In the first nine of the thirteen Confessions books, Augustine describes his life conversion to Christianity. Augustine was born in Thagaste (modern South Ahras, Algeria,) the son of Patricius, a man of pagan belief and Monica, of Christian faith. In Augustine’s confessions to God, he admits all the sins that he committed during his youth before his conversion to Christianity. One of his regrets that made him feel guilty was the stealing of a pear from a tree for no reason because he was not hungry. It was just to show his bravery as a youth in front of his friends. He believed it was awful. Furthermore, Augustine believed that sex was a psychological necessity, as he struggled with the idea of giving up his sexual desires since he was surrounded by mistresses and friends. At some point, Augustine believed that we are sinners from the day we are born, and everything that we do wrong in life is a sin.
3 thoughts on “Augustine”
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it is one of popular reasons why people hate religion.
No one is born with their will but religion stigmatize us as sinners from the day we born.
However, there are religion benefit such as Augustine’s view on time, which comes from bible, on time.
He says that the past and future only exist internally, so focus on the present. Seize the day.
I do not agree that this is the reason why people hate religion. The beliefs of the people come basically as inheritance, if the grandparents are Christians, the parents are also and thus educate their children. There are so many religions in the world and its us who do not understand them and we misuse them. Some beliefs are drastic as in this case Augustine who believed that sex was inappropriate, and it was not his fault, but he grew up with that belief. I believe that no one can be called part of any religion until they have the necessary knowledge and can choose what they want to believe in. The ancient times were more drastic and made people believe that if they did not follow certain rules they were sinners and God was going to punish them. However, now we all know what is good and bad and we are free to have a religion or not, and even tho we know all of that we still sinners.
From my personal example, I was born in a Catholic family and as a child, you don’t know religion is good or bad or which religion will be the best for you. You just follow the rules and traditions that you have been told like sex is forbidden and bad. We never spoke about sex at my home. I wished the priest in the church talk about St. Augustine and his sexual attractiveness. That he was faithful to God but at this same time he lived with a concubine who bore him a son. Augustine said that he was a slave of this sexual impulse. Augustine’s sexual impulses were a source of his emotional pain, which leads to the emphasis he places on his sexual sins. Even the first Pope St Peter, was a married man; many early popes had children. Around the twelve century, the Vatican implemented celibat as the biggest self -sacrifice for God and full concentration on the church. Pope Francis in an interview in 2017 with German magazine he mentioned he would be open to idea allowing a married man to be a priest.
As of today, I believe in technology, science, and the universe.