If you have read any of my stories that Dave Uphoff so kindly published on his Minonktalk site, you can pretty well agree that I am a "somewhat" liberal person who loves nature and all its inhabitants including most people, except those who start wars. I also will admit that I am weary and leery of "big brother" government, and I firmly believe in Women's Rights. I try to attend church regularly, but I do have reservations about the many interpretations of the written Bible and the exclusivity of its content. I like to follow the Golden Rule by doing unto others, as I would have them treat me. This precept is shared by most religions in the world. A succinct explanation of this would be called, "the ethics of reciprocity".

The Christian biblical story about the apple, the snake, Adam and Eve prepare us for the "original sin". This was an overt act that defied God's will and has led to many additional acts of defiance to be included in the definition of evil, or transgressions of the divine law, or violations or religious or moral law, or JUST PLAIN SIN!!!!

The word SIN is the 21st letter of the Hebrew alphabet and ironically the 12th letter of the Arabic alphabet. In Scotland, SIN means Sun; SIN is the Akkadian name for the god of the Moon. The SIN word has its roots in Mathematics (sine). The movie "Star Wars" designates the bad guys as the SITH, or SIN. A most unusual use of the word SIN is by archery contestants when hearing the shouted word "SIN", that they had missed the target! SIN in the French language is "peche", in German it is "sunde", in Hebrew it is "chattah hattah", Spanish it is "pechod", Italian it is "peccato", and Swedish it is "sitt".

It would seem inevitable the early and succeeding scholars of the Bible would add several "rewrites" to the earlier versions of SIN. Some were called the "7 Deadly SINS". The numerical order and severity of these misgivings have no special ranking so I listed them thusly:

1- PRIDE, the opposite is humility, you know, "pride goeth before a fall". It is a SIN of disobedience.
2- GREED, or avarice. The cure is generosity
3- ENVY, if guilty, try love or just accepting who you are!
4- WRATH, This is a very "angry" sounding word, No?
5- LUST, known as concupiscence, perversion, and just a plain dirty word!
6- GLUTTONY, In 1987, the movie "Wall Street" starring Michael Douglas as "Gordon Gekko" and Charlie Sheen as "Bud Fox" who was told by Gordon that "Greed was good" or at least until you get caught!
7- SLOTH, complacency, indifference. I am over 75, retired and tired and have 2 easy chairs and No, I am not perfect!

Note, a recent poll listed LUST as the number one SIN with PRIDE and GLUTTONY as a distant 2nd and 3rd. Any wonder?

The music industry reads the polls too, and has a wealth of husky, busty, and lusty products for sale and listening to. Anyway, have you listened to: "Who's Sorry Now?" or "It's a SIN to say I'm sorry". Or who sang "It's a SIN to tell a lie?" do the names of Connie Francis, John Denver, Fats Waller, Slim Whitman, Billy Mathew, or Something Smith and the Red Heads, ring any bells? Which one may have worn "My SIN" perfume?

I found these lyrics to a song about SIN and thought they were appropriate:

"Now I look back on life, it's always with a sense of shame, I've always been the one to blame for everything I long to do, no matter when or where or who, has one thing in common too...it's , it's, it's, it's a SIN, it's a SIN."

Do you know what the "Wages of SIN" are??? In a word, DEATH!!! You could try reading and reciting "The SINNER’s Prayer". In broad terms it is about belief, baptism, and salvation. Check the Bible passages in the books of John and Romans.

If you need more SIN things, A Korean evangelist named Pastor Ock Soo Park describes the "don't SINNERS" as full of grace and love and the "do SINNERS" as wrathful, cursed and needing punishment. In Hinduism, The Laws of Man, he who SINS in mind, body, or act, shall be reborn into a lower caste.

I conclude with my final SIN word, "SIN City"! Don't confuse the 2005 movie "SIN CITY" opening in 2005 and with a rating of "R" and touting crooked cops, criminals, sordid corruption, sex and depravity with the "SIN CITY" located in Nevada, or Las Vegas for short. It is a fast growing oasis in the desert filled with pleasure domes tempting travelers and fun seekers who like in "Xanadu" wish to drink the milk of paradise thereby making the full circle of SIN, although I doubt that the pious "faithful" would consider Vegas a "Garden of Eden".