I have come to accept myself for what I am: human. I am not perfect. I am not immune to fate, but I am not automatically doomed for being alive.
Corey Taylor, Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good
Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues
Delving deeper into the dark and light of human nature after examining the Seven Social Sins, I thought we might slip further into the past to examine what bedevilments come to light. Here, I would like to draw attention to our current struggles with conflict of political ideologies, cultures, violence, crime, and most of all, our personal fall into the dark nature of human instinct.
Seven deadly sins came from Roman Catholic theology as the seven vices that lead to other sins and immoral behaviour. Pope Gregory I first documented the seven great sins of humanity in the 6th Century CE and St. Thomas Aquinas, also elaborated on the list in the 13th Century CE. I find it interesting that from the first acknowledgement by Pope Gregory I to Thomas Aquinas is roughly 700 years.
A lot of advancements were made in civilization in those 700 years and yet the same dark nature still existed and would soon get much worse in the 14th to the 19th Century CE. What does this say about human nature? Yet in this same period, Western Civilization experienced a phenomenal awakening in the Age of Discovery, Renaissance, Age of Reason, and the Romantic period where the concept of personal liberty and freedom emerged in Germany and codified in the American Bill of Rights and Constitution.
Today we are still struggling with the internal conflict of virtue and selfish choice. The seven sins are a part of everyday life and seven virtues still hold on to those who partake of the light of human endeavors roughy 1,400 years later.
The Seven Deadly Sins are:
(1) vainglory, or pride,
(2) greed, or covetousness,
(3) lust, or inordinate or illicit sexual desire,
(4) envy,
(5) gluttony, which is usually understood to include drunkenness or drug use,
(6) wrath, or anger
(7) sloth which is simple laziness or a desire to avoid a necessary effort.
Overcome each of the seven deadly sins with the seven heavenly virtues of:
(1) humility,
(2) charity,
(3) chastity,
(4) gratitude,
(5) temperance,
(6) patience, and
(7) diligence.
The seven deadly sins were thought to lead people toward more dark behaviors and separation from God. As an example, lust led to adultry, which destroyed trust and love often becoming an indelible mark on the person wronged and any children victimized by an errant parent. Such an act could have cascading consequences.
The deadly sins were a popular theme in the morality plays, literature, and art of the Middle Ages in Europe. This was a means to mirror to all who would see, that the choices we make can lead us to darkness or love and joy.
As with everything that exists in the known universe, there is a Yin and Yang, a dark and light, a shadow and exaltation. The dark force is our nature, we are driven to it with subconscious thoughts that become conscious acts. The counter to darkness is a conscious effort to follow the light of life.
We can and must choose to counter the personal and social sins, to live in the moment with positive virtues. We can be an example that leaves permanent impressions for good or bad. We only need to choose and do, knowing that the way of the light is still difficult but infinitely better for ourselves and the world we will ultimately leave behind.
Hyperion Sky 
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