Step 6: You and Dante

Has this exercise made you think again about your view of ‘sin’?

Would you change your choice of worst sin?

Has it made you rethink or has it confirmed your reasons for your choice?

What difference has looking at Dante’s organization of Hell made to your thinking about sin and evil?


7 thoughts on "Step 6: You and Dante"

  • Peter Lomas
    Peter Lomas
    Saturday 20 February 2016, 12.31am

    Dishonesty not mentioned? Ma devo andare a leggere Dante!

    Reply
  • CPS
    CPS
    Wednesday 23 September 2015, 7.43pm

    It's made me see that for some people, impulsive sins are taken more lightly than premeditated ones. It hasn't changed my choice because I see sins in terms of the damage they can cause, rather than the intent alone (not very fair, I know: if I were to look at this from a punishment perspective, I would definitely agree more with Dante's order).

    Reply
  • JoAnn Carbery
    JoAnn Carbery
    Tuesday 21 August 2012, 1.36pm

    I will stand by extremism but to be truthful I do not believe in the concept of sin; I do not believe in original sin; Dante as a follower of Augustine and Aquinas does. I am with Pelagius on original sin. Dante, Augustine and Aquinas are heros of my youth but alas we disagree on original sin

    Reply
  • P. Brandt
    P. Brandt
    Tuesday 24 April 2012, 5.39am

    like the prior posters, i found this an interesting exercise but not something which fundamentally changed my mind. Perhaps has a person of faith, i have dwelt too long on sin, but then again, to dwell on the problem in Christianity is also to dwell upon the solution, and to magnify the problem is also to magnify the solution. Dante's efforts to offer a critique to his current society remain somewhat timeless. Sinners really have not changed that much in the past 700 years or 7000 for that matter.

    Reply
  • John Anthony Duignan
    John Anthony Duignan
    Sunday 22 April 2012, 4.08pm

    I rejected the religious world view some six years ago. At that time there was a lot of anger and pent up frustration about so many aspects of religious thought, self-justification and practice that I found it impossible to look at the subject in a rational way. Today that is different, I still consider religion to be a regressive and negative force yet I do see aspects that have great merit, two thousand years of thinking men cannot all be wasted, surely. Mind you, the thinkers were in main all men, and that could well be the nub of the problem. I do not see any reason to change my choice. I maintain that it is quitessential to so many of todays and yesterdays sociological and psychological issues. But it would not resolved through religious contemplation, rather through appropriate therapies.

    Reply
    • Peter Lomas
      Peter Lomas
      Saturday 20 February 2016, 12.47am

      John, I think that religion and ontology need to be considered, both. As we can't be sure of the existence of "God", it's not rational to decide matters of religion on judgments of morality alone. Simone Weil argued that God created the universe and human beings out of love, not out of need; in order to have a relationship with us; as love is expansive and outgoing, not measuring its own fact. God suffers because we have failed to understand this, and to reciprocate; but to intervene reprovingly, or correctively (even against genocide) is to deny the free will granted to us. Why doesn't God intervene to prevent natural disasters? Because they happen as part of the laws of nature in the autonomous universe God created. Science is true in its explanation of natural facts as naturally 'caused', i.e. independent of God's will.

      Reply
  • Rossella Riccobono
    Rossella Riccobono
    Friday 20 April 2012, 12.36pm

    no, I stay clear with my choice. Apathy can also be connected to betrayal (to family or friends) ... when you do not assume your responsibility and let 'sin' in our modern way act without doing anything about it.

    Reply

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