Prolific Use of Sin?

After reading just a few pages of St. Augustine's Confessions, St. Augustine's views of God and how God should be treated are very clear. The first line of his confessions comes out and says that God is great and should be praised. This, of course, is not all that controversial coming from a Catholic Saint. Soon after this though, St. Augustine begins to barrage the reader with many examples of sins and starts to write about how horrible sin is. Of course, very few people are going to argue that sin is good and that everyone should just being going around sinning 24/7, but at the same time it is a little bit annoying to hear about how every slight digression from the Godly life is like a slap in God's face. Everyone makes mistakes, and according to God should be forgiven. Like many people have pointed out, it is not really fair that every time something good happens to a person he or she is supposed to praise God but when a person does something wrong it is entirely their fault.

One example of the atrocities of sin that I found particularly bothersome was Augustine's story of his pear stealing. For its purpose, the story is actually pretty good. Like we discussed in class, it is a sin that many people can probably relate to committing. Because of this, it is a good "advertisement" tool. At the same time, it makes Augustine seem pretty annoying. He stole a pear for some fun, he didn't murder a town of people for the sole purpose of skinning the bodies and making human suits out of them. Like Cyndi Lauper says sometimes girls just want to have fun. Anyway, a little sin is good for everyone. According to Billy Joel, only the good die young.

Seriously though, I believe that leading a life that you can feel good about is very important. Doing the "right thing", whatever that might mean to a specific person in a specific situation is also important, but it is just stupid to condemn everything as a sin. I believe Augustine's work would be more effective if he focused more on the positive attributes of God and the benefits of living a life that God would approve of. Instead of guilting or scaring people into changing their religious beliefs, he should try to open their eyes to the good things that a life with God could bring them. For instance, I believe it would be more effective for Augustine to talk about how many good things came into his life after his conversion to christianity. These things may sound cheesy, but at least if people decide to convert it is because of a genuine want to have God in their life and not out of a fear of sin.