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Celebrating the Seven Cardinal Sins
One of my gay friends (“Chad”) posts repeated rainbow-colored memes and pictures on his Facebook feed, every day during “Pride Month.” He views gays as a civil rights group: Why should someone be treated differently simply because they were born differently? At first, I found it odd that Chad insisted on celebrating his pride in, well, in simply being born different. Nothing he accomplished, but just the way he was born. That seems like me spending a month every year celebrating my pride in being born with brown hair. I mean, brown hair is nice, but it seems like an inadequate reason for parades.
Anyway, after a while, it occurred to me that Chad’s celebration of pride could serve as a model for other holiday months. Perhaps we should have a celebratory month for each of the Seven Cardinal (Deadly) Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth. (Obviously, we would not celebrate The Seven Heavenly Virtues. That’s no fun.) Fortunately, the LGBTQQIP2SAA+ founding, um, fathers had the foresight to observe Pride Month in June, so each of the remaining six months of the year could be used to observe the six remaining Cardinal Sins. It works out so perfectly, I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence. This must have been the plan all along.
August will be fun – an entire month celebrating Lust! Woohoo! And I’m not sure exactly how some of our neighbors will observe the months celebrating Gluttony and Sloth. What, exactly, would they do differently? And, if I’m being brutally honest, I’m not sure what I would do differently in some of these months.
The Seven Cardinal Sins have always been commonplace in society. But they’ve moved beyond commonplace. Now they have become not just accepted but even admired in our society, to the point that we can have a month celebrating one of them and no one notices anything odd. You might think that somebody in their initial planning meetings might have said, “Hey, guys – er – people: You think maybe we should choose a different word? This is technically one of the Seven Cardinal Sins, ya know. This would be easy for some right-wing Christian hate-filled bigot to misinterpret and make a stink about it. How about, say, ‘confidence’ or something less potentially inflammatory?”
But we are a post-Christian society. Those in that meeting likely don’t know what the Cardinal Sins are, and it never occurred to them that Pride was one of them. Throughout history, religion has always been overlooked at times. Now it’s irrelevant. To many of us, anyway. So this concern probably never came up.
Imagine if I showed up to a Pride Parade, dressed in rainbow colors, carrying the following sign (with PRIDE in rainbow colors):
- Proverbs 16:18 – PRIDE goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
I think most people wouldn’t even understand my point. Although I’m fairly certain that any quote from the Bible would be met with hostility, whether they understood it or not. They don’t have to understand something to hate it. In fact, it’s much easier to hate something you don’t understand.
This is why I fear our new culture, which intentionally does not teach children about Judeo-Christian ethics, and teaches that Western Civilization in general (and America in particular) is evil. This lack of understanding enables people to hate that which has done so much good in the world. The leftist desire for power requires them to destroy other sources of authority. They destroy them at their peril.
Actually, they destroy them at everyone else’s peril, as well.
The Judeo-Christian ethic teaches that we are all God’s children and that we all have value. We are important to God. And He expects a lot from us. We do our best to please him, although we frequently fail. But God loves us despite our shortcomings, so we continue to try.
The fact that we are all God’s children helped lead to the concept of personal liberties, property rights, and the rule of law – not just for royalty, but even for lowly peasants. If God loves each of us, then we all have some value, and thus, some rights. All of us. Personal liberty is a wonderful thing.
But with personal liberty, comes personal responsibility. Liberty does not mean ‘just do whatever you want.’ Only a virtuous people can handle liberty, without disastrous consequences. There are external authorities on virtue, like God, for example. But what if we don’t care for some of His outdated opinions on virtue? Surely we can just agree amongst ourselves what virtue is. That way we can change it to suit our tastes, as times change.
This has not turned out well. Why even try to follow rules, if we can change the rules whenever we want? Plus, it makes no sense, unless there is no God.
If there is no God, then some will conclude that their existence has no deeper meaning beyond amusing themselves. Hunter S. Thompson could explain this better than I, but without the guardrails provided by an overseeing God, you can go from liberty to chaos to misery very, very quickly.
Unbridled liberty should lead to happiness. It really should. Believe me, I wish it did.
But it doesn’t. For whatever reasons, it just doesn’t. It creates a hole in your soul that can never be filled. There are a lot of reasons for this. Many books have been written about this, including the book quoted above. But regardless of what those reasons are, this is just the way it is. Aristotle had a point with his discussions of logos. Man’s Search for Meaning sounds simple, but it can be complex.
Humans are funny creatures.
We’d rather not think about that, however. We’re having a wonderful time. So we march in parades and try to enjoy the moment, while trying not to think about where we’re all going.
And trying not to wonder why we have this nagging feeling, way deep inside, that something is just not quite right. We don’t want to search for meaning. We just want to have fun. So if we’re having so much fun, why are we so miserable? What’s wrong? What’s missing?
“It must be someone else’s fault. Those people over there. With their Bibles and their churches and crap. Man, I hate them, and everything they stand for. Whatever the heck that is. We must destroy them. Then, we’ll finally be happy.”
Leftist control of our educational and religious institutions has been an incredible success for them. Their fostering of ignorance, hate, and intolerance has put into motion things which will be difficult to undo.
I don’t see how this ends well. I don’t think that the left will see that they’ve won until we’ve all lost.
NOTE: Credit for the colorfully modified quote from Proverbs above, and for part of the inspiration for this post, goes to the indispensable Babylon Bee.
This was also partially inspired by stories told to me by my two kids in college. Their descriptions of their friends’ fun-filled misery added a lot to this as well. Many of their friends are having so much fun that they need Prozac and weekly counseling sessions.
Published in General
Let’s set aside ‘theology’ – which I agree is not a good fit – and focus on the people, iow on how religion is expressed in the world. From Psych Today:
True.
I understand that this is your religious belief, and that this was in fact a common belief in the West – hence the laws. (So religion does come into it, right?) Courtesy ACLU:
The change in how sodomy was legally dealt with in the US is recent, within living memory:
The colour code: Illinois before 1970, Indiana etc. 1970-79; PA etc. 1980-89; MD etc. 1990-99; AZ etc 2000-02; TX etc. 2003. All during my lifetime, it’s not ancient history.
There are still many people alive who have criminal records because they breached the sodomy statutes before 2003.
On the contrary, people seem to really love discussing it on Ricochet.
That’s fair enough.
I think society is better when it tolerates religious people but doesn’t celebrate them.
Both valid views.
(But I wouldn’t be cool with you having a criminal record today because you were caught up by a terrible law in the not too distant past.)
Peace.
Just for the record, I am very strongly persuaded that, with very few exceptions, homosexual persons are not choosing to be homosexual. Some combination of genes and environment is creating the phenomenon.
It is also my opinion that, while there are obvious reasons heterosexual intimacy can be considered a good thing, all other things being equal (BABIES!) (I love babies) all other things are very often not equal. Or rather: human beings are capable of making a sow’s ear out of a silk purse and vice versa.
It is my humble opinion that when God took a rib from the side of the Ha’adam and formed a woman from it, God not only created a woman (and therefore a man) but also created human difference. When there’s only one human being in the world, there’s no difference. As soon as you have a second human being…hey presto! Diversity! With all this implies in terms both of promise and peril. The creation of difference makes human-to-human love (and not just romantic love) possible but it also means failures of love are possible, some of which shall prove catastrophic. (Can and Abel, for example).
Any relationship between two or more human beings, whatever its inescapable imperfections, can, potentially, offer a glimpse of God’s love…or it can be a source of darkness and obscurity, separation from one another and separation from God. Mother-child, lover-lover, father-son, sibling-sibling, friend-friend or stranger-stranger.
This is why—though I’m not a Buttigeig fan—I don’t object to him declaring that his relationship with his husband brings him closer to God. I would say the same (more or less) about my relationship with my husband, while my sad guess is that Nicole Simpson Brown would not have said this about her marriage to O.J.
Once we accept that we are all sinful, all fall short of the glory of God, the corollary surely is that we are nonetheless offered —out of God’s sheer grace—chances to get a glimpse of that glory through all our flawed and ordinary human loves. If death, life, demons, angels, principalities, fears nor even the fire of hell itself can separate us from God’s love (Romans, 8:38) then surely gayness can’t do it either?
We all have reason to be grateful that God (being God) somehow manages to make beauty and nobility from the distinctly dubious material we, his children, have given him to work with.
Completely agree with that. In a free society you are free to establish whatever relationships you want and perform whatever between consenting adults. It is immoral but you have the right to be immoral as long as you’re not hurting anyone. I don’t care what you do; that’s between you, your lover, and God at judgment day. What upsets me – and this is where these pride parades come in – is the normalization of what is obviously not normal. The condition of homosexuality, sometimes referred to as “disordered,” is not normal. What is being foisted on society is a lie. It is not normal either biologically or statistically. That it is not normal biologically is self evident, though it’s amazing how everyone just ignores it. It is not normal statistically since the rate of homosexuality is around the same as autism.
Why is this lie detrimental? Because as Phil and Western Chauvinist above have said above, it undermines the nature of real marriage and traditional family. To create a catagory of marriage for homosexuals is the the height of absurdity. It can never be a marriage no matter how many laws are passed. It is all a lie. And until society finally will wrap its head around that lie, it will undermine the nature of society itself.
It is not a choice but it requires a complicated set of conditions. Separated at birth studies have shown that not all both sets of twins – who have the same genetic makeup – turn out gay. However, there is a high percentage of separated twin where both do turn out gay, something like 50% of them, higher than the normal population. What that seems to indicate is that two conditions need to be met, a genetic predisposition and a particular set of environmental conditions. Neither of which are a choice. Even a person who presumably chooses to be gay is making a choice that would only be possible to him.
Or, as postmodernists tell us, genders are a social construct. And as with any construct, they have boundaries and walls to define what is where. So we made our social construct, and now the postmodernists are saying it’s not good to have a construct.
Rico threads that are about gay issues turn rapidly into The Sore Loser’s Club. Hey, SoCons, how’s that working out for you?
Yep. (EDIT)
But Cato Rand is right; Dr. Bastiat is being reasonable about updating his thoughts as the thread goes along.
Sure, “Pride” is used to counteract the “Shame” of the past. This use of euphemism is all over. “Life”? When all you really mean is anti-abortion? “Choice?” When what you mean is abortion?
Neither being homosexual nor having homosexual children I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I’m just watching from the sidelines.
Not contributing to the conversation, Gary.
I don’t either, but I do have an interest in this fight.
OK, Chauv, maybe I should trim it back. Don’t you think some of yours should have trimmed it back a couple of pages ago?
I wasn’t around for the SSM wars of old, but this thread seemed rather mild to me given how important the subject is to many.
I agree, this is more agreeable than those days. It still has a couple of disagreeable aspects. Imagine if someone came on like this on Ricochet: “I find religion disgusting and your beliefs and life repellent, but I’m willing to act like a halfway decent human being if they close their churches and shut their mouths”. You’d identify them, correctly, as a crackpot bigot. But if they do it to gays, they expect to be received as great humanitarians because they didn’t reach for the pitchfork.
Still I find it interesting that if someone acting out of honest Christian love and concern for the soul of a homosexual told him that he should drop his lifestyle and attempt to live a chaste life, the homosexual would probably tell that Christian to go fornicate himself. If a homosexual “encouraged” parents face-to-face to accept a homosexual child and support his/her lifestyle, he might be told, “Mind your own [redacted] business”. I see no good way to settle these differences beyond going separate ways.
No, it’s from having family in the medical field. They know stories and I’d bet you do too. But, lets not get too graphic.
From a religious point of view, any act or lifestyle which deprives someone of his or her full human potential (in this case, procreative and one-flesh unity of complementary persons in sacramental marriage) cannot be characterized as authentic love. It is not willing the ultimate good of the other for the other’s sake. None of this is to suggest that heterosexuals are particularly good at reaching such high standards (it’s not possible at all minus the grace of God). Only that lowering the standards to accommodate all the permutations of sexual desires is damaging to individuals, to marriage, to families (which are the safeguard against tyrannical government), and to society. Some gays recognize this and choose not to line up with the gay agenda.
No one I know defending traditional marriage is suggesting bringing back anti-sodomy laws (even though the phrase “he (or she) was sodomized” is understood instinctively to suggest violence). We believe in the inherent dignity of each person and support free-will choices (forming consensual relationships) even if we believe them to be bad choices. But, we do not believe in moral innovation and are concerned that the societal changes we’re seeing bode ill for the future of liberty for everyone.
Anytime one sides with the Left, one might want to think a second time…
Social constructs are constructed by societies as they evolve. They change.
Call me Westy. Rhymes with Chesty. I always wanted that nickname, but I think it suits other Ricochetti better. ;-) Where is @rightnurse these days??
We’re all wearing our big boy pants. I understand when our gay compatriots (can’t say “members”) get testy (boy, the terms are just loaded!), but I think everyone is comporting themselves pretty well under the circumstances. And I think it’s good for everyone to develop an understanding of where everyone else is coming from.
I’ll shut up now. I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one comment.
Apparently there is a system for rating them.
Nah, all change is improvement, right? Change! Wasn’t that the campaign motto of a former president? Banana? O’Banon? Bahama? I can’t remember.
Westy it is. And it’s a great comment. Thanks.
I honestly doubt that, and I used to work in an industry that had plenty of homosexuals. I think that like your second example, he’d give you an I’ve-been-in-this-conversation and respond. Some are religious already, some not, and they’ve heard it more than we have, so they know the arguments. Most are good willed about it. Look at Ricochet, and Zafar’s endless politeness.
He might be told that, and it would end family life unnecessarily, purely at the choice of the objector. Not the gay kid. Too bad, but that’s their choice. I can’t imagine it, but that’s my own reaction.
I see no good way to settle these differences beyond going separate ways.
If so, how are you and I going to split up the US? The gay-friendly straights are going to take about 2/3 of the property if we split up, and I’d hate to see you guys unhappy about what you’ve got left.
C’mon, we can’t make this work? I don’t believe that.
Along the lines of ‘if you don’t approve of gay marriage don’t have one’.
You take “going separate ways” too literally. What I meant was that people will just go about their lives, love their families, and not give a damn about the country anymore. That attitude was best expressed in these words from a book about the Buckleys.
The Apocalyptic nature of my vision is rejected by my siblings, but I believe, out of a sentimental nostalgia that obscures reason. They simply do not want to believe that a once-beloved country has become unloveable, its institutions corrupt, its legislatures ineffectual, its citizens vile and servile, its vision solipsistic, materialistic, and on almost all accounts contemptible. … Well, that’s that.
SSM was only part of what drove that attitude.
Graphic, schmaphic, we’re already talking about anal sex (right? Reminder: I never bring this up!!). No point closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.
(Hinted at) anecdote is unpersuasive. What are the stats? How relevant is this?
From Vice, in 2016:
Given the numbers involved, it seems a pretty relevant question.
Also from the article:
Wrt the obvious STI ABC tells us:
No mention of reducing the occurrence of sodomy.
Which doesn’t seem to be realistically achievable. (Whether it’s desirable or not.)
You and I both no doubt expected to go about our lives and love our families. I flatly don’t see what 20% of 3% want to do that’s going to cancel that out for me or you. This country is still loveable; I am not vile or servile; neither are my neighbors, though they seldom vote the way I’d like them to. I’ve known solipsistic and materialistic on both sides of the political aisle.
This is what makes Ricochet work: I value my (okay, sure, flimsy) cyber-relationship with Django, a real life human, too much to screw with semantics too much.
Sure. But the only possible blind spot a white person might have is not his/her “white fragility.” There are plenty of other possibilities. She may be misinformed. She may not have been offered the evidence. The person arguing for the existence of systemic racism may not have presented his argument particularly well. They may disagree about the definition of a word like “systemic.” And so on.
Incidentally, insofar as I would call ours “my once-beloved country,” I wouldn’t count the freedom of gays and lesbians to live openly among the things I’d grieve.
I object to thoroughgoing effort to suppress free speech, to the idiotic and ahistorical yen for socialism, to the hypocrisy of progressives that is at its most dangerous when it comes to ignoring, excusing or encouraging violence and to the manifold failures of the media to inform the citizenry in anything like an honest and responsible manner.
To the extent that LGB and especially T persons are—at least if they’re Democrats—beyond criticism, and that “pride” means that no one has any right (or responsibility!) to have an opinion about the sexual behavior of others… yeah, that is something worth objecting to. So is the depressingly solipsistic (and so unsexy!) new fad of demanding that one’s sexual eccentricities be recognized by others as an “identity.”
Absolutely. And some of these white people might be Progressives, and some of the opinions they disagree with might be Conservative ones.
Just discounting an argument because of an assumption that it comes from ‘white fragility’ or ‘progressives’ or ‘identity politics’ or ‘Leftists’ or ‘Christian Fundamentalists’ or ‘?????’ is a poor approach, no matter who takes it.
Edit: also, informed disagreement is not a blind spot, it’s disagreement. Though mayhap I quibble.
Isn’t it ironic that if homosexuality etc had not been such a persistently big deal for conservative societies (in that they set homosexuals apart and excluded them [at best]) there would have been no Gay movement and no Gay identity?
In a weird way we exist as a people because of Conservative attitudes.
You mean to compare it to legalized abortion? I accept the premise (with all the moral decay implied). The Left will never never allow us to live and let live. I’m paying for other people’s abortions and Jack is being driven out of business for not baking a gay wedding cake. It’s only a start for the bullies and totalitarians.