Editing Sloth (deadly sin) (section)

=== Others ===
Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do, though the understanding of the sin in antiquity was that this laziness or lack of work was simply a symptom of the vice of apathy or indifference, particularly an apathy or boredom with God.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/lazy-busy|title=Lazy Busy|date=4 March 2015}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=April 2017}} Concurrently, this apathy can be seen as an inadequate amount of love.<ref name=":1" />

Emotionally and cognitively, the evil of ''acedia'' finds expression in a lack of any feeling for the world, for the people in it, or for the self. ''Acedia'' takes form as an alienation of the sentient self first from the world and then from itself. Although the most profound versions of this condition are found in a withdrawal from all forms of participation in or care for others or oneself, a lesser but more noisome element was also noted by theologians. From ''tristitia'', asserted Gregory the Great, "there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair..." [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], too, dealt with this attribute of ''acedia'', counting the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence, idleness, tardiness, negligence, indolence, and ''wrawnesse'', the last variously translated as "anger" or better as "peevishness". For Chaucer, human's sin consists of languishing and holding back, refusing to undertake works of goodness because, he/she tells him/her self, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer. ''Acedia''  in Chaucer's view is thus the enemy of every source and motive for work.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil|last=Lyman|first=Stanford|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=1989|isbn=9780930390815|pages=6–7}}</ref>

Sloth not only subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions but also slows down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders man in his righteous undertakings and becomes a path to ruin.<ref name=":4" />

According to [[Peter Binsfeld]]'s ''Binsfeld's Classification of Demons'', [[Belphegor]] is the chief demon of the sin Sloth.<ref>Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology, By Rosemary Guiley, p. 28–29, Facts on File, 2009.</ref>

Christian author and Clinical Psychologist Dr. William Backus has pointed out the similarities between sloth and depression.  "Depression involves aversion to effort, and the moral danger of sloth lies in this characteristic. The work involved in exercising one's will to make moral and spiritual decisions seems particularly undesirable and demanding. Thus the slothful person drifts along in habits of sin, convinced that he has no willpower and aided in this claim by those who persist in seeking only biological and environmental causes and medical remedies for sloth."<ref>{{Cite book|title=What Your Counselor Never Told You|last=Backus|first=Dr. William|publisher=Bethany House|year=2000|pages=147–148}}</ref>