last week, i posted “the new 10 commandments“, as re-written by a group of 100 european young adults as part of an mtv sticky study. (the mtv sticky report called youthtopia (a study of hopes and dreams). the study describes itself this way: “In the first-ever effort to understand the values, hopes and dreams of young people in Europe, MTV asked over 7,000 youths to imagine their ideal world and to consider brands as people and whether those ‘people’ would be welcome in their world –‘Youthtopia’.”) i thought these 10 commandments, while idealistic and likely not fully reflective of behavior (but, as i wrote in a comment, how reflective is our behavior of the biblical 10 commandments?) was both surprising, and encouraging. but not everyone in the comments agreed with that assessment.

another part of the study followed the same methodology, but focused on the seven deadly sins. in case you can’t remember the 7 original ones, they are:
1. pride
2. envy
3. gluttony
4. lust
5. anger
6. greed
7. sloth

a group of 100 european youth (young adults) were asked to collaboratively write a new list of the 7 deadly sins. realize, this was not a “christian” study, nor was the faith of the participants part of the selection process.

this list is interesting and telling. once again, i think this exercise would be very interesting to go through with a high school (or college-aged) youth group.

here’s the list the european youth came up with:
1. racism
2. dishonesty
3. bullying
4. greed
5. adultery
6. anger
7. envy

what’s your response to this one?