It's a complete non-sequitor. CS Lewis was horrible at logic from what I've read.

I don't know much about Lewis, but from what I heard 'rational' wouldn't be the first word I'd use to describe him.

If I remember correctly he even became an atheist for emotional rather then rational reasons, the quote you came up with seems to confirm this.

Feared?

Why in the world would anyone fear an omnibelovelent beeing? Who in his right mind would fear the prospect of living eternally in infinite bliss? 

What do we do when someone like Lewis accepts one religion or another?

Absolutely nothing.

Lewis failed completely to give any kind of argument for the existance of god.

C.S. Lewis was a hack of a philosopher.  I read his books, and then put them in the recycling bin.  I can't answer for what anyone else did with him.

I don't what to do with C.S. Lewis, he's half rotted, so I can't eat him.

And I don't know how to make stuff out of bones. 

I recently read parts of 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis, and I found it to have all the relation to reality you would expect from any great writer of children's fiction.

All he offers, as far as I could tell, was a simple argument from morality, one which has been made better by others centuries ago. I couldn't believe he thought he was making a rational argument. From reading the book, I got the suspicion that his claims of ex-atheism were overstated, because the straw men he set up for atheism were so badly constructed. I suspect that his memory of being an atheist had been colored by decades of theism.

As for the quote, it doesn't really tell us anything except that he didn't want to become a Christian, but he felt compelled to admit it. Given the arguments I've seen him make, I find the conclusions he draws from them uninteresting.

I don't see how C.S. Lewis's, or anyone's for that matter, turning to religion should be puzzled over by any atheist. Many people, regardless of how intelligent they are or rational they may be in other aspects of their life, do irrational things for a variety of different reasons. However, a rational man committing an irrational act changes the designation of the man, not the designation of the act.

Had C.S. Lewis come to believe in god through some empirical proof he had found, then that would be a matter to make a rational man go, "Hmmm." As it is, with him turning to god for justifications he made within his own mind, it seems completely unimportant. Not something that I would bother to consider out of a context where I was critiquing his writings or discussing his irrational beliefs.

You must remember that CS Lewis suffered the loss of hsi wife to cancer not long before this. Something similar happened to Arthur Conan Doyle, but after tragedy he turned psychics and people who claimed to talk tot he dead.

The same thing happened even in my own family. After my brother was murdered, my parents started going back to church. Then his wife, my mom, died of cancer, and he "renewed his faith in Christ."

Retreating into a certain degree of infantilism is somewhat undertandable and not entirely condemnable following life-rocking tragedies. I did not retreat because I maintained my commitment to personal intellectual integrity, which trumps everything else that might affect whay I believe.

This gets at one of my pet peeves about the Church, the way it preys on the weak.

I too am suspicious of his claims about prior atheism.  I've read a few Lee Stroeble books and I get the same sense from him as well.  How can this guy possibly have ever been an atheist if this is how he now views atheism?

What do I do with C.S. Lewis? Read "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" when I was 8, then ignore the rest of the series into adulthood, because I prefered the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown.

Well, you know how it is. If the Christian church is the bride of Christ, then Christ is the guy on COPS with the mosiac over his face getting hauled off by Officer Cortez because the neighbors called in a domestic disturbance call and the Christians answered the door with a black eye saying she doesn't want to press charges because they really do love each other.

I wish I could remember the source, but I recall reading an actual paper... maybe a masters level dissertation or something, that did essentially a "criminal profile" of a chronically abusive male, detailing the typical behaviors and then citing numerous psychological papers and sociological studies which linked those behaviors to various pathologies.

It was very interesting.  As I said, I can't remember the source at all, and don't have time to google it, but maybe someone else is familiar with it.  In any case, anyone in any of the "mind sciences" would have themselves a wonderful subject to pursue if they wanted to.

Vastet, first and foremost, I love the avatar.  I used to be a Final Fantasy junkie.  It's an amazing series. 

My first response to your post is the distinct difference between Jesus Christ and religion.  I completely understand that you may view the two as semantics, but I sense it's worth nothing that Christ held his harshest words for the religious people of his time (Matthew 23).  Even more, the name "Jesus" occurs in the Bible 983 times.  The word "religion" occurs 5 times. 

And I do not see Christ using fear tactics in the Gospels.  It's not his style.  Hanging out with whores and drunkards, sure.  Pissing off the religious people, sure.  Makring miracles from mud, once or twice.  Treating women and children as equals in a society where they were considered significanly less value, absolutely.  Was he candid?  Sure.  Did he tell it straight?  I'd say so.   

And interestingly enough, of all the "Do not" commandments ("Do not steal," "do not commit murder," etc, etc) the most frequent "Do not" commandment which occurs in the majority of the books in the Bible is "Do not be afraid." 

Maybe Jesus was on to something, -Caspian

I am, naturally, very jealous. I completed FF VIII and dabbled in FF IX.  I do boast , however, that I own FF I for the original Nintendo system.   

I'm sorry for your posting troubles, Vastet.  I understand how frustrating that experience can be.  And I suspect there is no need to get into the credibility of the Gospels.  I dare say you speak for nearly every person who frequents this site that the Bible is not a credible source. 

When you speak of God, or religion, for that matter, the terms are so broad that they often become ambigious to me.  Please forgive me that I must deal in specifics.  Shall we then, for the sake of my limited intellect, deal with the person of Jesus Christ framed in the four canonical Gospels?  That is, I'm afraid, all I know of the character of God.  Although I am well aware that you do not consider that account of Jesus Christ as accurate, I sense we would have no structure for this dialogue if we did not have some norm on which to reflect. 

For Christ, Paul writes, is "the visible image of the invisible God."   

I would say, reread the paragraph of Lewis that you quoted, but this time around, when arriving at the phrase "..God was God...", replace "God" with some other name:  Santa, Zeus, FSM...  Then see if the paragraph remains as convincing, and if you even would have made this post in the first place.

Sweet. That's the kind of game that can turn into a collector item. I never got to play that one until they re-released it on the PlayStation. The first one I played was VI, and then I was hooked.

The only numerical series title I haven't played yet is III(the one that was never released in North America until a couple months ago on the DS).  

True enough. I appreciate your sympathy. Alls good now.  

For now. *Shakes fist at pc*

I actually don't really have the ability to debate Jesus' existance or the path of his life. There are a couple here who have studied the bible in depth and come to such conclusions, but I'm not about to learn Greek just to read some old texts. I didn't learn Japanese to play FFXII early, and that actually had some motivational drive to do it. :P I suppose the only way I'd be motivated to do an in depth reading of a holy book is if I actually believed it. The authors of the bible were rookies. I've read more entertaining romance novels. :| 

I do think however that whether or not he existed is somewhat irrelevant. The way I see it, if god could send down a kid to straighten people out 2000 years ago, there's nothing stopping him from doing it today when there are far bigger global concerns than there were then. At least we couldn't cover the planet in nuclear fire 2000 years ago over the issue. It would be insanely easy for a god to prove it exists. Something I rarely get to bring up to believers is that if god exists, he seems to be hiding from us. Why hide? It doesn't make sense. Science should have proved god ages ago. There are a great number of things about reality that point away from a god instead of towards one. One has to wonder why, since apparently it's so important to follow it in the first place?

I daresay Augustine of Hippo would initially agree with you.  I'm unsure of how much you know of his story, but as he was encouraged to read the New Testament, he found the authorship terribly unimpressive.  As he continued, however, he could not help but find truth in Christ's words.  

And I agree with you.  Before Christ came into my life at nineteen, I found the Gospels unbearable.  I wish I could communicate to you how my world was flipped upside-down, as immediately after Jesus stormed into my life I read the New Testament in less than three days.  I'm still astounded. 

Vastet, if you did believe in God, you would make a wonderful Deist, as they believe in an extremely distant God who flipped over an hourglass at creation and let the pieces fall where they may.  Thomas Jefferson was among them, I believe.  Rumor has it he took a blade to the Gospels and cut out any miracle of Jesus Christ, only keeping his teachings.  The miracles, as they were, were quite irrational. 

I will not pretend to know the answer to the problem of evil/suffering.  I would be fooling myself to claim to have any answer to theologians greatest question.  Oddly enough, earliest written book in the Bible, Job, addresses this same issue and concludes with an ominous and frustrating ambiguity.

Christ does not clarify the problem, either.  I would daresay he complicates the issue.  Because now we have a world thrown upside-down in self and brokenness where God shows up, where he enters in, where he draws near to the poor and needy.  In contrast to your observation, he seems very much to reveal himself. 

Yet if the his life is any identification of his character, I will give him this: He is a God who suffers.  He is a God who suffers with us in the midst of all the world's suffering.  And although that does not dilute the potency of your question, I find the action both divinely and mysteriously appropriate.   

It's as if he very much appreciates the extremity and difficulty of our position. 

Sincerely, -Caspian