Anger. Lust. Greed. Envy. Gluttony. Pride. Sloth. These seven are traditionally called the Seven "Deadly" Sins. Why these seven were singled out among all the innumerable possible sins, I do not venture to say, except to suggest that perhaps it is because so many sins are at root merely different manifestations of these.
The so-called "Protestant Work Ethic" is the reaction against one form of sloth (that is, laziness). But that sort of physical sloth, pernicious as it is, is not nearly so widespread as the sloth of the mind. Mental sloth -- or, better, intellectual sloth -- is not only almost universal in the world; it is very nearly as pervasive in the chrches and even the pulpits, and, for that matter, in the supposedly rational opposition to religion.
Case in point: many people, both sceptics and Christians, have attempted to debunk Christmas by saying that the shepherds of Bethlehem could not have been in the fields on December 25, because of the weather. They generally say that winter is too cold for sheep or shepherds to be in the fields, and that therefore Jesus must have been born at some other time of the year (some sceptics will use this to deny He was ever born at all).
There is an easy way to verify these things. Just go to The Weather Channel at www.weather.com, enter the name of a city, and it will bring up the current weather in that city. At the moment I am writing this, it is 2:50 am in Jerusalem on December 25, 2008. The temperature there is 55 degrees Fahrenheit, with light rain. Jerusalem is 2445 feet above sea level; Bethlehem is 98 feet higher, at 2543 feet, and is 6 miles from Jerusalem. Will someone please explain to me why the shepherds of Bethlehem could not have been in the fields at Christmastime?
This is no fluke, either. My mother has a special place in her heart for Israel, so she has for the last six or seven years been monitoring the weather in Jerusalem on that same Weather Channel page. Mid-50s has been the average nighttime temperature in Jerusalem in late December, for that whole span of years. But don't take our word for it; monitor The Weather Channel and see for yourself.
But that's just it: people are lazy. Actually looking at the weather takes a bit of mental effort, and most people would rather just take someone's word for it. I fully expect that, until my dying day, I will continue to hear people state, as though it was a fact, that the shepherds of Bethlehem could not have been in the fields at Christmastime. They will say this because they heard it from someone, who heard it from someone, who heard it from someone -- none of whom, obviously, bothered actually to track the weather.
This may seem an unimportant detail -- one might argue, what does it matter whether or not Jesus was really born at Christmas? But of course, I merely used that as an example. If I may borrow a line of argument from the Creationists:
Many Creationists argue that, if we allow ourselves to doubt the Creation story in Genesis, we are opening ourselves up to doubt other parts of the Bible, too. After all, if one part is in doubt (they say), that casts doubt on the rest. To debate that point would be another article in itself; but for our purposes, we may apply it to the situation at hand:
If a preacher proclaims from the pulpit that the shepherds of Bethlehem could not have been in the fields in December -- which The Weather Channel reveals to be a fallacy -- what other fallacies is he foisting on the faithful? Can we really believe any of his messages? Conversely, if a sceptic attempts to debunk Christmas using this fallacy, what does that say about his general credibility? So intellectual sloth is a serious matter for both sides -- both for the faithful and the faithless.
The Apostle wrote, "Test everything. Hold onto the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Most people are too intellectually lazy to do this. So they just take people's word for this and that, and even repeat whatever they heard as though they knew it for a fact. I propose that this directive does not just mean check every doctrine against Scripture (although far too few people bother to do even that); rather, I contend it applies more broadly: test every statement of any kind against available facts. You may be surprised at just how much you "know" that ain't so.
