Sinning Because It Is Fun
Why you could hate being evil and still lust for it
In the second chapter of Saint Augustine’s Confessions, he shares how he lusted for sin as a teenager. He loved to steal pears. Took a few and threw them to the pigs. Repeatedly.
"It was foul," he says, "and I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself."
Greed, materialism, revenge, mental health, addiction, money, and hunger didn't drive him. It was boredom that did. He found sinning fun.
People who don't constantly consider the implications of immoral actions may view this behavior as akin to foolish teenage behavior, such as leaving a Walmart store without paying for Nutella.
But for Augustine, it meant he could distinguish between right and wrong and still sin. Knowing something is wrong doesn't stop someone from doing it. If he could do it, what said others couldn't? I don't have evidence that I couldn't go from writing these essays to waking up at 5 AM, scrambling some eggs, lining people up on a plaza, taking them to the forest by noon, shooting them from the back as they kneel so their guts don't splatter, vomiting, and then having a Whiskey before bed. Evil rarely asks if it can take the steering wheel. It just does.
For some of us, this latent possibility of evil is horrifying. It means many people stroll through life fantasizing about actions that hurt others, even if they don't like hurting others. We see them walking their dogs, playing with their kids, and waiting for the bus to come. We just don't know we are seeing them; evil-doers. But they see us:
As food because they like human flesh, not killing
As shooting targets because they like shooting, not killing
As targets of thievery because they like adrenaline, not stealing
Jeffrey Dahmer, a cannibal, didn't like killing people, allegedly. He lusted for human flesh. He would unfreeze the leftovers from the night before, have a glass of tap water, and go to work.
Jeffrey lusted for human flesh, which required killing.
Saint Augustine lusted for a solution to his boredom, which required stealing.
After years of reflection, Saint Augustine concludes that sinful acts come from a desire to imitate God's (perfect) traits. "Did I wish even by stealth to do contrary to Thy law, because by power I could not," says Augustine. "So that being a prisoner, I might mimic a maimed liberty by doing with impunity things unpermitted me, a darkened likeness of Thy Omnipotency?"
Sin, says Augustine, is a helpless attempt at reaching perfection, being like God:
Sloth seeks quietude, which only God has
Anger seeks revenge, which only God justly commits
Grief comes from losing something; God never loses
Curiosity comes from a desire for knowledge, and God has it all
Fear fuels from uncertainty and unsafety, which God doesn't live
Nazis trying to cleanse the world of what they considered impurities, dictators trying to please everyone's needs, narcissists trying to live up to imaginary superiority, and born killers trying to quiet down their urges.
We all walk down the same supermarket aisles, but what we seek and its quantity differs.