Religion is a Mental Illness

The Seven Deadly Sins are focused more on personal vices, which are said to lead to committing “sins”. Lust, for example, might lead to covering thy neighbor’s wife. Greed could lead to theft. They’re not so much specific banned actions as much as the supposed personal failings that lead to the sins.

The flip-side of these is the Seven Heavenly Virtues, which are basically the opposite of the 7DS.

While I reject the notion of “sin”, there’s nothing particularly wrong with self-awareness of your own personal qualities - are you prone to being lazy or procrastinating for example. But the idea that you should have to apologise to a god to because you spent Saturday night binge-watching something and going into a pizza-induced food coma is demented.

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Of course, neither list actually appears in the bible. They’re an invention of much later and, as usual, plagiarized from elsewhere. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics are quite notably the, ahem, “inspiration” for the 7DS.

Although, as usual, the original is far more nuanced and thoughtful, despite originating 300+ years before Jesus, and 700+ years before the 7DS were authored. For example, distinguishing that excess confidence/insufficient fear leads to rashness and foolhardiness, while excess fear/insufficient confidence leads to cowardice. Therefore, a balance is required.

Likewise, excess generosity leads to vulgarity and wastefulness, which isn’t any better than insufficient generosity, exhibited as meanness and pettiness. It’s not just “greed vs charity.”

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What may be more relevant though, are the Mortal Sins, which is a different list.

"Grave matter” topics include murder and terrorism, but also includes missing mass, masturbation, contraception and unjust prices. But nowhere on the list is child abuse. The closest you’ll get is “Endangerment of human life or safety”, but it’s trivially easy for an abuser to justify their actions as not just not-endangerment, but “for their own good” and backed up by claims to lack of intent.

Things like “don’t you punish a child for touching the heater?” have already been offered by Xtians for reasons why god’s loving torture in hell is completely justified as a punishment. So the warped morality is already there.

And, of course, the bible itself doesn’t condemn child abuse. Like rape and slavery, it appears nowhere on the Ten Commandments, instead seemingly bumped to allow the top four to be dedicated entirely to god declaring itself to be god. Even commandments about graven images are considered far more important in this god’s most important document - important enough to be the only one literally "written with the finger of God."

Indeed, you’re explicitly instructed to do it.

“New covenant”-Jesus agreed with all this, and was appalled that people chose to use their own judgment about killing their children.

I wonder how many people have grown up with bruises and welts on their body, and the following righteous proverbs ringing in their ears.

Don’t stop beating your child just because they’re crying.

Your child won’t die just from you beating them. But if they do, you’ll have the reassurance of knowing you literally beat the hell out of them.

In Job, Jealous and Satan make a bet. They destroy all Job’s stuff, including killing his ten children, just to fuck with him because of how perfect and upright he is. Job, rightly, complains about Jealous actively screwing with people, oppressing them, aiding evil and generally fucking with the affairs of humans.

In the end, Job apologises to Jealous, on the basis that because Jealous can fuck him up, Jealous is entitled and justified when he does fuck him up. The “I brought you into this world, and I’ll take you out” philosophy.

Job is rewarded with more and better replacements for the stuff that was destroyed. In the case of his dead children, Jealous doesn’t use his god-magic to resurrect the same children. Instead, he magic’s up replacement children, who Job proceeds to name and are implied to be even better than the dead ones - the girls were even prettier than his first daughters.

Isn’t god good? Because you live in his house, he can fuck you up however he likes without guilt or consequence. And have you apologise for complaining about the abuse.

And children, like property, are replaceable.

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These aren’t “oh, that was a temporary rule” or “oh, that no longer applies.” I personally know people alive today who were subjected to Catholically and Christianly-endorsed and prescribed violence. Their institutions were some of the last to comply with society’s ban, asserting “religious exemption.”

Even today, there are religious exemptions to laws governing child neglect, endangerment and even death in the US, and the Catholic Church has steadfastly opposed laws that would hold them to the same child sexual abuse mandatory reporting laws that apply to everyone else.

Don’t worry though, because...

That is, having ignored human laws about child sexual abuse, they’re going to “fix” the problem by making it a clubhouse crime (you know, like “No Homers Allowed”), rather than just something frowned upon. Don’t you feel better? The clubhouse will still deal with the matter internally, of course.

These are the same people who will also assert they are society’s moral beacons, despite having spearheaded no moral inventions or progress - you know, aside from the Inquisitions - and a long, sordid track record of petulantly dragging their feet on the ones instigated by secular society.

As Stephen Fry pointed out: