Indifference to our planet’s health, child abuse as everything from striking or shouting at a child to corporate indifference such as selling lead paint toys,
cruelty to animals in laboratories, shelters, or fighting pits, the indifference to the elderly and the entertainers who mock them, the usury of payday loan traps and the greed of mortgage companies with phony inflated appraisals and incredibly increasing mortgage rates the buyers can’t maintain with inflated food and gas prices and constant job losses.
The ungodly sin of causing 4000 deaths and probably tenfold Iraqi dead in an unnecessary action only started to make Bush 41 proud of his little guy.
The worst sin was the neglect of the victims of Katrina and coming on three years later, no recovery in sight. Another sin, the slur against the constitutional rights of the people of this country. The right to due process, the right to privacy, it’s all gone as well as the sactity of one citizen one vote. We need a hero. I don’t see any coming. Somebody do something fast
Terri—Great post…just FYI…there are over 1 million Iraqis dead…and over 2 millions displaced…in a country of 26 million or 1/3 the population of California and that doesn’t included the hundreds of thousands that will die from cancer and birth defects as as result of the US using depleted uranium, a devastating WMD, on population centers.
Seven more deadly sins, for I don’t think the original seven should be eliminated: racism, entitlement, stupidity, indifference, illiteracy, apathy, and selfishness. And, if I may add two more: both tolerance AND intolerance, for each is used in ways neither was ever intended. Society tends to tolerate shameful things, and shows intolerance for many things that are honorable.
Mamacita, “Society tends to tolerate shameful things, and shows intolerance for many things that are honorable.” Hear! Hear! So right!! I read somewhere here that it’s a faux pas to be rude even for a good cause. Hmm. Tell it to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Daniel Webster. If anyone doesn’t believe that we are fighting another King George for exactly the same things as the first go ‘round…then they don’t know the Declaration of Independance very well. I ask you—-does this sound familiar?
“……The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
-He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
-He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
-He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
-He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
-He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
-He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
-For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us [Blackwater mercenaries, etc]:
-For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: [Haliburton employees protected from prosecution for gang rape]
-For imposing taxes on us without our consent:[Massive tax cuts rich; regressive tax poor]
-For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:[Gitmo]
-For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:[CIA flights to secret torture islands]
-For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:[Iraq, US colony]
-For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
-For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.[Cheney’s Unitarian executive branch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sizCobkkl0Q
-He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. [911 and Katrina failures MINIMALLY criminal neglience.]
-He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. [This IS the business of the Bush Administration]
-In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
-We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled…solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
How very rude these gentlemen to thus besmirch a King!!
1. Employing the F-word as an adjective verb and noun, usually strung together in lieu of an ‘idea’.
(Curse words, like limousines, should only be ridden to special occasions.)
2. Ignoring Cognitive Dissonance
(When was the last time you saw George W read a book to schoolchildren?)
3. Taking refuge in ambivalence.
(Red/Blue: the color of a bruise that won’t heal.)
4. Contributing to an assumption that history does not precede Chuck Berry.
5. Succumbing to received trends, memes and gossip.
(Excludes cultural anthropologists, ie.: Liz, Arianna, Madonna, Faith Popcorn, Moby, Michael Moore, Malcomb Gladwell et al.)
6. Overspecializing when ordering the caffeinated beverage. (Confusing branded caffeine for organic human passion.)
7. Proceeding in Bad Faith.
Gawd; don’t get me started.
Ego, ego, ego, ego, ego ego, ego! Whether it be person or country. If thoughts are of self before others - sin is sure to follow - (my sermon for the day LOL)
Maggi, You are so right, instead of sins, why do we Not talk about EGO. If you address and reduce the EGO, then there is no need for rules, restrictions and SIN! Then we are all coming from a place of Heart— love, compassion, and acceptance. We all need to STOP beating ourselves up with SIN and start giving ourselves and others an honest break! Just say no to Sin and YES to COMPASSION!
Teresa, The right-side of the brain is ECO-centric and the left-side is EGO-centric….it’s important to understand cultures from that view because governments and organizations introduce control of people by replacing right-brain learning with left.
Earth has existed for 4 billion of years. It took those 4 billion years until 1000 AD for the entire world population to reach 500 million, or less than twice America’s population of 30 million today. Then in less than 1,000 years—by 1970—global population exploded to 3.3 billion. Just three decades later, in 2003 it had skyrocketed to 6.4 billion. In the last 30 years, the world population grew at the same rate that had taken the previous 14 billion years of cosmic evolution to achieve. The World Bank estimates that global population will double to 12.4 billion, and the United Nations estimates population will reach 14 billion, before it stabalizes.
To adapt to global overpopulation, complex demand and shrinking supply, humanity scrambled at warp-speed and institutionalized false beliefs at odds with how the cosmos actually works; antithetical to global well-being, and to more enriching possibilities. We culturally habituated the robotic left EGO-centric brain.
As Albert Einstein said we “created a soiety that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift” and vastly diminished our existence, and are on the brink of environmental catastrophe as a result.
The problem is that we lack BALANCE, and understanding of what the two side do. The left brain is EGO-centric. It divides and separates and without regard to complex contexts, subtle connections or long term consequences, focuses on its own short-term gain.
It sorts existence into hierarchical slots of opposites: superior and inferior, physical and spiritual, black and white, friend or foe. Lacking comprehension of natural connections, it seeks to fix the world by its autocratic and framenting style: “you’re with us or against us” “survival of the fittest,” “might equals right.” This is the side of the brain that produces Nazism, fascism, militarization, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-environmentalism, and war. Denying the fact of the unifying principle that all of Creation is an inherently interwoven, interconnected, interdependant whole. Uni-verse means one metered poem or song. Cosmos means one unified, holistic whole. The unbreakable Natural Law of the Cosmos is order, balance, and equal return. What is done to a part, is done to the whole. We cannot escape cause and consequences.
The right brain is ECO-centric with the spiritual structure of monism. It is literally a sacred bridge between the visible and invisible realms. Illuminating, creative, expansive, poetic and empathic, its view is to unify all existence based on context, compassion, caring, and cooperation. This is the brain of Golden Ages; for a new economy of eco-social entrepreneurs, and for the next 2,000 years.
The right brain is intuitive, inherently panetheistic, archetypally imprinted with ancestral memory and a hunger for reverential relationship to nature and archetypal spirituality as depicted by the similar gods and goddesses, myths, folk stories, art, and images that are found in widely varying cultures throughout time.
The common lexicon of the cosmos, eternity, and our soul is symbol. We can read the elegant cave paintings of France from 38,000 years ago, or the stories that ancient Eqyptians told with their art of 5,000 years ago, and they resonate because of the constant symbols of the underlying the cosmos. The astonishing beauty of ancient Golden cultures, their colossal architecture, philosophy, literature and their way of being, was in many ways richer and more radiant than our own.
Eco-spirit illuminates the world; Ego-spirit is disconnected and devolves it. A statement amplified by the past 100 most warring and ecologically disastrous years from billions of years of global existence.
By disconnecting we’ve imprisoned humanity in a mechanized matrix designed by our lesser brain. As Morpheus said in the ‘Matrix’ there’s something wrong—you don’t know what it is, but it is there—like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It’s the world tha’s been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
All around the globe today, from every hamlet to every high-rise, eco-spirit is the quality we would, intelligently, most highly value and prize. It is the quintessential spirit of Renaissance. The only spirit that will save and evolve humanity, and enhance all life on the planet today.
As William Penn said “To help mend the world is true religion” and Thomas Jefferson said, “Those who toil in the Earth are the true chosen people.” I alter that for today to ‘toil for the Earth” because when you work for green and sustainable you work for a shift to the eco-brain
and the kind of world that flows from it.
We are and become individually and globally our spiritual constructs. And as Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” That’s why I say the biggest sin is apathy.
What if?
What if all of humanityÆs ills are the result of our disconnection? All the wars, fear, anger, suffering, poverty, social injustice, pollution, crime—even weight, health, fitness and addiction problems—are caused by this one lack of power connection. And this disconnection results in widespread loss of peace, love, beauty, joy, abundance, light, social justice, a healthy environment and having life be the miraculous paradise it could be. What if billions of dreams, opportunities, and desires are also denied as a result of the disconnected miraculous power cord? Guess what? ThatÆs the problem.
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