The seven deadly sins — anger, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride, lust and greed — are out of date and should include cruelty, adultery and bigotry, the results of an opinion poll suggest.
Greed is the only one of the seven that should remain a sin in today’s Britain, according to the poll by the Mori organisation for BBC television’s Heaven and Earth programme.
Cruelty was ranked the worst sin by 39% of respondents, followed by adultery (11%), bigotry (8%), dishonesty (7%), hypocrisy (6%), greed (6%) and selfishness (5%).
“Attitudes towards sin have changed. We’re less concerned with the seven deadly sins and more concerned with actions that hurt others,” said Ross Kelly, presenter of Heaven and Earth, a religion and ethics programme.
Of the 1 001 adults interviewed, only 9% said they had not committed any of the sins.
Seventy-nine percent said they were guilty of anger — while 41% of men and 26% of women said lust was the sin they “most enjoy committing”. — AFP