Why Sloths Are Bad

The sin of sloth is a bit deeper than laziness, and that subtlety is found in the thing that keeps us bound up: fear. Most of us probably do not understand the full difference of what it means to. As far as quality of life goes, you'd think a sloth has it made. About 10 hours of sleep (more in captivity), a diet of healthy greenery, a side of bark and a life in the trees source: Briggs. What could be so bad? Unfortunately, the sloth's low-key existence also leads to some complications.

World religions view sloth as more than simply lying on the couch for an entire afternoon. Though sloth today usually means physical laziness, in the original seven deadly sins, sloth was sadness, or depression. The word for sloth, acedia (from the Greek 'akedia,' or 'not to care') meant 'spiritual sloth.' In many religions, sloth is seen as inhibiting or preventing virtuous conduct. It is considered sinful or wrong because inaction, in both the spiritual and wordly realms, can be just as bad as wrong actions. Sloth does include being a couch potato, but it is also often interpreted as wasting precious time, not doing enough to help the world, and avoiding a rigorous spiritual journey.

Buddhism
In Buddhism, sloth and torpor are known as thina-middha, one of the five nívarana, or hindrances. These are the qualities that inhibit humans' ability to see the truth.

Why Sloths Are Bad For You

People who are unfamiliar with Buddhism might mistake meditation as a form of sloth, since it appears to be an idle activity. Instead, Buddhists believe meditation actually overcomes sloth and torpor. The concentration necessary for meditation is the opposite of sloth.

The Dhammapada uses the example of a lazy animal to warn against sloth. 'When torpid & over-fed, a sleepy-head lolling about like a stout hog, fattened on fodder: a dullard enters the womb over & over again (23:325).' Thus, a slothful life results in rebirth.

Christianity
Sloth and idleness are forbidden in Christianity. 'Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord,' says Romans 12:11. 'So that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises,' according to Hebrews 6:12.

The Gospel of Matthew's parable of a man who entrusts his servants with money is often interpreted as a warning against sloth. A master gives each of his three servants a certain amount of money. Two return more than they were given, while one buries the money and returns only the original amount. The Master denounces the servant for not doing anything to increase his wealth: 'You wicked, lazy slave,...at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest (Matthew 25:26-27 ).'

Catholicism condemns spiritual sloth (acedia) as not wanting to work or exert oneself for spiritual goods. It is considered a sin because slothful people refuse to expend the energy necessary for leading a virtuous life. St. Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as 'sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good.'

Orthodox Christians similarly view sloth as a spiritual idleness. This story from the Desert Fathers explains this view: 'A beginning monk, who went to a certain elder to confess, posed, among others, this question: 'Why, Father, do I fall so often into sloth?'

'You lack the faith which makes you see God everywhere; for this reason you can be careless and lazy about your salva-tion,' the discerning elder wisely explained.'

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also condemns sloth. The Mormon Doctrine & Covenant states, ' Set in order your houses; keep slothfulness and uncleanness far from you (90:18).'

Hinduism
Hindu philosophy urges Hindus to put effort into their lives. Human endeavor is seen as the opposite of sloth. Sloth is considered one of the five vighnas, troubles or obstacles. The Yogatattva Upanishad, one of the minor Upanishads, lists sloth among other obstacles, including grief, anger, greed, boastfulness, and bad company. Unless these obstacles are overcome, the text warns, a person may lead a life of despair.

The Maitri Upanishad, a later text than the classical Upanishads, explains that one cannot reach the ultimate realization by leading a life of sloth. 'When a man, having freed his mind from sloth, distraction, and vacillation, becomes as it were delivered from his mind, that is the highest point.'

Other Hindu texts back this theme up. The Tirukkural warns against sloth and laziness: 'Procrastination, forgetfulness, laziness and sleep--these four form the coveted ship which bears men to their destined ruin; Seldom do men possessed by sloth achieve anything special, even when supported by the earth's wealthy proprietors; The lazy ones, inept in noble exertion, invite sharp scoldings and must endure the shame of scornful words (61: 606-608).'

Islam
Several Hadith demonstrate the Muslim view of sloth. Abu Hurairah reported, 'Allah likes sneezing and dislikes yawning. When any one of you sneezes and says `Al-hamdu lillah (praise be to Allah)', it becomes obligatory upon every Muslim who hears him to respond with 'Yarhamuk-Allah (may Allah have mercy on you)'. Yawning is from the devil. When one of you feels like yawning, he should restrain it as much as possible, for the devil laughs when one of you yawns.' Yawning is seen as a sign of sloth.

The Hadith collection Muslim includes the saying 'O Allah! I seek refuge in You from worry and sorrow. I seek refuge in You from incapacity and sloth, from stinginess and cowardice, and I seek refuge in You from the burden of debt, and from being transgressed by men.'

Some Muslims consider Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, to be a time to discard slothful habits, since it is a period that tests both spiritual and physical endurance. Muslims fast during daylight hours during Ramadan, and it is also a special time set aside for worship and spiritual purification.

Judaism
Jewish tradition teaches that time should be highly valued, and Judaism sees sloth, and its expression in laziness or procrastination, as impinging on the value of time. Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, teaches Jews to treat time itself as holy, something that should not be wasted. Time is holy because there is so much to do in a very limited timeframe. The famous sage Rabbi Hillel is best known for asking, 'And if I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?,' thereby eschewing procrastination. Honoring time, avoiding procrastination, and performing tasks at the proper time are all seen in Judaism as ways of sanctifying life.

In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, Rabbi Tarfon says, 'The day is short, the task is great, the workers are lazy, and reward is great, and the Master of the house is insistent,' which commentators have interpreted as a warning not to waste time. The Proverbs also warn against wasting time and being slothful: 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise; Which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her bread in the summer, and gatherest her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 'Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep'-- So shall thy poverty come as a runner, and thy want as an armed man. (Proverbs 6:6-11).'

Why Sloths Are Bad

A two-toed sloth transits a plantation in northeastern Costa Rica using a cable ordinarily used to move cacao. A team of UW–Madison scientists recently found why sloths are such deliberate, slow-moving animals. Zach Peery

Although most of the terrestrial world is covered in trees, there are precious few vertebrates that make the canopy their home and subsist solely on a diet of leaves.

Tree sloths are among the most emblematic tree-dwelling mammals. However, they are best known for their pokey demeanor rather than the fact that they spend the majority of their lives in trees munching leaves. But the slow motion lifestyle of tree sloths, according to a new study, is the direct result of the animal’s adaption to its arboreal niche.

“Among vertebrates, this is the rarest of lifestyles,” says Jonathan Pauli, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of forest and wildlife ecology and the senior author of a report to appear in the August 2016 edition of the American Naturalist. “When you picture animals that live off plant leaves, they are almost all big — things like moose, elk and deer. What’s super interesting about arboreal folivores is that they can’t be big.”

Pauli and Wisconsin colleagues M. Zachariah Peery, Emily Fountain and William Karasov set out to measure the energetics of wild two- and three-toed sloths at a field site in in northeastern Costa Rica. The purpose of the study, Pauli says, was to help explain why arboreal folivores are indeed so rare and why more animals have not evolved to take advantage of a widespread ecological niche.

A baby three-toed sloth, part of ongoing studies of the animals at a site in northeastern Costa Rica. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison have published a new report on sloth energetics, helping explain why sloths live a slow-motion lifestyle. Zach Peery

“Most of the world is forested, but the energetic constraints of a leafy diet seem to prevent adaptive radiation,” Pauli notes, referencing the canon of evolutionary biology that helps explain the diversity of life on our planet: As organisms evolve and “radiate” from an ancestral group, they take on a variety of specialized forms that enable them to live a certain lifestyle or occupy a particular niche.

The evolutionary logic of living in trees on a diet solely of leaves, it seems, is less than robust.

“Think about it,” says Pauli. “The food sucks. It’s only plant leaves. You have to exploit a very constrained niche.”

To do so, tree sloths require specialized limb adaption, reduced body mass, a slow metabolic rate and claws that act like fulcrums — hooks to accommodate the animals’ need to hang in and traverse the treetops.

“This study explains why eating leaves in the canopies of trees leads to life in the slow lane, why fast-moving animals like birds tend not to eat leaves, and why animals like deer that eat a lot of leaves tend to be big and live on the ground,” says Doug Levey, program director in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

The Wisconsin group, which began the NSF-supported study in 2009, used isotopically labeled water to measure the daily energy expenditure of both two- and three-toed sloths, animals that coexist in the tropical forest canopies of Central and South America.

“It takes a suite of extraordinary adaptations to survive in forest canopies, and this may help explain the lack of species diversification among arboreal folivores.”

Jonathan Pauli

Astonishingly, three-toed sloths, which are more specialized to their environment, expend as little as 460 kilojoules of energy a day, the equivalent of burning a mere 110 calories — roughly the same number of calories found in a baked potato. It is the lowest measured energetic output for any mammal.

“The measurement was intended to find out what it cost the sloth to live over a day,” says Pauli, who explains that a diet of plant leaves has little nutritional value and the animal’s gut size limits it to small amounts per day, so the animals need to find ways to make the most of their skimpy diet. For sloths, that means expending minimal amounts of energy through a reduced metabolic rate, dramatic regulation of body temperature and navigating the world in slow motion.

Why Sloths Are Bad For You

The group then compared its results with similar studies of wild arboreal folivores from other corners of the globe. The take-home message, says Pauli, is that the more specialized the tree-dwelling animal, the lower the daily energy expenditure.

Why Are Sloths Bad Pets

“The findings reinforce the concept that arboreal folivores are tightly constrained by nutritional energetics,” Pauli notes. “It takes a suite of extraordinary adaptations to survive in forest canopies, and this may help explain the lack of species diversification among arboreal folivores.”

Why Sloths Are Bad Vibes

Tags: Costa Rica, evolution, forest & wildlife ecology, sloths