Join Charlie, a Christopagan Druid, and his husband, Brian, in this episode of Creations Paths as they dive into the impact of St. Augustine and his doctrine of original sin. They discuss Augustine's transformation of Christianity from a pacifist movement to one that justified violence, his teachings on original sin, and the misogynistic roots of blaming women for humanity's flaws. The episode questions the psychological harm these doctrines have caused.
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Charlie- New: Once upon a time, there was a man who could not control himself. He had all kinds of lustful thoughts, dirty thoughts. He liked to lie and cheat and steel and instead of looking inside and trying to figure out ways to make it better, he decided to blame everyone other than himself and said that it's a divine curse put on all mankind and it's not really his fault. And then convinced a large chunk of the world to agree with him.
Let's talk about Augustine. And the curse of original sin. On today's Creations Paths.
Intro.
Hello everyone. My name is Charlie and I am a Christopagen Druid who practices creations, virtuality, and. I'm joined as always by my wonderful husband, Brian.
[00:00:55] Brian - New: Hello.
[00:00:56] Charlie- New: I'm going to try to not go off on a rant. During this episode, though, I make new promises. Ahead of time, because today we're talking about Augustine and original sin because it is. Memorial day of St. Augustine when this episode is coming out I don't think anybody has done more harm. To either the Christian faith. Or the world. Then. St. Augustine. Who I do not think should be a Saint or a doctor of the church and should be a constant. Curse in our mouth. When we speak of him.
[00:01:30] Brian - New: Yeah, a very good reminder of things not to do. We could start with the parable. Jesus said about getting the mote out of your own eyes before helping your brother with theirs mote being it's a giant beam. It's that whole thing, I understand the urge to want to help a fellow human being. But sometimes you got to take care of your own stuff before you can do any good for anyone else.
[00:01:54] Charlie- New: You don't want to poke your brother's eye out.
[00:01:55] Brian - New: I like to picture that image, imagine a giant, six foot beam sticking out of your eye. And your fellow friend got an eyelash and they're trying to get out. Now imagine trying to help them get the eyelash out of their eye while you're swinging around this six foot. log sticking out of your face. That's Augustine. That's Augustine in a nutshell. Oh,
[00:02:14] Charlie- New: I don't want you to think that I'm overstating my case. When I say that he is one of the most harmful toxic people in history. Prior to Augustine Christianity was a pacifist movement. It rallied against the gladiatorial arenas. It are you against service in the legions?
It was in the vast majority of its instances. A pacifistic organization. Augustine. Created the doctrine of just war. Too. Give permission to the emperor. To do violence. He. Gave permission to the state. To punish and do horrible violence to its citizens. In the name of justice and truth. He is really the origin point. Have a lot of the. Worst. Tendencies of Western civilization that have trickled down to us today.
want to focus mainly on original sin today. Because, oh, it is a bag of awful. Tied up on top of itself.
For starters, it's important for anybody who is raised in Catholicism or in any of the descendant Protestant. Christianity's. To note. No one else in the world believes in original sin. The Orthodox do not hold to a doctrine of original sin. The Jews from which we descend, who wrote the story. That the idea is supposedly based on do not believe in original sin. This is an idea that was unique to Augustine.
[00:03:48] Brian - New: In addition to that. Jesus is very teachings. One of the parables. Jesus talks about. If your daddy just sour, grape. It doesn't sour your own mouth. Yeah. Instead of your teeth, it doesn't set your teeth at edge. In other words, this whole idea of this generational. Like the sin that's passed down from one to the other, the other, even Jesus refuted that concept.
[00:04:09] Charlie- New: The scriptures do this constantly where children are not responsible for the sins of their parents. Except for in the book of Joshua, which is a whole other bag of awful that we really should talk about reopening the Canon at some point. And maybe kick that genocidal piece of crap out of the book,
It is a constant refrain. That children are not responsible for the sins of their parents. So for Augustine to make this one exception. This is one exception. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Because he will say that that's true. But there's one mistake was so big. It shattered the cosmos. And it took the wisdom of August. And to see that. No one before him. Centuries of commentary. By the time he was writing, I believe we had the Babylonian Talmud had been written in the Jerusalem. Talmud was in process of being written. The Mishnah had been written, I believe by this point.
[00:05:03] Brian - New: The concept of age of accountability was already kind of there that whole philosophy, that whole like children. Our children until a certain point. Then they become aware, they become accountable for their actions. Their sins become accountable. And it always bothered me because logically, if you inherited a Senate birth by the very nature of existence, you have gained the sin. How can you not be accountable for sin and then suddenly magically it's there. It's either there, or it's not, you exist already. You either have it or you don't. So if it was originally there, then the age of accountability is not accurate.
[00:05:40] Charlie- New: For anybody who isn't aware of what original sin actually means. Let's do this in brief. Once upon a time, God made a garden. God put the world's most picky man into this garden. And said, you know, it's not good that you're alone. And paraded every living thing in the world, in front of this person.
Now it's important to note. Humankind already came into existence. So it's not like God's sitting back going. I don't know, goats, sheep. Horses. W w what do you want to marry? Like humans are being paraded in front of this man. And none of them are good enough for him. No one is good enough for this man. And so God. Knocks them out, puts them asleep, puls one of his ribs out in mix a woman. And Adams. In his narcissism. Looks at this woman, it says bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Instantly falls in love. Which is not, a good thing. Textbook narcissism. Textbook. Not just narcissism, but projection, like this is infatuation that will end. And so there they are living in their little garden, and God put in two trees. One of good and evil and the other. The tree of life. And he says, don't eat from the knowledge of the fruit of the tree of evil. Don't eat. It just don't eat it. And, uh, one day he was walking through the garden. And a snake who has legs. Says, Hey. Eat the apple. And she's like, oh, that sounds yummy. And she eats the apple. And then she's like, oh, this is yummy. And she takes it to her husband and she's like, Hey, eat the apple. And he's like, eat the apple. And they ate an apple and the rest of the universe has suffered ever since.
Yeah, I know I'm being a bit glib. But it is such a ridiculous idea that this one action. Cursed all humankind. Now it is a common mythic trope. This is Pandora's box, the one thing that cast people out of paradise, this is something that appears over and over and over again, and folklore and mythology throughout the world. And yes, this is the story of why we're not living in perfect paradise.
Yes. But it is not the story of why all evil comes into the world. This is an idea that originates with Augustine. you don't have to take my word for this August and wrote a book called the confessions. Where he tells all of his dirty laundry, because he got a couple of things, right. And that's get ahead of your bad press before other people can use it against you. And so he talks about his girlfriends is boyfriends and his side friends. And all of the people in between. And all of the dirty, evil, rotten deeds that he did.
It's always their fault. It's always their fault. He never did anything wrong. Well, he did do stuff wrong, but it wasn't his fault. They were there. And how could he not have sex with them? See the narcissism coming back in.
As he's trying to figure all of this out, as he is trying to figure out this new thing that he got converted to. It's important to remember. Augusten has the zeal of the convert. Augustine was raised a Manichaen. If you're not familiar with them Manichaeism, they are a. Offshoots sister, cousin, religion of Christianity that had a good run. Went through two, I believe 1,180. Had a good run. they were founded by a prophet named Manny who. Said that he was the paraklete the comforter that Jesus promised. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ. As a result of this and that he was the next Buddha.
Manichaeism is a whole interesting can of worms in and of itself. And not something we're going to spend a lot of time in here, but. Primarily, it was a dualistic faith where there is good and there is evil and they're kind of equal in power. And their version of the Eucharist of the Lord's supper. Is basically they would bring food to the elect in the community and the elect would eat it and they would make magic purity go into the world. It is a religion in and of itself you can see its connections to Christianity, but it veered off very quickly. From everything else. And so he was a member of the Manichaein church until he converted. To Christianity. Manichaeism is very obsessed with this idea of good and evil and kind of shares a lot in common with , Zoroastrianism.
In that there's an equal, evil and equal good force fighting over the world. But it adds to it. This idea that all material existence is evil. This is why Manichaeism, often gets lumped into this fake. world of Gnosticism. It's important to realize that is an 18th century term. That is something that, academics came up with too. Group of bunch of similar ideas together.
And the people at the time did not call themselves Gnostics. They would not have seen themselves. As necessarily related in any way, shape or form. But it's a. Class that we can use to understand this.
So since everything was evil, the whole point was. Purifying it in some way. And my contention is. He never left that idea behind. What is actually happening here is. He found the one thing in Manichaeism and he could hold on to that. All material existence is corrupt, corrupting an evil. And pulled it, kicking and screaming into Christianity while at the same time, writing polemics against Manichaeism and why it is bad.
That is my contention here, because it is a Manichaeism idea that invades Christianity for the first time and causes the greatest showdown in Christian history. That's the showdown between Augustine and a wonderful monk, probably from Ireland or at least from the islands up there. Named Pelagius. And if you've ever heard this word, it's probably in the term Palladian or semi Pelagian. Because eventually Pelagius is going to be condemned as a heretic because he had the unmitigated gall to read the scriptures and see that God created the universe. And it was good. And to read the Psalms and see that we are to ask the birds to sing to us the grace of God. Or listen to the wind for it, or, the grace can be found in nature. Ooh. Dirty dirty Pelagius and in fact, plagiarism gets lumped into a lot of things that police himself did not teach. In fact, we have his defense where he lays out his creed.
We actually have a creed written by pleagius. That he wrote as an explanation. For no, no, no. Y'all are just miscategorizing everything that I believe. Here's what I actually believe. And to me, it's an ultra conservative, overly traditional document that I do not agree with. A lot of the stuff that's in it. But. Let's see the here, no, there, these two got into this argument primarily over the fact that Pelagius. Thought original sin was ridiculous. And Augustine's response was. Nah, your hair's ridiculous. That's not a joke. It should be a joke. But he responded by saying, who's going to listen to the sky whose hair is cut in the Irish style and who talks to women. Yeah, he responded. Uh, your hair's ridiculous.
Which is strange. And women yuck. Yeah. And women yuck. Which, you know, I read your confessions through. Do you do not find women yucky? You. You liked all people of all shapes and sizes. And genders.
He and Pelagius get into an argument and he gets Pelagius brought up on charges. Because he wants to win this argument. I'm not the bad guy here. I don't have to do anything to control my urges. The world's broken. It's not me. It's every thing. This is the core of August in this doctrine. Is, I'm not the broken one here. The world is broken.
And so he gets Pelagius brought up on charges. Bishop here's the case finds Pelagius not guilty. Not a heretic and sends him on his way. He then goes through three Pope's. Bringing charges against the Pelagius until the third one kind of sticks. Cause it was kind of a friend of his.
I say kind of sticks. He wasn't really found to be a heretic. He was just told that he couldn't teach outside of the islands and just go back. And he did, and Pelagius in that wonderful Celtic way. Continued writing and releasing his writings under the name of Augustine. So that they could be. In continental Europe and yes, I love him for this.
But the whole crux of his argument. Is born out of this idea of I'm not responsible for my own actions. Then it gets deeper. ' cause eventually. He's being pushed to find out who's actually to blame. Because it sounds like he's blaming God. Like God is the reason why he couldn't keep his pants on. Well, I guess skirt down. I don't know. It's a different era. They wear different clothes, you know, the metaphor.
And so he's like, well, I can't blame God because God's perfect. I've already written an entire book about how God's perfect. So if God's perfect. He actually has an out the scripture says. God tells the prophet Isaiah. I created good. And I made evil.
He has an out. He could just point to the scripture of God saying I created good and I made evil and say, yes, it's God's fault. God made evil. It's God's fault that I can't keep my skirt tail down. But he doesn't say that.
He says it's all women's fault.
You see. The reason this is different is Jesus said, That the sin. Can't pass from a father to a son. He didn't say. It couldn't pass from my mother to her offspring. And so Eve was the one who sinned first. Cause you know, she listened to the talking snake. So Eve is the evil one here. And Eve is the one who brought evil into all of the world. And. All women. Kerry the sin of Eve. And pass it on to their children. Oh, uh, okay.
This is the rankest misogyny. That I can think of. It's one of the reasons why. The Catholic church ends up coming up with the idea of the immaculate conception because they have to remove. Original sin from Mary. So that Jesus can be born. And then Mary intervenes at Lords and is just like, no, you completely misunderstood this doctrine. And they didn't listen to her stuff, but. That's a whole other episode. When we talk about the immaculate conception. Or you can head over to https://www.creationspaths.com/ . I actually have a couple of articles on this there. I think I also have some stuff over it. https://wisdomscry.com .
Here we are. Defining original sin. As the reason the world is a horrible place. And putting the blame on not just a woman, but all women. All women. And that. That is just wrong.
That misunderstands the story. It completely misunderstands the story. In fundamental ways. In fact, there is great argument. Prior to this. And in some places afterwards, places that aren't tainted by original sin. As to what actually happened in the garden. And there is an argument. That the snake freed them from bondage. And let them actually go out and experience the world.
I'm not saying I agree with that or that, that is my personal beliefs. But I wanted to show you like there's a wide variety of bully understandings here. That they had to escape paradise. If they were going to have an actual life. And that the snake was actually a liberating force. And this goes back to, , this thing called gematria, which is Hebrew letters are numbers, and you can add them up. And the serpent.
Adds up to the same value as Mashiah, as Messiah. And somebody noticed that and started making this. Oh, maybe that was the first Messiah. That was the one who saved us from just. Being trapped in this place where we would basically live in endless doldrum because every day is the same. There are no challenges. There's nothing to do.
[00:17:47] Brian - New: Well, that's the thing. Ignorance is bliss. Bliss's numbing. Yeah. And I'm existence is not an existence. It also ties into the whole age of accountability. Concepts and stuff. Because this could be one of the first stories of coming to age of where you live in this existence. There's this blissful ignorant existence. As a child basically childlike. Everything has kind of provided for you. By the father. And then you take that, you hit that moment in your life.
When you suddenly start contemplating, what is good? What is evil? And you start gaining that knowledge of like, oh, this act is wrong. I shouldn't do it. And this act is right. I should do that. And then of course, once you've. Moved past that, then you also start. It's part of that growing up and you start realizing, there's a lot more work in life. Life has struggles. There is hardships.
[00:18:43] Charlie- New: That's how my great grandmother taught me the story. That this is a story about the loss of innocence. It's something that we all go through. That it's a common experience that when we're younger, we don't often see the struggles of our parents or understand the struggles of our parents or the world that we're living in. This moment of being expelled from Eden is whatever it is that intrudes on that innocence and lets you see the world as it is with all the struggle. In it. And that's how I learned the story originally. And so here we have August then. Of cursive memory.
Giving us a story that is not only entrenching this idea that everyone is broken.
Which does great psychological damage to people.
Entrenching this. Idea of misogyny that it's women's fault that we're all broken. So women must be controlled. And managed. And all of the other massage mystic ideas that flow out from that. But this also empowers August and. To give a carte blanche. Gift to the empire. That the empire as the, just sort of the Lord. Is it. Able capable and justified in using whatever force it once. To reign in the vile, evil inclinations of all people because women exist. And we're all broken.
And this trifecta. Has done so much damage. To the world. has caused so much suffering and you can actually link the idea of. American chattel slavery back to both the dogma of original sin. As well as a very weird. Reading of the sons of Noah. And the curse of ham. Which does rely heavily on this idea of original sin.
[00:20:40] Brian - New: Just from the psychological damage. That it does. It's that basic thing. If you tell somebody they're evil over and over again. Don't be surprised when they start doing evil things because. When you tell people they're a thing. They start to believe that they are that thing. And once they believe they're that thing they'll behave in the manner of that thing.
[00:21:00] Charlie- New: In more extreme versions of this in. Calvinism, for example, they believe in something called total depravity. Which is. Original sin on steroids. Total depravity says that human beings are. Literally incapable. Of ever doing anything good. No human action has ever been. Or ever will be good.
What. Again, supposedly from Christians. Who uses human families as an example, in a lot of historians, it says, and if you are evil, know how to do good for your children, how much more would your heavenly father? Do this. Yeah. And by the way, the word evil there is a sinful. In other words, you who wander get off the path. You're constantly going to stray. It's not this original sin idea of evil.
The greatest reputation of original sin to me is actually a question that was asked to Jesus. During his time. A great big tower collapsed. And killed a lot of people in the village of silo. And people came to him and said, Why did the tower kill all these people? And Jesus asked him. Basically call for mountains says you want me to say that it fell on them? Cause they were wicked. Because they were evil, they deserved it somehow. But no. The rainfalls on the wicked, as well as the, just sometimes bad things just happen. There is no op priori reason. There is no. Magical reason out of nowhere. That people deserve to have something horrible happened to them. Bad things just happen. And yes, some people can reap what they sow. But this is not that a tower randomly falling. It's not going to hit you on the head because you deserve it.
It's going to hit you on the head because you're there.
The reason this. Completely invalidates the idea of original sin. Is. Jesus says that we're to heal suffering, where to end. Poverty, where to end hunger would in thirst word. Be out there working to make people saliva better.
[00:23:07] Charlie- New: Which would be impossible if it was what they deserved. Because this world was just evil.
If the world is just evil, if original sin is right and you can see this in the prosperity gospel. Prosperity gospel really does get to this endpoint of. No people are poor because they deserve it. People are hungry because they deserve it. They're just not working hard enough. They're not trying hard enough. They're just wicked, evil, sinful people by nature.
And thus they're getting what they deserve. And that is a horrible. Way to view your fellow human beings, especially when it is our divine God given mission. To feed the hungry. Give water to the thirsty to visit those who were in prison. To take care of the refugee.
To heal the sick, like Jesus gives us a long list. Of things , visit those who are imprisoned if August in his right. And then everyone in prison deserves to be there and deserves what they get. But Aug in is wrong. Jesus said, so.
God created the universe and said it was all good. It was very good. He towed. It was all good. And what Augustine is missing here? Is the wisdom that we get from the book of Ecclesiastes.
It's something that's very easy to confuse. The world is good. It is ki tov, but also all of our efforts. Huvelle have Aleem. Huvelle Havoline. Hovel. Hi Cole. Everything is emptiness emptiness upon emptiness. How far literally means like the XL it's like breathing out is just.
Ah,
it's an empty breath. Everything is just, uh,
Because the meaning we get from our relationships, not from the things themselves.
But when we're looking for that, meaning. In the things themselves. And not in the relationships. Not in the communities, not in the world that we're building up together.
We can miss that point. And we leave people to suffer. And that leaving two people, leaving people to suffer is evil.
This is a fairly direct episode. But we need to really challenge this idea of original sin and realized that we were all created in original blessing. The world was created ki tov. It was all good.
I take a break there. And call this absurd now. Because I could go on and rail for hours and hours on this. So hopefully you learned something from this. If you did, please. Like. Share all of those things. If you're listening to us on a platform that lets you rate and review. Please rate and review. That helps us out more than you could possibly know.
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