Seven Deadly Sins and Apple Pie

 

The seven deadly sins, as proposed by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century, are pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. Although these sins lead down the path to hell, they are not only committed every day by many Americans, but encouraged by our culture. Hence, my premise is that the seven deadly sins are as American as apple pie.

We pride ourselves as a Godly people, generous and kind, favored above all other nations by the Almighty. Ah, but isn't this the deadly sin of pride. We're proud of our country. In war we say, "My country, right or wrong." We encourage pride of our sports teams, of our school, of our workplace and above all ourselves. It's common these days to talk of self-esteem. What is self-esteem, but pride in ourselves?

Our capitalist system encourages Americans to envy those who have material possessions that we lack. The essence of advertising is to induce envy. We are bombarded night and day with advertising. We hide beautiful scenery behind billboards, ten minutes out every half hour on television is devoted to advertising, most of our Sunday newspaper consists of commercial flyers, the Internet flings advertising at us from every direction.

Many Americans are angry and full of hate. They hate the people of countries whose leaders have quarrels with American policy. They hate people who are different from themselves, people with a different shade of skin, people who worship differently or don't believe in a deity at all, people whose sexual orientation is toward their own sex, people whose ancestors came from a land different from their own ancestors and above all people whose philosophy and political view differs from theirs. I've spoken to people who say we should drop bombs and torture people of nations who they consider America's enemies.

Sloth and gluttony go hand in hand. Look around. Americans are getting fatter and lazier every day despite exhortation by the government and news media about the bad health effects of bad diet and lack of exercise. Of course, on the other hand, a good percentage of advertising is for fast food restaurants, luxury automobiles, labor saving devices, sweets, and alcoholic beverages. Video games, computers, high-definition television keep us sitting for hours in front of a cathode-ray-tube.

Greed is the essence of the American way. No matter how wealthy and materially well offwe are we want more. We're the richest nation in the world, yet we begrudge sharing any of our wealth with people of other countries. People cheat, steal and perform any sort of immoral, dangerous or disgusting act for money. Look at some of our popular television shows, The Apprentice, Fear Factor, The Price is Right, are all based on the premise that people will do anything for money. Las Vegas, state lotteries, and church bingo depend on people's greed to prosper.

Finally, there is lust. Again we're encouraged by advertising, television and movies to lust. Sex exploitation is everywhere in our society. The advertising man knows that "Sex sells." 

There you have it. As you can see, we love our deadly sins. Perhaps, instead of "God Bless America," the motto should be changed to "Satan Loves Americans."