Issue 97 新版“七宗罪”

Now have you sinned since our last broadcast? The Catholic church is worried people aren't taking sins seriously enough. So the Vatican has decided¹ to update its list of the seven deadly sins. But whereas the focus of the traditional sins--LUST, GREED, SLOTH², WROTH, ENVY, PRIDE, and GLUTTONY is individual, those which we concite today is seen as the hellfire or more social in nature.

In the days when the artist Hieronymus  Bosch gave us his view of the sins they said the earth was flat. Now the Vatican says its new sins will take into account the aftereffects of globalization. New sins on the block could be Abusing drugs or selling them to others, Genetic³ manipulation such as embryo⁴ research which the Vatican opposes, Morally dubious⁵ experiments think Dolly the sheep, Polluting the environment, Creating social inequalities and social injustice⁶, Causing poverty and which some would say goes with it, Accumulating excessive wealth. Wealth, something the church itself has been known to do.

A part of the impetus⁷ for the change is a recent survey that said that 60% of Italian Catholics did not go to confession⁸, but the Vatican stresses that it's not doing away with the old sins just reinterpreting them in a modern context. You're too obsessed⁹ with the sin of sex; it seems that you can only sin sexually. But instead there're many other sins or perhaps much more grave that don't have anything to do with sex, they have to do with life, they have to do with the environment, they have to do with justice. So that's what the Vatican thinks, but what do you think our modern sins should be? Binge drinking, using your mobile while driving, putting the recycling in the wrong box. To send us your suggestions, go to our website channel4.com/news.

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 sloth   

n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散

参考例句：

• Absence of competition makes for sloth.没有竞争会导致懒惰。
• The sloth spends most of its time hanging upside down from the branches.大部分时间里树懒都是倒挂在树枝上。

3 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

4 embryo   

n.胚胎，萌芽的事物

参考例句：

• They are engaging in an embryo research.他们正在进行一项胚胎研究。
• The project was barely in embryo.该计划只是个雏形。

5 dubious   

adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• What he said yesterday was dubious.他昨天说的话很含糊。
• He uses some dubious shifts to get money.他用一些可疑的手段去赚钱。

6 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

7 impetus   

n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力

参考例句：

• This is the primary impetus behind the economic recovery.这是促使经济复苏的主要动力。
• Her speech gave an impetus to my ideas.她的讲话激发了我的思绪。

8 confession   

n.自白，供认，承认

参考例句：

• Her confession was simply tantamount to a casual explanation.她的自白简直等于一篇即席说明。
• The police used torture to extort a confession from him.警察对他用刑逼供。

9 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。