|
Augustine’s Original Scam How to Sell Sin and
Keep Customers for Life Let’s be
honest: Genesis 2 and 3 is a weird little tale about people, trees, and fruit.
There’s no apple. No Satan. No “sin.” Adam just eats what his partner hands
him. The Elohim get nervous about humans grabbing immortality and promptly
kick them out of the garden. End of story. But then
along comes Saul of Tarsus, master spin-doctor. He takes this campfire myth
and proclaims: Aha! This proves you’re all guilty from birth. Suddenly
a fruit snack becomes humanity’s eternal death sentence. Brilliant marketing
move — create a problem only your new cult can solve. Fast
forward a few centuries and Augustine of Hippo perfects the art. Paul had set
up the sales pitch; Augustine industrialised it. He tells us: ·
You’re not just occasionally naughty — you’re
biologically corrupt. ·
Desire itself is sin’s transmission vector. ·
Even your newborn baby, fresh from the womb, is
guilty and hell-bound. The
genius of Augustine isn’t theology. It’s politics. With a single twist of
Genesis, he invents a guilt subscription service. Pay with obedience,
sacraments, and submission, and maybe, just maybe, the Church will cancel
your damnation. It’s the original pay-to-play model. Pelagius
objected, of course. He said humans are actually born
good, free, and capable. But where’s the profit in that? Who needs a bishop
if you can already stand on your own? No, Augustine knew the golden rule: if
you want power, tell people they’re broken beyond repair — then sell them the
cure. So the doctrine of “original
sin” was never about reading Genesis. It was about weaponising
it. The Eden story was turned into the longest-running con in Western
history: a myth of life rebadged as a system of control. And the
saddest part? The scam worked. It still works. Millions dutifully line up to
be told they’re worthless, damned, dependent. Meanwhile,
the druid Finn would just laugh. For him, existence itself is the only proof
you need: if you are here, you are good. No guilt subscriptions required. So here’s
the short version: Augustine didn’t save your soul. He shackled it. And he
did it with the oldest trick in the book: selling fear, bottling shame, and
calling it God’s truth. |