I thought that this was an interesting factoid, considering Nic just wrote his top 5 things you may not know about Australia (and he’s still there, in Australia). Well, Nic – here’s one more! In a study of 35 countries, British researchers concluded that Australians come up as the most likely to commit one of the Bible’s seven deadly sins.

As a recap, the seven deadly sins are:

1. Lust: Excessive sexual thoughts or desires, or as Aristotle said, “Excessive love of others.” Yeesh. Gay people are doomed.
2. Gluttony: Described as the over-indulgence & over-consumption of anything to the point of being wasteful. Supersize it!
3. Greed: The excessive desire & pursuit of wealth, status, and power. Reminds me of Party Monster’s “Money, Success, Fame, Glamour.”
4. Sloth: Failure to use your gifts, or simply put, being lazy and indifferent. Get off your ass, sinner!
5. Wrath: Described as uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. Also includes vengeance, Dante describes as”love of justice perverted to revenge and spite”.
6. Envy: Resenting people for having something you feel you do not. If you were to go to purgatory for this, your eyes get sewn shut with wire. Eww! What is the punishment for sewing someone’s eye shut with wire!?
7. Pride: It’s considered to be the worse of them all, because it can lead to the other sins as well. It’s the desire to be more important or better looking than others and being totally self absorbed or conceited. Fewf – thank goodness it’s not Gay Pride.

The findings were published in the February edition of Focus (a UK magazine produced by the BBC). The findings claim that Australians rank 1st for envy and 3rd for lust and gluttony.

They would measure sloth by seeing how many days off people took from work, etc. Sloth was the sin that Australians were least likely to commit, which is interesting considering how Nic said how slow everyone is there and how “not in a rush” they are.

James Cook University social demographer Dr Sue Bandaranaike stated that: “The US, Canada and Australia are the most obese countries in the world so when you see them finish in the gluttony section in that order, it’s no surprise.”

Here are the list toppers for each of the categories:

1. Lust: Korea
2. Gluttony: United States
3. Greed: Mexico
4. Sloth: Iceland
5. Wrath: South Africa
6. Envy: Australia
7. Pride: Iceland

Topping each of the sin categories were South Korea (lust), the US (gluttony), Mexico (greed), Iceland (sloth and pride), South Africa (wrath) and Australia (envy).

Well overall, the US and Canada are not far behind Australia. The final findings deemed Australians the most “sin-prone” (considering their placement in all categories), with people in the US, Canada, Finland and Spain next in line.

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