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's biography better than miracles performed and extreme acts of abstinence.
That's not literalism. If you look in the bible you will find nothing about the healing properties of saints' corpses or nearly all of the superstitions you observe. These traditions are in fact examples of a paganized legacy.
I'll take your word for it, I have never read the entire Bible. It's typical of Eastern Orthodox Christianity to accept a much larger body of traditions than the Scriptures in what it considers "canon"; basically almost all the church activity during the Byzantine Empire (minus, majorly, the iconoclastic period), with a few pre-Schism Western influences. I get that Protestantism and its derivatives reject church tradition (?), while Catholicism has its own unique tradition, developed in parallel and on different lines than Orthodoxy. That's what paganization means, accepting non-Bible influences into a Christian religion? (Going by the name, I thought it meant including influences of polytheistic pre-Christian religions.)
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?