Will a non-religious person get anything out of this?

Will a non-religious person get anything out of this?

Non-religious people can get a lot out of anything once they wake the fuck up

What's the equivalent to fedoras for you faggots? Is it a crown of thorns tipping?

I'm not sure what would be the hat of half baked CathoLARPers

WAKEY WAKEY

Someone post that fat orthodox guy with the tiara

it's one of the most beautiful books ever written and has some of the most provocative writings on temporality ever

so no you're a dumb shit and won't get anything out of it

Religious or not, you won't "get anything out of it" like you might get insights out of the Gospels or from the Upanishads. It's more for understanding later philosophers and literature, and for understanding church doctrines. Augustine was a man with horrible self-image issues and honestly should have just kept at it with the figs. Basically, the Confessions are the story of a very poorly-adjusted man with low self-esteem and a slew of other emotional problems attempting to find meaning in his life. He looks back on his life and picks himself to pieces out of self-loathing. He ends up thinking that hearing a child playing outside his window chanting something like "pick up and read" was the voice of God. Pretty sad, honestly. It is interesting considering he mixes up scripture with neo-Platonist arguments. You need to read it if you want to understand later Christian philosophers like Aquinas/Anselm/etc. and if you want to understand Catholic doctrine. It's a philosophy text, not some kind of spiritual revelation.

Why don't you read it and find out?

Is the edition in OP good?

*tips tiara*

You're not going to get much out of anything being blind to the truth.

Very poetic. He talks about shifting ideologies so he's pretty readable for all types, and it's not too peachy. I ain't religious but it's a damn good book

Augustine was one of the greatest influencers of modern Catholicism, and his work is controversial due to his power within the faith. Any theology counter-intuitive to Augustine's philosophy was shunned by the church for a long time and the bias remains today. He is responsible for a large portion of the church's position on sexuality and was the propagator of a literal interpretation of a Virgin Mary. I'd say go for just because of he interesting he is.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. City of God is best Augustine.

i don't get how augustine managed to coopt plato as a monotheist protochristian, he's like "plato believed in the greater good, therefor he believe in the true god" im like uhh ok so is god supposed to be .. virtue ? wat

It was more that Plato was a monotheist himself... have you not read Plato?

Will a non-religious person get anything out of life?

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>The first problem with your question is that you talk of "God" with a capital G. This doesn't exist in Plato, and, for that matter in ancient greek litterature, because God is not the name of a person but a common noun. Thus Plato speaks of "the gods (hoi theoi), or "the god (ho theos)", in some cases of "god", but then in the same way we would talk of "man", using the word as a generic name. He also speaks of "the divine (to theion)".

u and augustine should have improved ur greek before being wrong for 2000 years

t. brainlet
Plato identifies "the gods" not as actual divine beings capable of interaction with humans, and not possessing omnipotence/omniscience in any sense; they are gods in name only, archetypal myths endemic to Greek culture but not existing spiritually. You would know this if you read the Republic.
The interpretations of monotheism come from his discussion of metaphysics, particularly in the allegory of the cave, where he discusses the Form of the Good. He concieves of a singular God, immutable and unchangeable.

"Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him."

got a link to the original greek? i find it a little unbelievable that plato was a crypt-hebrew, although possible i suppose

>Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things
Christians BTFO
But seriously, he means gods. If I recall correctly, this is the same section where he talks about various misconceptions people have about the gods, e.g. that they can be bought off with sacrifices. Obviously then he is talking about the gods that the Greeks believed in, not a monotheistic God.

Yes. The ending parts are through the lens of religion but have some incredibly sophisticated philosophy in them. The rest of it, if nothing else, offers a somewhat intimate look at daily life in the late Roman Empire, even if he probably made a bunch of it up as allegory or exempla.

It's about life and death and regret and addiction and sex and doubt in the first 9 chapters, and then the rest is about the mind's capacity to apprehend the infinite, so yeah, as long as you have emotions and a brain you should be good.

I just started reading it, and haven't encountered any issues thus far.

Perhaps you are unaware of how much of the seemingly unrelated contemporary culture has been shaped by Christianity.

A non-religious person can profit greatly from any influential work of Christian philosophy. The idea that you need to be religious to enjoy Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas etc. is utterly silly. In the last few years my worldview has shifted to an almost completely Marxist one, but I consider medieval thought to be indispensable for western philosophy.

this

Non-religious person here, yes.

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