The Seven Deadly Sins: Greed

Clipart from clker.com

We see examples of greed all around us. Some people aren't satisfied no matter how much wealth they accumulate. Their greed is never satisfied. Sports figures that want more money as if they don't make a lot of legal tender. Corporations going out of the country because of lower wages and no benefits for the employees.

Fast food corporations have subtly increased their profits by offering what? More. Supersize! Encouraging people to eat more unhealthy food. Of course, the companies increase their profits because it costs more than the normal size.

But gluttony is associated with greed in meaning too. So wanting to eat too much food each day is a form of greed. A form that all-you-can-eat and fast food restaurants have tapped into, weirdly, the greed on both sides feed each other.

It has become customary for stores to be open seven days a week. What's the point of that? Obviously, to make more money. Greed for money and lusting for power are tied together. People can be greedy for power.

Setting the business world aside, individuals can be greedy too. A person can envy what someone else has. That is a form of greed. Those greedy thoughts can be wrought by a poor or a rich person. One definition of greed is selfish lusting for something.

Having money isn't wrong. Greedily cheating people to get money and hurting people in any way to get it is wrong. Being stingy is wrong. Being envious of what another has is wrong. Greed is a sin.

Prosperity preaching involves greed. This preaching isn't biblical. God knows we need money in this world. He doesn't want it to be our god.

The Seven Deadly Sins, St John Cassian, Pope Gregory the Great, Geoffrey Chaucer

St. John Cassian (360-435) originally pinpointed the list of the seven deadly sins. Pope Gregory the Great (6th century) clarified the list and Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (14th century) familiarized the English public to the seven deadly sins concept.

 It is a core group of attitudes and actions that corrupt the spirit. These sins and others deaden the conscience to right and wrong, after practices them for a period of time.

The point is that one sin leads to another. This list can help someone look at himself and see what some of his ingrained sins are, so he can repent. The seven vices are seen as mortal sins by the Catholic Church. They are deadly because they entice to breaking the Ten Commandments and destroy the sanctifying grace in the individual.

The seven deadly sins are pride or vanity, envy, lust, anger, gluttony, and greed.

• Pride is the major one because you don't acknowledge God as the giver of life and talents.  It makes you think you're better than other people. So hurting people by lying, violence, cheating, stealing, being rude, being inconsiderate, insulting, and ignoring them is okay because you're better than they are, and they don't understand.
• Envy or jealousy is wanting what others have and resenting their accomplishments, material or spiritual situation.
• Lust is treating and thinking of people as sex objects, wanting sex with them outside of marriage or the inordinate desire for food, money, or power. Lust initially meant desire for something.
• Anger is wrong when you want revenge. Impatience is akin to anger.
• Greed or avarice is the inordinate desire for things, putting things before loving people.
• Sloth is just plain laziness, avoiding work, related to procrastination, it can be spiritual or physical laziness.

Gluttony was covered in another article.

Gluttony