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GREED(Y)

Greed was "a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In Dante's, the avaracious penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. ("Avarice" is more of a blanket term that can describe many other examples of greedy behavior. These include disloyalty, deliberate betrayal, or treason, especially for personal gain, for example through bribery.)
No matter what the cause, though, greed is deservedly one of the seven deadly sins. My dictionary defines "avarice" as "greed for money and abnormal hatred of parting with it," but it's impossible for me to see greed as being limited to money. Greed pulls us away from other people, makes people want to avoid us, makes people feel bitter and angry towards us. Yes, there are those people who will feel compassionate, who will know that the greed's controlling us, and not the other way around, but those people are relatively few. And just because they feel compassion for us doesn't mean they want to be around us, for they know that there's always a chance that our greed will end up hurting them, too.