(June 17, 2021 at 10:15 am)FredTheLobster Wrote: I saw a right-wing idiot christian post a FB meme, "if you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be?"
Her response was "sin."
So we have an idiot brain wanting to remove a fictitious thing from a real world. This is why there's no progress in the world.
It's unlikely that a right-wing idiot will contribute to progress much. Or any kind of idiot, really.
Dante defines sin as excessive behavior, or insufficient behavior, which causes you to live in ways that are harmful to yourself and others.
So for example if you're obsessed with food to the point that it's unhealthy, that's gluttony, which is a sin. If you deny yourself food to the point that you're unhealthy, that's anorexia. Dante didn't use the word anorexia, but he made it clear that healthy, non-sinful behavior is on a middle path, with sinful excesses on either side.
Getting angry all the time for no reason is wrath. Failing to get angry when you should is also a bad thing.
Pride is rating yourself higher than you deserve, and expecting to be treated like royalty. The opposite would be undervaluing yourself, and allowing people to treat you like a doormat.
Dante thought that lust is the least bad sin, because loving and being drawn to another person is a very good thing, but it can go over the top. The opposite sin wouldn't be celibacy but something like total misanthropy -- hating everyone in a way that's over top.
The point is that getting rid of sin, for Dante, is more or less equivalent to what we would call mental health. Removing that from the world means we'd be mentally healthy.
