from the Pope but a Vatican official's opinion. That being said, none of these are Mortal Sins. There would definatly be more info as to why the call was made if it was. Thus far, it hasn't and their is no evidence, save for one man's opinion, that it is an issue that needs debate.

This is the Pope's idiotic attempt to control the Catholic populace moreso than he already does. In my limited knowledge of world religions, it seems to me that Christianity is the one that is the least receptive to change. Genetic experimentation is going to become important in the future, and if there's a dying Catholic out there who would refuse a genetically-engineered organ because it's one of these afterthought sins, show him to me. And "tampering with the order of nature?" Is there a specific passage in the Bible that lists what the order of nature is and how it should remain? This God that so many people believe in didn't create the world with penicillin or computers or any other modern conveniences- are Catholics going to abandon those because they "tamper with the order of nature?"

These new sins are just an excuse for Catholics to resist change, and frankly, I think that no matter how much they boycott genetic engineering and other sciences, it isn't going to work. The world is no longer the God-fearing, pious place of medieval times, but rather a world of technology and science. We're going to move past these new mortal sins whether religious fanatics like it or not.

I apologize if I am wrong, but the article seems to me to be about one man's interpretation of sins in the world today and not about the Pope declaring that these are going to be added to the list of Mortal Sins. Nothing new is being added to the Catholic church's dogma.

While some of the things he has said are sins, others I am not certain about. Again, unless I am wrong this does not an official Vatican announcement.

So I again, apologize when I ask if any of you read the article. I could easily be misreading the article.

Game Shark, what you and Beachwell2 have astutely observed points out that a lot of people, who enjoy being quick to condemn, never actually read the article Amish_Nick posted as the source for the thread, preferring to rather just issue a blanket condemnation of the Catholic church instead.

To those that won't bother reading the article Nick questioned, it offers the personal opinion of one man, NOT the official position of the Vatican/Catholic Church, or Pope Benedict.

Actually, the article states that it is one man's interpretation of what the most important of already existing sins. Alot of what Amish Nick posted was misquoted (i.e. it is very clearly stated in the article that it is the the violation of basic human rights by the above mentioned things, not the things themselves (for example, insulin is manufactured through genetic engineering and helps people with diabetes live healthy lives. There is nothing wrong with that. I believe the man was refering to embronic stem cell research.)

But this isn't anything to get worked up on. These "new" sins are only one man's intepretation of the most egregious offenses of sins already on the books. Nothing is being changed, controlled, or repressed more. Honostly, most of these are poorly worded and defigned, and only two are really debatable. Most are bad things to let exist.

I agree. I don't really consider myself a christian. But I do still believe in god and jesus and whatnot

Yea, rereading it and doing some heavy digging, on this. News sources are all over the place in regards to this, the article and all so many others are misunderstanding what was said.

Two sources actually seem to have gotten the correct point. But still should cause some valid discussions.



And one other I had to take a trip over to Catholic.com to get. Even they over there are baffled by this, but seem to believe that is was a misunderstood interview, not edict from the Vatican.



So even with this, we should be able to get some good debate going. About what the Vatican views as New era sins are important and need addressing or not.

Do people even take these new sins seriously? Just seems pretty weak if you ask me...

MexiCali, as several people have already pointed out, these aren't new sins, they're modern interpretations of things that have already been in existance. In addition, they aren't an official edict or anything like that, they're just one man's interpretation.

And Amish_Nick, I really must agree with one of the other posters... and I'm going to have to ask you to please re-word your initial post. It's misleading, and at several points appears to be misquoted.

It seems like they could be extensions of the sins though. They would mostly play on greed, but still.

One short line, changed, but the rest is not misleading or misquoted.

Frankie, forgive me. But it's statements like this that show why I have so much trouble taking people like you seriously in debates of religion. I understand you're coming from the best perspective you have and speaking from what you know. It's not that I doubt your sincerity. But you don't seem to know how little you really know.

You can't go taking what the Catholic church does and put it on all Christians. Do you know know what a Protestant is? Protestants are Christians whose branches of the religion set themselves aside from the Catholic church and radical forms of it like the medieval Anglican church. They include most prominent branches of the church here is the States. The Baptists and Methodists and so forth and so on. From my admittedly limited observation of Catholicism, it seems they are strongest in large cities like Boston, New York, and Philly.

As I'm sure you've noticed, one of the favorite tactics of hardline Christians is to try and get everyone to share their lather about "the last days". But one point they always overlook in their blather is that in "the last days" many false prophets will arise to try lead people astray. I don't share that belief of the last days they do. My church taught me "the day of the Lord" will come as a thief in the knight. Meaning no one will be able to know until it's too late. But as recently as we've switched centuries, it's easy and popular to forget that. Look at medieval times and the transition to the 1000's. Much of the same blather went on then.

But I digress. My main point is about the false prophets. Every time this pope makes one of his harder line pronouncements it makes me wonder if he might not be a false prophet. Ditto Pat Robertson who is a much more likely choice for Protestant hardliners. Living in Virginia Beach, aka Robertson Ground Zero, I've seen many stories here in the local paper and TV news the rest of the nation doesn't get. Things about his greed and avarice which lead me to believe if he is even a Christian at all or just adept at using the religion as a shield. I tried citing some here in a thread recently in a thread about the latest pronouncement he'd made but sadly the thread got locked.

One thing I will agree with you on though is that all too often those who would be the public faces of the their faith are so hardline and accusatory they turn potential believers away. That's a big bone of contention even within the church community itself. Go on Youtube and look up the song Does Anybody Hear Her by Casting Crowns. They are a Christian band and through the song they are taking their fellow believers to task for overlooking people in spiritual need for surface reasons. I absolutely agree with you that the public presentation of Christianity is hardly at its finest at this moment. But to go broad brushing good people for the words of people they may not even acknowledge as their own does as much to poison the spiritual well as the false prophecies you are criticizing them for. And I know you're better than that. It shows in the passion and clarity with which you post.

I'm a hardline atheist, but I consider my disbelief to be more on a fundamental level than a kneejerk response to hardline Christians. I wish more Christians (and atheists) had your attitude--one that is more understanding and humanitarian. Nice post.

Thanks, Cappyboy, for a good post. I couldn't have said it better myself.