Monday, October 1, 2012

Augustine is a tool.

No, seriously. St. Augustine drives me up a wall.

We're reading (or in my unfortunate case, rereading) the Confessions, and you can tell it's starting to get to me because my notes have moved from normal, factual notations to angrily scribbled blots interspersed by an increasing number of exclamation marks (eleventy!!!11) and I've started muttering things under my breath while I'm reading, like, "Oh, come on," and "You are not even serious, right? You cannot be serious, dude."

I don't understand how he gets away with massive, gaping loopholes in his logic and still gets to be one of the great theological minds of all time. Um, what about his whole moral relativism deal in Book III? He's all, "Oh, true, inward justice is separate from society's ideas about right and wrong, and things change over time--what was wrong or right in the Old Testament may not be wrong or right now. Oh, wait, except sodomy--that's always wrong because I think it's gross." Real mature, Augustine. Real mature. Are you five?

Or what about how he's all like, "I became a Christian and had to quit my job because of God! Because I wanted to sacrifice for God! Except also because I had a medical condition and it hurt to breathe. But mostly because of God!!!" Seriously? Seriously? Can't you just be honest and say that you quit because your ill health made it too difficult to teach? I think that's kind of a glaring coincidence there, buddy.

Ugh, he's just such a whiner. All the tears and the screaming and the tearing out of hair and the beating himself up--what a drama queen. Jesus died on the cross, and you know what? He didn't complain about it. He just f-ing did it. LIKE A BOSS.

I don't understand all Augustine's back-and-forth about being baptized. At the end there it's like he wants to be baptized and he considers himself a Christian and he believes the creed and loves God and completely rejects all that stuff in his past, and yet, he still can't convert, somehow. Because...he likes vagina too much, or something. Except he's totally willing to bang some married vagina, so I'm not sure why that's a big deal. Paul did say you could be a good Christian and still be married, right? So where's the big agonizing dilemma here? And way to totally dump your twelve-year-old virgin bride because you decided you couldn't love God AND a wife at the same time. I bet she totally understood how you found her mere presence to be a slutty, slutty impediment to your relationship with Jesus.

If Augustine were alive today, I don't think we'd be friends.

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