CS Lewis
Posted on: May 9, 2009 - 12:23am
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CS Lewis
Why do Christians cream themselves over this guy and his book MERE CHRISTIANITY? Wasn't he a nutterbutter? I've read Alice & Through the Looking Glass, and it's obvious he was on some kind of drug.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
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C.S.Lewis and Lewis Carrol are not the same person.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Heh... Yeah, you've got a couple of folks confused, but yeah, CS Lewis was a hack philosopher and not very good at apologetics. His arguments were dismantled about ten minutes after they were published. Maybe it's because he wrote novels or something. (Personally, I think the Narnia stories are shit.)
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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I could never get into the Narnia books, so I never finished the first one. But I did just read Mere Christianity (to see what all the fuss was about). There's one good thing I can say about it: it's short.
Rill
For a good laugh, check out his SF trilogy. Especially the last book. He tries to pass off his own gout as a messianic wound, and the evil lesbian scene is hilarious.
Agreed. To my knowledge, there is no proof the C. S. Lewis was a pervert. On the other hand, there are hundreds of early photographs of a prepubescent Alice Liddle in the nude or wearing what passed for provocative clothing back in that era, all shot by the Anglican Deacon, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
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basically c.s. lewis was the first of the modern breed of pop christian writers of devotionals/apologetics. his successors are guys like max lucado, john piper, and josh mcdowell.
well, he could be the second if you count g.k. chesterton, but chesterton was more of a debate pundit, known for getting into it with h.g. wells. also, i hate to lump chesterton in with the pop writers because he actually was a pretty good writer. he certainly beat lewis all to shit in that area. his arguments weren't much better, but they can be somewhat forgiven by the edwardian context in which he lived. lewis, however, has no excuse, in that all his arguments were tired shit even by the 1940s.
i would consider lewis mediocre as a writer, not downright awful like his successors. i think christians worship him because, having been a mainstream writer apart from the world of apologetics, he has a certain prestige in their minds. also, christians love broadly-drawn, simplistic fairy tales with archetypal characters that they can easily highjack into their worldview, which is why they love tolkien. of course, unlike tolkien, they don't have to highjack lewis at all.
finally, while i'm not a big fan of the narnia stories either, to be brutally honest, i think lewis was a better writer than tolkien, though that's not really saying much. even though they were stereotypical english schoolchildren heroes, i gave more of a shit for peter, susan, lucy, and edmund than i ever did for dry, pedictable frodo and his pathetically servile companion.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Evil lesbians? I'm in.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
http://www.rationalresponders.com/files/Furger-Argorock.mp3
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Oh woops hahaha. The Cs and Lewises mixed me up. Wasn't Lewis Carrol also a Christian?
Christians really DO love simplified fairytales. They act like spelling out the obvious with fancy words is a stroke of genius.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
Carrol (or Dodgson, to use his proper name) was a Christian; though one should remember that he lived at a time in which 'atheism' was an absurd notion, and his diary reveals that he had little interest in he dogma and felt nothing built guilt and shame from his Christian 'teachings'. The notion that AiGS brought up is actually a contested matter; photographing nude children in the victorian era was not taboo (far from it; it was considered a necessary component of any outstanding photographer at the time). Moreover, much of Dodgson/Carrol's photography work is lost - without viewing a complete record, it's difficult to say how much actually contained little girls (the diary of the man totally destroys the oft touted myth of his obsession with Alice Liddel).
At any rate, no, Dodgson was not necessarily on drugs when he wrote Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass or the Hunting of the Snark. I mean, I guess I wouldn't totally rule it out, but the suggestion seems pretty preposterous to me: it's not like these stories are just jumbled nonsense. The symbolism present in the stories is very well structured.
I do wish this popular notion that, "You have to be high before you can really write," would slither away and choke on the next rodent it attempts to swallow.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I agree with you. Frankly, I find all three of the LoTR books to be quite tedious. Tolkien's fascination with linguistics is understandable, but he could have cut out about 85% of the songs, poems, and other extraneous bullshit and the books would have been better. He was also really bad about deus ex machina. I mean, for fucks sake, how many times can you have a stupid fucking hobbit get himself into a horrible situation, only to be saved by Tom Bombadil, or the most powerful elf in the world, or the most powerful ranger in the world, or the most powerful wizard in the world, or whatever. Deus ex machina sucks, and Tolkien was a big fan.
I think LoTR and Star Wars are quite similar in this regard -- if only someone with talent had executed the creator's good idea, they would have been much better.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I don't think that, I just always found his writing to be reminiscent of some kind of trip, and he mentions drugs constantly in Alice. Though I really don't know much about him.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
I read the LoTR some time ago, and found some passages memorable, although I can certainly agree that there is a lot of stuff in there which does drag somewhat.
I actually found the recent 3-part movie version much more enjoyable - pretty good production values, and of necessity, skipping over the bulk of the tedious bits.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Bah! with the lot of you!
LotR was maybe not worth all of the hype, but The Hobbit? I love that book! Always have. C.S. Lewis's Narnia series was so shitty after the Magician's Nephew. I mean, did you read the one with the fucking talking horse? It was one of the worst pieces of fiction I've ever forced myself to read all of the way through. 'Oh yes, Lewis! Teach me more about the virtues of being the goodie two-shoes!'
Tolkien isn't like some kind of literary deity to me like he is to some people, and I don't think he's 'the best' when it comes to high fantasy (I don't think I could really choose a 'the best' author, really), but I certainly don't find any of the LotR books to be unreadable. I mean, cripes, 'The Two Towers' still has perhaps the most easily readable and entertaining spic fantasy battle scenes in it (the battle at Helm's Deep).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
my main gripe is that tokien's characterization is just so weak. as i said before, his characters are all so predictable. you're right in that the hobbit is a tad stronger in this area than lotr (but, once again, that's not saying much).
in my experience, the only people who really love tolkien are high fantasy fans who have orgasms over well-constructed, complex worlds. tolkien was a master of plot, but his plotting worked so well and his world system was so consistent that it's just boring. i never said lotr was unreadable, tolkien definitely knew how to use the english language, but who gives a shit? the closest analogy i can give to tokien's literature is bach's music: it's so symmetrical it's just fucking bland. the anglo-saxon mythology that draws its parallels with lotr is far more intertesting, with a lot more just plain human feeling.
imo, narnia has about half a shot glass more human feeling than lotr, though perhaps the hobbit is on par, and that's why, in a strictly relative sense, c.s. lewis was a "better" writer.
also, on a technical note, lewis's prose is much less labored than tolkien's, and for a fan of the mot juste like me, that's a big plus.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Narnia reminded me of the Bible sometimes. In one of the books (the third?), Aslan attacked the main girl character and put deep slashes, painful slashes her back. Later, when questioned, Aslan justified it by saying the marks on her back were identical to the whip marks on her servant's back, whom had gotten punished for her running away. Aslan was a douche.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I found Stephen Donaldson's 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever' vastly more absorbing and moving and 'grown-up' than LotR.
I have read the first in the final series 'The Runes of the Earth', and was gratified to find it was right up to the standard of the earlier two trilogies. I have the second one, but I was holding off reading it in the hope that the remaining books in the series might be out soon - I like to be able to go straight thru these series, not least because it makes it easier to keep track of the characters and plot. But according to Wikipedia, I see there are two more to come, the last expected in 2013, so I may start reading it soon.
In the other direction, I started to read CS Lewis's Space Trilogy, but actually gave up partway thru - the Christian Theology was laid on so heavily as a context that I could no longer stomach it. I can tolerate a modest amount of that if the narrative is well written and the Author's viewpoint isn't too intrusive, but this just got too much for me.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
yeah, that was sort of lewis's whole idea.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I have to remind myself occasionally that Christian theology -- for the most part -- is not unique, and some of it does make for a good plot. Yeah, the second and third installment of the Matrix sucked balls, but the first one was good, and it was just loaded with messiah themes. Star Wars? Messiah. Dune? Are you kidding me? Six books of messiahs.
The thing that gets annoying is when people try to use the parts of Christian theology that just don't make any sense. The story of Aslan and the slave and the marks on the back comes to mind. There were many times in the Bible that God or Jesus or one of the prophets was just a douche. Other times, their actions just don't make sense. (That's what happens when you cobble together myths from different cultures and pass them down orally and then try to make them all into one coherent story.)
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Because it IS EASY TO READ.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
BobSpence1: I have been reading Donaldson's books since I was a teenager. Pretty much that means that I have read all of them and I can tell you that if you have the next book, then you should just read it now.
It is a thing with Donaldson's works that he takes a very long time between books. I suppose that it can be seen as annoying but it is just the way that he works. Robert Jordan wrote faster than Donaldson and that is not saying a whole lot (although Jordan had the same “worth the wait” quality going on as well).
If you want to read a full set of books by Donaldson (and assuming that you have not already), then go for “The Gap” books. They are sci-fi and space opera to boot. Also, he does the same thing that he did with both the Covenant books and the “Mordant's Need” books, which is to create characters who are both powerful and totally impotent but in this case, he rotates that role through several characters over the course of the series.
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I have read the Gap series, and several other titles. Without checking, I don't know if I've picked up all of them.
I enjoyed the others, but the Covenant novels really grab me somewhere deep....
I also have been following Jordan's Wheel of Time as well. My biggest problem with them is remembering all the characters and story-lines from one book to the next, aggravated by the time between releases. He seemed to have many more significant characters than Donaldson. I never had the same problem picking up the story-line in Donaldson's books.
I read Crossroads at Twilight', and saw the next one at a book store but again thought I'd wait till the last one comes out, for the same reason I was holding out on Donaldson's latest. What I need, and I am pretty sure it now exists, is an online summary so I can refresh my memory on earlier events and characters when they come up in what I am currently reading.
I do intend to find time soon for time for the second book, now that I see the the wait is going to be typically long again.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
One must give the devil his due. He maker not only persuasive arguments but clever and entertaining ones.
Christians will be the first to warn against clever adn peruasive arguments even by fellow Christians of a different sect.
Why in the world would they expect their's to be treated any differently?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
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