“Stimulus Consciencie Minor”=Very Offputting Text

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Elle

As of this moment, I have only made it through to Quid facit peccaum in morte (What sin does in death) of “Stimulus Consciencie Minor,” yet, I have strong feelings in regards to this text despite having not yet read it in its entirety, and want to share these feelings with you.  Be warned, I was raised Roman Catholic and revolted around the age of fourteen; so my prejudices, interpretations, opinions, and assertions about this extremely didactic text may not agree with everyone.  But, I cannot help but to think of this text (insofar as I’ve read it) as an advertisement- a (probably) very persuasive, fear-instilling, self-interestedly targeted, desirously tempting bribe.  In my personal opinion, righteousness, goodness, and innocence are characterized by selflessness…and not just necessarily selflessness but an ever present and nonexclusive attention and affection for others (and this is not necessarily just other human beings…there are also animals and the environment to consider, for example) for the benefit and wellness of…well, life as a whole.  I, personally, do not feel that having to be warned about the hotness of the fire of hell, the pains of purgatory, and hear of the grandeur of god’s (God’s) goods in heaven which exceed all goods and joys on Earth in order to willingly, conscientiously, and rather naturally live righteously and without sin.  I find Stimulus Consciencie Minor contradictory, quite honestly.  I am beguiled by this texts ability to demand an individual be free from sin and then positively insist that they’ve already lived and will continue to live in sin, that they can cleanse their sins in purgatory and then reiterate that once one’s sinned they are damned to hell, to emphasize the generosity of god and then condemn the physical body to being sacks of stinking dung and life on Earth to a folly, to a futile, deceiving, half-true/completely false enterprise which is actually wrought with misery in comparison to the wonderfulness of god’s heaven.  My hopes have been rather smashed for this text, but perhaps the next pages will change my mind.

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3 Responses to “Stimulus Consciencie Minor”=Very Offputting Text

  1. Elle says:
    March 31, 2011 at 12:00 am

    And, has anyone noticed, eh-hem, that “pains” is spelled “penis” on page 313?

  2. Jocelyn Leving says:
    March 31, 2011 at 12:34 am

    Ellie,

    To you typo, no I did not notice, hysterical.

    To your actual blog post, I agree with you in many areas of your post. When you mention that “rightousness, selfishness and goodness are all charaterized by selfishness, I think of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” (sorry if you’ve heard this before, Dr. Seamn, I can’t remember for which old paper I mentioned her; might have been yours), in an interview I watched for a communications class a couple years ago. In this interview she took a similar approach to selfishness, mentioning how people are selfish by nature and to be anything other than that is weak. She does say that good things come out of selfishness though, as you mention in your post. When asked about her love life, she replies that she loves her husband very much because she gets a selfish pleasure out of his company. She would not simply be with him out of pure benevolence; she would not say “okay, I can see that I make you extremely happy whereas you don’t do much for me, so I’ll marry you out of pure charity”. She goes on to say that she does nice things for him, also, because of this selfish pleasure that she gets out of making him happy.

    Now, it is very interesting to look at your mention of not “having to be warned about the hotness of the fire of hell, the pains of purgatory, and hear of the grandeur of god’s (God’s) goods in heaven which exceed all goods and joys on Earth in order to willingly, conscientiously, and rather naturally live righteously and without sin”. Possibly Ayn Rand would look at this and say that people can truly love God, selfishly, because it is his will and Divinity that saves them from the “fire’s of Hell” and “pains of purgatory”. They love him, becuase he does such wonderful things for them. But, of course, this does contradict the fact that people are to live selfishly; this, to me, is absolutely impossible. We eat, drink, bath, socialize and don’t socialize all to suit our needs as human beings.

  3. Jocelyn Leving says:
    March 31, 2011 at 12:41 am

    And to my typo: “to *your typo”.

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