Step 5: Dante and You

Compare Dante’s plan and your choice.

A simplified outline of the sins punished in the nine circles in Dante's Hell, in descending order of seriousness.

Where is your worst sin in Dante’s scheme – is it there at all?

You might have to take into consideration categories that are more or less general, either yours or Dante’s.

Does Dante think your worst sin is less serious than you do? Why do you think that is?

Compare your reasons for your choice and the principles behind Dante’s organisation of Hell.

You can add your comments below.

7 Responses to Step 5: Dante and You

  1. Anonymous says:

    Pride is a manifestation of the greatest betrayal of the belief in God when it is based on that one is equal or greater than God.

  2. anonymous#2 says:

    Interesting that the 2 of us agree with Dante – again it seems the personal element is what’s important here. (Personal is political?)

  3. Anonymous says:

    Though extremism is not on the list, many of the sins in Dante’s categorization are extremes of emotions and actions, though this perhaps does not apply to Fraud and Betrayal. Essentially I agree with Dante on the point that reason is essential to human behaviour, and I would argue that this would prevent extremism in most cases. From my secular perspective, the offence against God in any of these cases is a non-issue, and would not affect my ranking in any way.

  4. JoAnn Carbery says:

    Extremism is not there but gluttony could be describe as extremism, as could anger, avarice, gluttony, lust and violence.

  5. gabriella delgado says:

    I believe Dante’s hell has this format and this sin order because he takes in consideration not only the sin itself but also its repercussions. Moreover, Dante might have created this order to punish people according to his personal dislikes.

  6. As an athiest I have no issue with heresy and I feel that anger is a healthy emotion that should be expressed. Fraud, violence and betrayal are utterly contemporary sins and cross boundaries of belief and non belief. I certainly look at the decending scale from a humanist perspective and were I hazard a reordering I would place averice at the very bottom, the real root to all evil you might say.

  7. I suppose that the sin I referred to (apathy) is a form of passive violence and also maybe punisheable in either Limbo (Celestine V) or in the 3rd last of the gironi.

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