Body hair, Art, Altruism, Adolescence, Picking your nose, Superstition, Dreaming, Kissing, Laughter and Blushing. The Telegraph reports that these are, according to New Scientist magazine, the aspects of human behaviour which science cannot answer. But are these the only mysteries of the human condition that science fails to answer? No! Join me, Laurence England, as I take you through the heights and the depths of humanity according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a reference guide to Divine Truth revealed by Almighty God to His Holy Church. Mysteries of our condition unexplained by scientists, then, include the seven deadly sins and their opposite virtues.
1. Other species in the animal kingdom do not suffer the sin of Pride. Even the lion, the strongman of the jungle, while striding majestically through his domain, does not go around saying, "Everybody! Check out my style and fear me because I could eat you at any time. Check out my coat and my massive paws. Basically, all you other animals are pretty lame compared to me, and come to think of it, I'm probably one of the best lions in this jungle, even if I do say so myself. Really, I should have been a model." Whereas human beings are prone to self-love and self-adoration, which leads to man looking down on his fellow man, losing sight of his true status as a child of God. Sure, animals eat other animals for food or even sport, but where, for example, in the animal kingdom other than in man, do we find narcissistic leaders of dangerous sects and ideologies who say to the other animals, "Look! I'm fantastic! Follow me and I'll lead you into a land of milk and honey!", in order to be receieved rapturously by their followers, only then to organise the gassing of millions of their animal brothers and sisters in concentration camps. Can science explain the apocalyptic madness of eugenics? Hmm...perhaps, in a way it does, but do we like the answers?
2. Envy. Do other animals covet each others stuff? Really? Given that other animals do not tend to hoard stuff anyway, as their only possessions are their coats or shells or whatever keeps them warm, or maybe a tree to live in, it appears unlikely. While we may think to ourselves, "That David Beckham's got it all. He's got so much money he could fund St Mary Magdalen's Building Restoration Fund several hundred thousand times over and still have change to feed an entire African nation and still take his wife to The Dorchester," yet other species don't think along these lines at all. We may think, "He's got the kind of body of which we can only dream. He even looks good in y-fronts and he can score a breathtaking goal from the half-way line," but this kind of envy appears not to be a condition of the animal kingdom as a whole. But then, hey, neither does gross inequality of wealth and resources. Basically, other species do not have to read Caritas in Veritate.
3. Do other species suffer the sin of Wrath or Anger? I'm not convinced. Even if a zebra gets back to his lady zebra late one night and she's been at it with another zebra, a perhaps unlikely event given that faithfulness seems more common in the rest of the animal kingdom than in humans today, does he challenge the other male zebra to a dual or tear him limb from limb in a fit of rage? Do animals act out of Anger or are they just doing what animals do? Can they be blamed for killing? It appears they cannot. Mostly killing in the animal kingdom is fodder fetching. Yet we, suffering the sting and stain of Original Sin are culpable and can be guilty of the sin of Wrath, and, should we nurse grievances against Gordon Brown for being useless, and against Lord Mandelson for his Machievellian 'waiting in the wings' political predator behaviour, which result in us constantly belittling them, mocking them and sending them dead kittens in the post, out of Wrath for Labour's dreadful economic stewardship and the shambolic state of the UK economy, then we, are we culpable for our sin? Yes...but then we are infinitely forgivable.
4. Some human invented money and what a bright spark that person was. "I'm going to invent money," he thought, "and by doing so I'll get absolutely minted." Of course, there were tribes who did not use money but shared as a community all the resources of the land, but they were uncivilised because they refused to use money...so we killed them. No other species in the animal kingdom uses any currency of any kind, so no other species suffers the sin of Avarice. Yet we do, and out of our greed we wish to acquire more money, so we can buy more stuff and are even willing to send men down dangerous mines just to get precious gems, the pursuit of which may kill them. But as long as we get the gems that's the main thing. Pandas do not seek any other commodity but bamboo and they are content to eat it. Clearly, they love bamboo and do not even ask their zookeepers for ketchup. They are not interested in fast cars, big houses, holidays in the Bahamas or even a bed from Dreams. If you asked a panda whether he would like any of these things he would probably say, "No. But do you have any bamboo, as there is still yet a chance I could run out. It's always nice to know there's some spare just in case." Yet we are obsessed with money and material possessions...Explain that scientific community! We are the only species which seek coffee machines and plasma TV screens, when instant coffee and the bulkier standard versions of TVs were already available.
5. Sloth. "Get a job you dole scrounger!" "Yeah! Get a job you layabout!" Ah sloth...Nice sin if you can get it. Are other species guilty of sloth? It seems the cat population do spend an awful long time just sleeping and soaking up the sun, maybe rolling around on the floor a little, eating some cat mint and going mental a while and then sleeping again, and that we can imitate this behaviour rather well. But are the cats culpable? No! That's what cats do and cats don't have to get a job, because there is no work for cats. Yet, even, for us, if unemployment is spiralling at a rate of knots, we feel like we really should get out of the house or do something productive, anything, because if we do not we feel a bit useless. How can it be, wonder the scientific community, that some people are vastly productive, imaginative, creative and invent new kinds of hoovers, the light bulb and a vast range of Virgin products, entirely from scratch, seemingly out of nothing, whereas others sit on their arses all day long, eating, drinking cider and getting ASBOs? Well, scientific community, you can run tests all you like but at the end of the day its another deadly sin and you'll never work out why it persists unless you accept the Doctrine of the Fall of Man.
6. Are other species suffer the sin of Gluttony? Not like us they not! They get what they can when they can. Other animals get what they need to survive. We can eat and eat and eat, enjoy a five course meal and then go down the pub and sink 10 pints and then still stumble home for a kebab. Do other animals fantasise about houmous, czech beer, Marlboro Lights, more houmous and midget gems? No! But I do! Because of our sin we take more than what we need for the journey and then some. When it comes to food animals are more likely to share out what they've found with the community. A tiger might maul a zebra, but then then she might call out to the rest of the community, "Look! I've only gone and got us a blinkin' zebra! Over here you ravenous tigers and get a piece of this!" The chances of either us, hotel and restaurant owners, waiters or anyone else taking the massive quantities of food not eaten in an evening and distributing it around the local homeless population is negligible to zero.
7. Lust. Ah, a biggie! Lust has driven men to kill others, kill themselves or write vast treatises on their sin and be made Doctors of the Church, telling all and sundry of their crimes and for their reward being made Bishops in Hippo. Lust drives men to sleep with men, women to sleep with women, men to sleep with women, women to sleep with men, men to sleep with animals and animals to wake up in the morning feeling sheepish. Lust breaks up families, creates adulterers, bigamists and leads men to waste their future children on internet sites with viruses attached to them. Now you can say that animals have lust, but they're just doing what animals do and not only that, they never go looking for condoms, they never contracept, they never watch footage of other animals doing it, refuse voyerism of any kind, and never or at least very rarely, kill their own out of an 'unintended pregnancy'. But then, hey, I guess we're more 'evolved' and 'progressive' than they are...Join me for Part II tomorrow when I'll take you through the Virtues, which too, are visible in us, the most complicated and mysteriuous species upon Earth!
Today is my Patron's feast day. Enjoy it!
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