[Claud]

For more on Augustine and his influence on Western life and thought (for better or worse, depending on who you are)

I'm familiar with the gist of the Orthodox argument, but to say that Augustine influenced the West is only stating the obvious.

I ain't enough of a Patristics scholar to debate you or the other EO folks very long on this point. But I say again, and just as strongly, if you think that some monstrous deformity cannot be twisted out of the Eastern Fathers as easily as the Western, you are living in a strange world.

[Graves]

Well, one can wrench just about anything out of anything if one puts ones' mind to it. But with Augustine, it's easier. One can wrench a lot of terrible ideas from the Bible, but it's easier to do that with the Koran.