Should people be allowed to pursue what they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else or should we have acceptable limitations on what we should and shouldn't be 'allowed' to do in today's society?
Are the supposed 7 Deadly Sins really as corrupting as they're made out to be in certain sectors of society or should they be re-vamped now that what might once have been considered a 'vice' is now considered pretty normal behaviour?
Or is sinning, in fact, not what it's cracked up to be?
Here's a quick summary of what Dan was trying to say in his book 'Skipping Towards Gomorrah':
It seems the foundation of modern Western Culture is based on the American philosophy (well actually, Constitution) that everyone has the right to 'the freedom to pursue happiness' and yet it seems there are a large number of people who still consider this a problem.
All would be fine and dandy if the ones who considered certain activities downright sinful were content to avoid those activities but recognise the right of their fellow human beings to do the same.
But it seems that the self-appointed 'virtuous' citizens of the world ie those that believe that their way is the right way, are determined to shove their own virtues down everyone else's throats and prove that the pursuit of happiness by those less 'virtuous' than themselves shouldn't be allowed and shouldn't therefore take place legally!
Those virtuecrats the good people trying to do good, because "who can argue with good" frame the debate as virtue versus sin and not laws versus freedom. So, for example, while tens of millions of people are forced to listen to people going off about the immorality and dangers of smoking dope, unbiased researchers have been documenting for ages that marijuana is harmless, less addictive than caffeine and less harmful than alcohol.
No-one it seems in mainstream media will risk saying anything truthful about this for fear of critics accusing them of sending the 'wrong message' and as Dan says "since when is telling the truth the wrong message!"
Everyone should really be free to define 'happiness' for themselves and guess what some of us find happiness in pursuits that others don't agree with.
For some happiness is derived from things that have been labelled virtuous and hence are praised for their actions. For others meanwhile, the things that make them happy are labelled sinful and are condemned.
But if they are not hurting anyone, is their pursuit any less virtuous than the others?
Just because one element of society have to make certain things illegal to basically stop themselves from indulging because they 'really' would like to but just can't bring themselves round to accepting that they do, doesn't mean that those of us who enjoy our pornography, our open relationships, our prostitutes, our marijuana or whatever it is we enjoy in our own time without any conflict, should have to go without to protect them from themselves.
As Dan says, "Rap versus show tunes, monogamy versus variety, pot versus Bud Light different things make people happy."
It's SO simple and yet why do so many people have a problem with it?
'Society' should not just mean 'me and everyone who agrees with me'.
Here then are the '7 Deadly Sins' that are supposedly fatal to our spiritual progress and yet which we probably commit on a daily basis without thinking about the eternal damnation we are letting ourselves in for.
