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 The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis

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PostSubject: The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptyThu 04 Mar 2010, 11:47 pm

Surprised by Joy: Autobiography of C. S. Lewis
A Critical Summary and Overview

Dr. Bruce L. Edwards
Professor of English

Associate Dean for Distance Education
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OHIO 43403



I. Form and Content

Long-time friend and literary executor of the Lewis estate, Owen Barfield has suggested that there were, in fact, three "C. S. Lewises." That is to say, there were three different vocations that Lewis fulfilled--and fulfilled successfully--in his lifetime. There was, first, Lewis the distinguished Oxford don and literary critic; secondly, Lewis, the highly acclaimed author of science fiction and children's literature; and thirdly, Lewis, the popular writer and broadcaster of Christian apologetics. The amazing thing, Barfield notes, is that those who may have known of Lewis in any single role may not have known that he performed in the other two. In a varied and comprehensive writing career, Lewis carved out a sterling reputation as a scholar, a novelist, and a theologian for three very different audiences. In Surprised by Joy (1956), written seven years before his death, Lewis helps to shed light on all "three Lewises" in his most personal book.

As such, Surprised by Joy represents one of the few works within the Lewis canon that speaks directly and unabashedly about his personal life. Given the almost stifling attention that Lewis's private life has received since his death in 1963, Surprised by Joy stands apart as an astonishingly candid yet self-effacing volume by one widely-regarded as the premier Christian apologist of the twentieth century. Lewis proceeds in Surprised by Joy as one reluctant to reveal specific details of his life but who relents, as he suggests in the preface, in order both to answer "requests that I would tell how I passed from Atheism to Christianity" and "to correct one or two false notions that seem to have got about."

Lewis's reluctance involves not just the conventional modesty of the autobiographer who wishes to downplay the importance of his life, but stems as well from his conviction that no writer's work is especially illuminated by psychological inquiry into his or her life. As a renowned literary critic and literary historian, he had witnessed too many works passed off as "literary criticism" that were instead imagined reconstructions of the author's composing process or thought life--poor substitutes for thoughtful attention to an author's text itself.

Lewis referred to this twentieth-century critical preoccupation as "the personal heresy": the tendency to identify authors with their creations, assuming that each work is somehow and essentially a rehearsal of a writer's own life. Lewis believed this artistic heresy robbed works of their power and meaning by reducing all literary criticism to biographical skullduggery. He thus rejected out of hand the notion that an artist was obligated to lay bare the private life--either for the sake of celebrity or for its putative insights into his or her literary works. Thus, to accomplish the task he set for himself, Lewis was forced to overcome his "distaste for all that is public, all that belongs to the collective."

The record of his life, to the extent that it contributed to his defense of Christianity, would be temporarily opened to the world at large--but only under his conditions. It would not be submitted for approval to those pundits or self-styled critics of his career who were merely searching evidence to undermine his arguments for Christian faith. Nothing is recalled that is not directly related to this purpose. Nevertheless, Lewis was clearly uncomfortable with the genre of autobiography and warns the reader in his preface:

The story is, I fear, suffocatingly subjective; the kind of thing I have never before and shall probably never write again. I have tried so to write the first chapter that those who can't bear such a story will see at once what they are in for and close the book with the least waste of time.

The subtitle of the book, "the Shape of my Early Life," succinctly captures the scope of Lewis's autobiography; it deals almost exclusively with his adolescent search for "joy" and those events leading up to and just subsequent to his conversion at age thirty-one. It comprises what Lewis himself would refer to as "spiritual autobiography," but not in the genre of "Confessions" like those of St. Augustine or Rousseau. Lewis views himself in Surprised by Joy as no more or less a sinner than anyone else, but it is chiefly his intellectual journey that needs charting; his is not a grand repentance from fleshly indulgence but a recovery of a child-like wonderment at the world and its mysteries.

To further this specific goal, the volume contains only those people and events, ideas and contexts that help Lewis explain his conversion--first to himself, and then secondarily to his readers. Never one to be accused of hyperbole, Lewis's grand climax to his journey of faith is announced in matter-of-fact, demure terms: "Every step I had taken, from the Absolute to "Spirit" and from "Spirit" to "God," had been a step toward the more concrete, the more imminent. . . . To accept the Incarnation was a further step in the same direction."

II. Critical Analysis

Surprised by Joy is essentially an account of those factors that brought Lewis to a mature, adult Christian faith. As such the reader learns as much about what Lewis read as a child, an adolescent, and an undergraduate as he or she does about Lewis's friendships, military experiences, or love life--the staples of much mid-century biography. Lewis begins his work with an overview of the Lewis household and his early schooling.

The Lewis household emerges as a particularly bookish home, one in which the reality he found on the pages of his parents' extensive library seems as tangible and meaningful to him as anything that transpires outside their doors. Lewis depicts himself and bother, William, as comrades in arms, absolute confidants who share their deepest longings and secrets without sibling rivalry--all in the happiness of the secure shelter of their parents' Belfast home. The tranquillity and sanctity of the Lewis home is shattered beyond repair, however, by the death of his mother; the rest of his saga becomes the melancholy search for the security and settledness he had took granted during the peace and grace of childhood.

It is this theme, the longing for a restoration of the joy he experienced as a boy, that permeates the entire volume. By "joy," Lewis meant not mere pleasure but the sublime experience of the transcendent, the glimpse of the eternal that is only fleetingly available in earthly loves and aesthetics. It is, for Lewis, only finally received in heavenly glory at the consummation of the age, a joy to be found in the Creator who himself invented both world and word, person and personality. It is He alone who redeems his fallen creation and provide them joy. From his earliest intimations of this joy, Lewis depicts himself in Surprised by Joy as precociously oriented toward the metaphysical and ultimate questions.

Lewis turns first to the written word as an outlet for this ongoing search, creating at age eight the land of Boxen, a world populated by dressed, talking animals, the precursor of what would someday be refashioned as the land of Narnia--Lewis's magical land of children's adventures that retell the story of the creation, fall, and redemption of humankind. Later Lewis embraces what he referred to as "northernness," or the Norse mythology that represented for him the embodiment of otherness and an escape from the mundane realities of boarding school. Before his eventual return to orthodox Christianity, however, Lewis would experiment with adolescent atheism, various Eastern beliefs, and the "Absolute" of Aristotelian ethics on his way to the trinitarian God proclaimed by Christianity.

In describing this progression, Lewis paints fascinating pictures of turn-of-the-century Britain and its intellectual climate--especially the British school system and the trials and tribulations of a non-athletic young boy whose aesthetic sensibilities seem out of place and out of step with his peers. From here the book's remaining chapters chronicle the steady ascension of Lewis's mind and heart--both his reason and imagination--toward the re-acceptance of the faith he had once shared with his brother and parents, denounced as a young poet and philosopher, and ultimately recovered as an erudite Oxford don. Most important here are two individuals and two authors whom Lewis cites as critical influences animating these gradual changes.

The first of these persons is the "Great Knock," William Kirkpatrick, Lewis's last real tutor before entering Oxford. "Kirk," as Lewis called him, taught Lgive-and-take that seeks truth through the relentless probing of an opponent's position, a fierce and, in Kirk's hands, exaggerated version of Socratic dialogue. As an atheist, Kirk lent no direct support to Lewis's metaphysical yearnings, but taught him that while reason alone could never bring the inquirer to central truth, it was the foundation for all credible, defensible belief. Lewis's considerable debating skills can thus be seen as emanating from his beloved tutor. No less important to Lewis was his encounter and subsequent friendship with Owen Barfield, whom he met at Oxford in 1916. Barfield, a keen dialectician himself and a lawyer by trade, helped sharpen Lewis's understanding of both reason and faith. In their "Great War," a vibrant correspondence between the two covering many years, Lewis and Barfield debated the meaning of the supernatural and the identity of God. Barfield's chief contribution to Lewis's journey of faith, however, was his demolishing of Lewis's "chronological snobbery," the "uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited."

Freed from the notion that the past was invariably wrong and that the present always the barometer of truth, Lewis was able to confront the possibility that Christian message could have validity even in the twentieth century. By his own account, two authors also emerge as particularly influential and crucial to his agonizing grope toward faith. The first these was George MacDonald, the nineteenth-century Scot Presbyterian minister and novelist, whose works in his own time were more popular than Charles Dickens'. After reading two of MacDonald's fantasy works, Lewis reflected that they had "baptized" his imagination, preparing him for a world beyond the material one he had grown so tired of. The other author was G. K. Chesterton, popular and prolific London journalist, and a talented Christian apologist in his own right. Chesterton's work, The Everlasting Man, a portrait of Christ and of his impact on culture, presented Lewis with a more global, comprehensive picture of Christianity and its place in human history. Lewis could thus say:

In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. . . . God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.

From Lewis's perspective, the "joy" he had so long sought had been discovered in the least likely place within the least likely circumstances. Few Oxford professors of medieval and renaissance literature become ardent, vocal, internationally-known promoters of religious faith. Lewis's personal account of this highly unusual occurrence thus makes Surprised by Joy compelling reading for both the believer and nonbeliever alike.

III. Literary Context

Lewis's life and work have been the focus of countless books since his death in 1963. Ironically, he may eventually suffer the same fate as other authors he himself championed and "rehabilitated" during his scholarly career. Surrounded, even surfeited by volume after volume of analysis, paraphrase, and critique, Lewis's own canon may be dwarfed by secondary sources, an attitude he opposed all of his life in reading others. We don't need the critics to enjoy Chaucer, he once said, but Chaucer to enjoy the critics.

As it stands, both his fiction and theological writings have been endlessly anthologized and hyper-critically explored, creating a trail of footnotes and asides long enough to camouflage the essential viewpoints and facts about his life--thus discouraging even the most diligent student of Lewis. It must be said however that Lewis's own works remain the most reliable source and insightful interpreter of his thought and personality. Surprised by Joy, while, as noted, emerging as the most personal of Lewis's books, still retains the characteristic stylistic and thematic modes found elsewhere in his oeuvre.

It is in Surprised by Joy, for example, that one learns the extent to which Lewis is indebted to a romantic view of both life and culture, that is, a mindset in which reason and imagination are held in tension at all times and neither is allowed to dominate or cancel out the other. Haunted in his search for joy, Lewis turns first in his youth to the strange and preternatural--the darker myths of the North. His youthful trek into the vagaries of philosophy land him within various camps of pantheism and theism, and, finally, to the Christian theism wherein reason and imagination are married in the Eternal Logos, the "Myth Become Fact," which he discovered in Jesus of Nazareth. Despite his judgment that the text seemed "suffocatingly subjective," the deliberate, methodical way in which Lewis narrates his life parallels the meticulous arguments with which he constructed scholarly treatise and theological brief alike. Here, as elsewhere, Lewis steadfastly refuses to include any details of his life to titillate the amateur psychologist or self-styled debunker.

Therefore, even when he is revealing innermost thoughts and private incidents, Lewis still maintains a distance from both the reader and his subject matter--as if he were creating a persona, a fictional "Lewis" (as he indeed did in the first volume of his space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet [1938]), whose life and personality he must discern through the same careful historical research and fundamental objectivity that accompanied such scholarly works as The Allegory of Love (1936) or A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942). Even though Lewis's circle of friends included a veritable who's who of popular fiction, among them J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Dorothy L. Sayers, only those who had a direct influence on his coming to faith receive specific citation or focus. In a word, Surprised by Joy represents the kind of scholarship about his own life that Lewis practiced in his own literary criticism and theological works and remains an admirable model of autobiographical restraint and insight.

ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES:

The most recent extensive secondary work of note here is David Downing’s The Most Reluctant Convert (Inter Varsity Press, 2002). In the absence of a full-fledged bio-critical study of Lewis, Kathryn Lindskoog, C. S. Lewis: Mere Christian, 1988, and Margaret Hannay, C. S. Lewis, 1981, are perhaps the two best single volumes on the life and career of Lewis, both offering broad overviews and provocative evaluations of each of his works. Roger L. Green and Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 1974, though dated, and somewhat misleading, remains the best biographical source, though William Griffin, C. S. Lewis; A Dramatic Life, 1986, offers a unique diary-like, strictly chronological look at Lewis's life, and James Como, ed., C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table, 1979, provides capsule impressions by Oxbridge colleagues and friends who knew Lewis best. Paul Holmer, C. S. Lewis: The Shape of His Faith and Thought, 1976 and Corbin Scott Carnell, Bright Shadow of Reality: C. S. Lewis and the Feeling Intellect, 1974, offer insights into the intellectual influences on Lewis and how they manifested themselves in both his theology and fiction. Bruce L. Edwards A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy, 1986, offers an in-depth assessment of Lewis' literary criticism and interpretive method, while his edited collection, The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer, 1988, boasts 14 essays by prominent Lewis scholars whose incisive analysis of Lewis's fictional and critical principles explains how each informed the other. Thomas Howard, The Achievement of C. S. Lewis, 1980, concentrates exclusively on Lewis's Narnian tales and the Space Trilogy, providing evocative readings of both. Peter Schakel, Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of Till We Have Faces, 1984, presents a convincing, masterful interpretation of Lewis's most difficult work. Kathryn Lindksoog's The C. S. Lewis Hoax, 1988, is a provoking and disturbing inquiry into the authenticity and integrity of some posthumously published stories commonly attributed to Lewis. Other studies include Robert H. Smith, Patches of Godlight: The Pattern of Thought of C. S. Lewis, 1981; Jocelyn Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis, 1965; and Peter Schakel, Reading with the Heart: the Way into Narnia, 1979.

back to Lewis Resources Page

***************
To be continued.


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PostSubject: Re: The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptySat 06 Mar 2010, 9:32 pm

That Hideous Strength


That Hideous Strength
(subtitled "A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups") is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra (a.k.a. Voyage to Venus) and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom. Yet, unlike the principal events of those two novels, the story takes place on Earth rather than in space or on other planets in the solar system.

The novel was heavily influenced by the writing of Lewis's friend Charles_Williams_(UK_writer) and is markedly dystopian in style. In the book's preface Lewis acknowledges the science-fiction writer Olaf Stapledon and his work: "Mr. Stapledon is so rich in invention that he can well afford to lend, and I admire his invention (though not his philosophy) so much that I should feel no shame to borrow."[1]

The title is taken from a poem written by David Lyndsay in 1555, Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour, also known as The Monarche. The couplet in question, The shadow of that hyddeous strength, sax myle and more it is of length, refers to the Tower of Babel.[2]

Opening scenario:

The story is set in England of the mid 1940s ("vaguely after the war"), in the small university town of Edgestow, centered around a young university don Mark Studdock, a fellow of Bracton College at the (fictional) University of Edgestow, and his wife Jane (née Tudor), who is working on her graduate degree in poetry.

The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments ("N.I.C.E."), a scientific and social planning agency, furtively pursues its program of the exploitation of nature and the annihilation of humanity. The Institute is secretly inspired and directed by fallen eldila, whom they refer to as "macrobes", superior beings. Their takeover of Edgestow and its surrounding area is a case in point of the manner in which they use human pride and greed to get what they want. After the N.I.C.E. would achieve its ends, the earth would only belong to the "macrobes".

Set against the N.I.C.E.'s operations is a small resistance group led by Dr. Elwin Ransom, who following his journeys to Mars and Venus, is now directed by the good eldila there, as well as those of MercuryMercury_(planet)][/url]Mercury_(planet)[/url]], Saturn, and Jupiter. These eldila, previously blocked from accessing Earth, "the silent planet", are now unhindered, as that silence had first been breached by Weston and Devine when they left the earth to travel to Malacandra (Mars) in Out of the Silent Planet. Ransom's group consists of humans and animals living in unity and harmony, in stark contrast to the division and political maneuverings within the N.I.C.E.

*******
Characters

Mark Gainsby Studdock — Protagonist; sociologist, and ambitious to the point of obsession with reaching the "inner circle" of the social environment to which he has been granted preliminary admittance.

Jane Tudor Studdock— Protagonist; wife of Mark, and clairvoyant dream-seer.

vagabond tinker — mistaken by the N.I.C.E. for Merlinus Ambrosius when the latter steals his clothes and horse at his camp in Bragdon Wood.

At N.I.C.E.:

François Alcasan — "The Head", a French scientist executed for murder early in the book. His head is recovered by the N.I.C.E. and appears to be kept alive by the technology of man while actually having become a communication mechanism for the "Macrobes", the fallen eldila.


  • John Wither — Long-winded bureaucrat and "Deputy Director" of the N.I.C.E. He is the true leader of the N.I.C.E., and a servant of the Macrobes. Long-term association with the Macrobes has "withered" his mind, and his speech and thinking are characterized by vagueness, jargon, and euphemism. He does not engage in a normal sleep cycle, but maintains a continual dreamy wakefulness that affords him the ability to maintain a shadowy, supernatural presence throughout the Institute.
  • Professor Frost — A psychologist and assistant to Wither, he is the only other N.I.C.E member who knows the true nature of the Head, and of the Macrobes. He views emotions and values as mere chemical phenomena to be ignored as distractions from scientific inquiry. He is coldhearted and unemotional and he has an exact, precise manner of speech and thinking.
  • Miss/Major Hardcastle (a.k.a "The Fairy") — The sadistic head of the N.I.C.E. Institutional Police and its female auxiliary, the "Waips". Torture is her favorite interrogation method, and she takes special pleasure in abusing female prisoners. It is clearly implied that she is a sadomasochistic lesbian.
  • Dr. Filostrato — An obese Italian physiologist, who has seemingly preserved Alcasan's head. He does not understand the Head's nature and believes it to be truly Alcasan. His ultimate goal is to free humanity from the constraints of organic life.
  • Lord Feverstone (Dick Devine) — The politician and recently ennobled businessman who lures Mark into the N.I.C.E. Feverstone was one of the two men who kidnapped Ransom in Out of the Silent Planet. A classic sociopath, he is motivated in all circumstances by the perceived benefit to himself. Although he is aware of the Macrobes, he has no interest in them.
  • Reverend Straik — "The Mad Parson". He believes that any sort of power is a manifestation of God's will. This belief, along with other beliefs, makes him a suitable candidate for introduction to the Macrobes. "He was a good man once", but became deranged by the death of his daughter.
  • Horace Jules — A novelist, tabloid reporter, cockney, and pseudo-scientific journalist who has been appointed the nominal Director of the N.I.C.E. His minimal understanding of science allows him to be unaware of the true nature of the Institute and to be manipulated by Wither and Frost. He has a strong anti-clerical bias, and objects to Wither appointing "parsons" (such as Straik) to the Institute. Partly based on H.G. Wells.[citation needed]

St. Anne's:

Dr. Elwin Ransom — sometimes called the "Pendragon" or "Mr. Fisher-King". He alone communicates with the benevolent eldila. Back from Perelandra, Ransom is a kingly figure among his small band of followers, and is usually referred to as "The Director". Ransom attributes his following to a divine Power, presumably Maleldil.

  • Grace Ironwood — The seemingly stern but kind psychologist and doctor who helps Jane interpret her dreams.
  • Dr. Cecil Dimble — Another don, an old friend of Ransom, and close adviser on matters of Arthurian scholarship and pre-Norman Britain.
  • "Mother" Dimble — Mrs. Dimble; She and Mr. Dimble have no children, much to their sadness, but have compensated by their kindness to students. Very maternal.
  • Ivy Maggs — Formerly a part-time domestic servant for Jane Studdock; now driven out of the town by the N.I.C.E. and living at St. Anne's. Jane is puzzled at first by her status as an equal at the house. Ivy's husband Tom is in prison for petty theft.
  • Merlinus Ambrosius — The wizard Merlin, awakened and returned to serve the Pendragon and save England. Receives the powers of the eldila. He has been in a deep sleep since the time of King Arthur, and both sides initially believe he will join the N.I.C.E. His appearance at St. Anne's comes as a surprise.
  • Mr. MacPhee — A scientist, skeptic, and rationalist, who is a close friend of Dr. Ransom and joins him at St. Anne's. Though not religious, he is deeply influenced by his family Ulster Scot Presbyterian background.[citation needed] He is mentioned parenthetically in Perelandra, and he appears in The Dark Tower. MacPhee, like Ransom, was an officer in the First World War. MacPhee desires to fight the N.I.C.E. with human powers. An argumentative character who claims to have no opinions, merely stating facts and illustrating implications. His position in the establishment is to be skeptical, testing every hypothesis and Jane's dreams; however, the awakened Merlin believes MacPhee to be Ransom's "fool" (i.e. jester), because MacPhee is "obstructive and rather rude...yet never gets sat on". The character may have been based on William T. Kirkpatrick, former headmaster of Lurgan College and an admired tutor of the young Lewis.
  • Mr. Bultitude — Last of the seven bears of Logres, who escaped from a zoo and was tamed by Ransom, who has regained man's legendary authority over the beasts.
  • Arthur and Camilla Denniston - Arthur is an academic at Edgestow and an old University friend of Mark Studdock's, before Studdock began to be obsessed with reaching the "inner circle" at Bracton College. His wife, Camilla, is described as very tall, and she is the first person Jane meets when visiting St. Anne's for the first time.


Reception
Some two years before writing his own Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell reviewed That Hideous Strength for the Manchester Evening News commenting: "Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters [the N.I.C.E. scientists], and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realizable"[4]. It is noteworthy that the review was written in the direct aftermath of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are referred to in the text.

However, Orwell argued that Lewis's book "would have been a stronger without the supernatural elements". Particularly, Orwell objected to the ending [not to be revealed here:)]: "[Lewis] is entitled to his beliefs, but they weaken his story, not only because they offend the average reader’s sense of probability but because in effect they decide the issue in advance. When one is told that God and the Devil are in conflict, one always knows which side is going to win. The whole drama of the struggle against evil lies in the fact that one does not have supernatural aid".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Hideous_Strength

******
My note: Of all of C. S. Lewis's works, this one is my favorite.
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PostSubject: Books and Cobwebs - Memories of C. S. Lewis   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptySat 27 Mar 2010, 1:20 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-cqdo-vTS8
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PostSubject: The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptySun 23 Dec 2012, 4:50 pm

The Magician's Twin: C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism


More than a half century ago
, famed writer C.S. Lewis warned about how science (a good thing) could be twisted in order to attack religion, undermine ethics, and limit human freedom. In this documentary "The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism," leading scholars explore Lewis's prophetic warnings about the abuse of science and how Lewis's concerns are increasingly relevant for us today.


https://www.youtube.com/v/FPeyJvXU68k

NOTE: This is the theme C. S. Lewis explored in his brilliant novel, That Hideous Strength
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PostSubject: Re: The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptySun 23 Dec 2012, 8:58 pm

I'm going to start posting some more material that show where this entire Scientism movement came from, and how Science was pitted against Religion, and how this path that we are on is untenable for humanity.

Good find.

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PostSubject: Re: The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptyTue 25 Dec 2012, 12:31 pm

C1 wrote:
I'm going to start posting some more material that show where this entire Scientism movement came from, and how Science was pitted against Religion, and how this path that we are on is untenable for humanity.

Good find.

Thanks! Smile

Looking forward to understanding more about this newest incursion into our sanity and peace of mind. They never stop pushing their agenda, do they!!? Just one horrible future after/or another (if it's not Scientism, it's Humanism, etc. etc. )........ SOBs!

There is a very interesting fable about a "Stone of Destiny" or "Stone of Scone" which relates that when this biblical stone has been instated in
Jerusalem, that Jesus Christ will return to take his place upon that throne. This derives from the Biblical account of Jacob's Pillar -- I will post some material on this soon...it's quite fascinating!

Anyway, I am now more and more leaning towards the idea that [a just God] may be the direction in which salvation may lie -- and I no longer feel that this is just wishful thinking, or 'mysticism'. I think we have a chance in this direction, C1..
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PostSubject: Re: The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis   The Life and Works of C. S. Lewis EmptyWed 26 Dec 2012, 4:27 pm

ScoutsHonor wrote:
Anyway, I am now more and more leaning towards the idea that [a just God] may be the direction in which salvation may lie -- and I no longer feel that this is just wishful thinking, or 'mysticism'. I think we have a chance in this direction, C1..
I've been here for about 10 yrs now. .... not because I'm some religious nutcase or metaphysically focused tinfoil hat wearer. I guess I now see why it was important for the founders of the USA to put this nation and its system under a God, and to evelop our system in biblical moral lessons. It's beause when you unshakle the system from something above man, then Men take over and they centralize power by suppressing other men. Keeping everyone under a God with an Objective set of rules helps keep one set of men from suppressing and abusing other men.

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