Augustine's Views On Suffering

In Augustine’s Confessions, he confesses many things of which we are all guilty; the greatest of which is his sadness of not having a relationship with God earlier in his life. He expressed to us that to neglect a relationship with God is far worse than the pity he felt for Dido. In reviewing his life, he had come to examine life and how there are temptations in this world that can keep us distracted. He tells to us how he became aware of this fact; everything is negligible except love for God, and his own guilt at not having found this truth sooner.

Reading this essay has caused me to do more research on this specific topic and the things I have found are disturbing. Video games change your mind set, your way of thinking and can affect you for the rest of your life, so when it comes to the violent video games we are turning into a more violent society. It has been studied that playing video games can affect your dreams, and your dreams affect how you feel and treat people, it’s a never ending circle. Through playing video games we are spending less and less time with one another and I think it’s a crying shame. We as a society are naturally social people and the fact that with our recent technology we have become more and more independent.

At a younger and earlier stage of his life, St. Augustine felt abandoned in some way by God and found no strong connection to a higher being as he developed into a materialist who could only grasp tangible concepts. Little did he see in his life that God was with him through his trials and tribulations as a man on a journey who fell into a life of sin through lust and stealing. Augustine writes, “But in my misery seethed and followed the driving force of my impulses, abandoning you. I exceeded all the bounds set by your law, and did not escape your chastisement-indeed no moral can do so” (Confessions 2:4 p. 25). This driving force was God’s providence. Augustine was spending time in sin, God was punishing him with a sense of emptiness that could not be filled. By turning to such pleasures, he turned away from God and needed such illicit things to realize that he needs a sense of something more in his life. He states, “Before you I lay my heart and my memory. At that time you were dealing with me in your hidden

Augustine concluded his theory with a reminder of God’s grace: if God was simply just, everyone would go to their rightful punishment in Hell. Through His grace, however, God sent His son to die on the cross so that some might be saved and go to Heaven. This shows that God is merciful as well as just.

Augustine was eminent by Platonism and declared that there is one God and that God was and is the wellspring of all Happiness because of His perfect adoration. In this manner, anything that needs to do with our ethics cognizant is at last God and we ought to uninhibitedly need to take after our cognizant as it is divine law Augustine sees awareness as God is letting us know what is correct and what isn't right, he is our witness and the voice of God ought not be addressed, but rather it is our human senses that permit us to second figure our nature and conflict with God's arrangement and this prompts is the reason we encounter a despondent life we see as insufficient. My Argument is that if God is the voice of our awareness and our cognizant

Throughout his Confessions, Augustine's view of humans--our essential nature has interesting differences from the way in which others, in different time periods and in different civilizations, have seen humans.

During Augustine’s adolescence, all of his friendships were based off of utility because they were all self centered and did not last longer than adolescence. Also during this point in Augustine 's life he is not religious and he does not yet have a relationship with God. The friends are only surface level friendships, serving Augustine at the moment bringing him temporal satisfaction. When he interacted with them, they deteriorated him from his morals and his beliefs leading him in the wrong path. Augustine continued to pursue these friendships because they brought him enjoyment. They did not bring him happiness because when he was surrounded with these friends Augustine felt peer pressure to do things that did not align with his morals. One day he and his friends sought out to steal pears from a neighbor 's pear tree. They received no pleasure out of stealing and when they stole they did not even want the pears and they tossed them to the pigs. Augustine says, "[I]ran wild,...in the jungle of erotic adventures...and became putrid in [God 's] sight." Augustine reflects on this time period is his most sinful. He did not feel that it was not the pears that made him happy, but it was the sense of camaraderie he felt when he was with his friends. This shows at this point in life his conception of friendship and happiness was doing what your friends told

During that time, not only did he face numerous bouts of “soul searching,” he also engaged in intellectual examinations of events often viewed as acts of dissidence. Whether by acting out his erotic desires or by playful thievery, Augustine delved into examining the nature of sin as a means of understanding man’s true intentions with every action. As Augustine discussed and acted out his sexual desires, he stood firm to his idea that he did it out of an innocent need for love. In addition, Augustine’s pear theft acted as a means of showing that one who commits a criminal offense may not fully understand all of the implications it may hold for that person.

One of the opening lines of his Confessions may provide a clue: “Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you” (21). This suggests that man possesses an innate instinct to seek God and spiritual enlightenment. It implies that man, as a product of God, will inherently desire knowledge of and a relationship with his creator. Augustine continues by saying: “The thought of [God] stirs [man] so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (21). This suggests that though man may struggle on earth, should he decide to turn to God he will experience peace and rest in the Lord. Here Augustine also states that unless man has found God, “he cannot be content,” implying that those who have not found God will feel a constant inner void.

In the beginning, God created the world. He created the earth, air, stars, trees and mortal animals, heaven above, the angels, every spiritual being. God looked at these things and said that they were good. However, if all that God created was good, from where does un-good come? How did evil creep into the universal picture? In Book VII of his Confessions, St. Augustine reflects on the existence of evil and the theological problem it poses. For evil to exist, the Creator God must have granted it existence. This fundamentally contradicts the Christian confession that God is Good. Logically, this leads one to conclude evil does not exist in a created sense. Augustine arrives at the conclusion that evil itself is not a formal thing, but the

Violent video games increase the amount of mass shootings every year. The violence in the video games teach kids and even some adults to do things that they normally wouldn't know how to do, the first person shooter effect teaches kids how to use a gun and more than that, teaches them that it's alright to use a gun anywhere. When kids are playing first person shooter games against their friends, it seems like a game to them, those kids think that it is fun to run around chasing your friend with a gun and try to kill them, these games are also like target practice for them. Teaching these kids those skills prepares them for school shootings, abusing their families, and even causing them to talk back to their parents, other family members, teachers, and any other adults that could stand in their way. Adults who play first person shooter video games could be playing them for fun, what they were intended for, but when ever mass shootings occur like the one in Las Vegas at the Jason Aldean concert, or the one in

describes Augustine’s thoughts and opinions of how to live responsibly. Augustine believes that God is the reason for everything good that happens to one’s life, which you are to praise him for. Augustine goes through some tough situations, which he uses his life as a standard way of living or an example of what others go through in their lifetime. He plainly states on several occasions that in everything you do needs to be for the glory of God. This essay will outline the main themes referred in the passage of Book X, which are find God later in one’s life, seeking pleasure in worldly things, and understanding where the beauty of the world comes from. Also, the essay will analyze his worldview that you shouldn’t find pleasure in worldly possessions and to praise God, and how it helps others live or have a responsible life.

Video games are prevalent among impressionable children and teenagers. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the violent themes used in video games. Teenage shootings in schools have led society to question the relationship between video violence and criminal activity. After considerable research, expert opinions, and research findings, the American Psychological Association found that there is no link between gaming and criminal behavior (Casey). With this, the pursuit of video violent games continues to grow in our society. With games that show execution style murders, blood oozing from gunshot wounds, and victims moaning from wounds, it certainly is gratifying for the indulgent player. The ongoing concern about aggression and violence has once again been proven to be non-existent (Alert). My thoughts are that this cartoon like violence is appeals to the need for violence in an artificially designed environment. In this manner, violence is contained within the boundaries of fantasy. This is unlike “The Crucible” which occurs in with real people, events, and situations. Thus, directing violence in the realm of societal dysfunction that has endured with

“Suffering” is a word which carries negative connotations, used to incite pity, empathy or fear. Why would it not? Is suffering not simply agony, defined justly by the Oxford Dictionary as “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship” (“Suffering)? Yet, we accept suffering as part of life, a fundamental aspect that defines living. Nietzsche tells us that the very act of living is suffering itself, but to survive is to find value in that suffering. Yet, what sort of value can be attached to an idea so negative? Pico Iyer’s editorial in the New York Times explores the value of suffering, likening suffering to passion and “[p]assion with the plight of other’s makes for ‘compassion’” (________________).I began to think upon the cohesive

Video games have become a major occupation of majority of the youth these days. They spend hours on end concentrating on video games, some of which are apparently very violent, yet this is actually the whole idea. Coming from the horse's mouth is an argument in support of video games coined from a video programmer's point of view, stating that violent video games allow people to do what they can not do in reality- virtual reality. ( http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-15/roc15-08.htm ) For instance, someone said to be having a bad day could use a violent video game to release stress by shooting down a couple hundred bad men than actually taking an AK-47 and spilling down a few brains down the