Is seven really enough? That's what we wondered as we began our Seven Deadly Sins series in early March. Are the original seven sins, as codified by Pope Gregory in the sixth century — lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy and pride — really the worst human transgressions, or has something important been left off the list? And is there something about life in the beginning of the 21st century that provokes us to sin in ways that Gregory could never have imagined?
Many of you who responded to our query nominated apathy (also identified as indifference and complacency) as the eighth deadly sin, much as British respondents to a BBC radio poll did in 2004.
"In this world of quick fixes, easy access and noticeable intolerance, along comes the 8th deadly sin to torment mankind," wrote Susan T. Holt of Salt Lake City. "It is an insidious and often unrecognized addition until its hold is unrelenting. I refer to the sin of indifference, which creeps in slowly by allowing one to skip a political caucus meeting here and ignore a neighborhood watch meeting there until one is lulled into the complacency of thinking the input of one is of no matter to the outcome."
Or as Cynthia Woo of San Francisco pointed out: "Turning away from people in need is a form of apathy that lets us forget how much in need every one of us is and how blessed each one of us has been."
Rudeness also got several votes, because, as Duane Nelson noted about the rude among us, "they are all over the place. I mean, where were these people 40 years ago?" There were also votes for a cousin of rudeness, ingratitude. As 81-year-old Jeanne P. Lawler said, "I send out many gifts, for instance, in reply to wedding announcements, and rarely do I receive a 'thank you.' "
Votes also came in for, in alphabetical order: aggression, complicity (the justification of sin because someone else is doing it, as Steven J. Allison notes), cynicism, demagoguery, denying God, dishonesty and duplicity (including 'spin'), e-mailing and blogging, fear, feeling like you never have enough, hatred, ignorance, impatience, intolerance, not forgiving others, prurience and porn, self-doubt, self-indulgence, self-righteousness, self-victimization, self-worship, "the relinquishing up of one's attention to whatever glittery thing that happens to capture it," wanting immediate gratification, and wanting to make money without working for it.
Betty Ann Leasure of Bountiful suggested we take a look at Gandhi's version of the Seven Deadly Sins: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, politics without principle, commerce without morality and worship without sacrifice.
There are plenty of sins to go around, as Quiltart.com also discovered when it asked its readers make a quilt that embodied their vote for the eighth deadly sin. Suggestions included chocolate, boredom, saying "I can't," taking yourself too seriously and tailgating.
Like these, many of the sins suggested by our readers could easily, or at least with some imagination, fit under the umbrella of the original seven. Apathy is a form of sloth. Impatience and rudeness are a form of selfishness, which in turn is an element of pride. They also spill over into anger. It's hard to figure out where one sin ends and another begins.
We received many e-mails in response to our series, not just from people with an eighth sin to add but from people who wanted to reflect on the ways in which society as a whole and other people in particular — and even they themselves — had not measured up.
"I think that life is a process by which we decide who we are," says Neale Donald Walsch, author of "Conversations With God." "Every act is an act of self-definition." Walsch was interviewed for our story on gluttony, but he also wanted to talk about sin in general. "I think all of the seven deadly sins are announcements by ourselves that we do not know who we are."
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com