Going meta: just because we don't believe the myth that lighting is Jupiter's arrow, it does not mean we should doubt lighting is a real phenomenon. Just because we don't believe the mythical explanation behind Original Sin (i.e. Adam and Eve), it does not mean we should assume Original Sin is not a real phenomenon. Non-mythical Original Sin is largely the idea that human nature has factory bugs (see: biases) (probably due to not being evolved for a civilized life), that it manifests itself in being too vulnerable to temptations (see akrasia), that one common way it manifests is the three libidos (Augustine): desire for sex, power and money going beyond rational limits and becoming destructive, and yes Seven Deadlies is another manifestation.
The problem with discussing the utility of religious ideas for atheists in English is that apparently a lot of English speaking people were exposed to literalist, fundamentalist versions of religion and tend to assume it is all made up, instead of being just mythical explanations of perfectly real phenomena. In other words, English speaking people tend to assume actual experience, historical experience, historical testing of what works has no effect on religion when of course it does. Catholicism got paganized enough to be pragmatic, to focus on creating mystical explanations for real, actual, functional experiences and problems instead of making everything up from the ground up. The make everything up stuff largely began with Calvin and Protestantism because they took the Old Testament too seriously, which is way, way more made up than say Thomism. It was quite simply a regression towards a much earlier stage.
At any rate, this kind of psychology can possibly work. If we use our model a pre-Calvin Christianity which looks for mystical explanations for real problems, and the set of real problems and their properties it updates as historical experience demands to, when they no longer seem functional, then we can use it basically as a database of psychological experiences during the middle ages.
Interesting. Where would you put Eastern Orthodox Christianity? As it manifests in my country, it seems closer to literalism and fundamentalism than to any sort of theological sophistication. People's religious practices around holidays and such, especially in rural areas, get heavily mixed with magical and superstitious practices; old and sickly people form huge queues for the better part of a day, in hostile weather conditions, to worship and kiss encased saint corpses which they believe have magical healing properties; nothing "sells" a saint'...
So I was reading the list of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins and I was impressed with the list (seeing how many of these sins are what ultimately bring down many major historical figures). I also recognize how many of these sins were responsible for some of my major setbacks in life, and am thinking of creative ways to reduce their effects (by putting value on things that don't involve any of those sins).
I'm curious: to what extent do the "seven deadly sins" cover the most common reasons why people engage in self-defeating behavior? Are there any major omissions in the list of "seven deadly sins"? If you were to make a list of "X deadly sins", which sins would you include?
As examples: should excessive guilt be counted as a sin? Should stupidity be counted as a sin? What about being excessively "autistic"?
Which of the "Seven deadly sins" do you think are most applicable to LessWrong posters? To what extent are they responsible for akrasia?