1 - I or "It's the four elephants of the apocalypse!"

I find I don't have many orginal original ideas - I need someone else for inspiration. And here's the first, and the second is ready and waiting.

From where I buy most of my CD's - amazon.com. This was posted as a comment to 'The Screwtape Letters' by CS Lewis. And, maybe, it's just that I think it's such a great book, and was heavily insulted someone could give it just one star. But I (like to) think it's because they weren't so much criticising the book as the whole of Christianity in general. And, frankly, that is one of the things (count them) that I cannot just sit back and stay happy about.

Quote:

Try as I may, I find C.S.Lewis nearly impossible to read. Maybe that is because I have little interest in living a good Christian life -- as portrayed by a British professor of literature, writing at the time of the second world war.
His basis premise seems to be that God and the Devil have some "interest" in the way human beings are living their lives. Both are trying to influence that. I just can't for the life of me understand why a God would want to do that. I mean if God is all powerful why couldn't he just create the perfect man and be done with it, why would he have to go around trying to find ways to improve on his design? And what benefit does the devil get by getting the human to do evil and collecting the odd soul? The whole subject is patently ridiculous. And to try to cast an argument, which is dubious at best, using the technique of diabolic ventriloquism or photographic negative is mind boggling. At the end what are we supposed to get out of this -- pure knowledge? an understanding of Lewis' philosophy? or just a chuckle? If it is the chuckle, then I would divide the causes of such a chuckle into Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy. And I would relegate Lewis to the flippant. "It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it." (Page 51 Screwtape.)

End Quote.

I'd like to say first of all that there is no reason to think that because the book was written by a

1. British
2. Literary professor
3. During WWII

that it would be somehow irrelevant. Anyone whose read CS Lewis (besides Narnia, of course - I'm talking Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, et al) would know that he writes in very high level and fairly British, old-fashioned English (with an e on the end?). Similar to Mr JRR Tolkein - relatively good friends who enjoyed criticising each others work, as I recall. But writing in such a style doesn't make the theme, plot, ideas, characters, etc any less relevant. I believe there are references to old-fashioned, and British, things, but suggesting that this book is irrelevant on that basis means we have to dismiss nearly all history, especially ancient history, because most of it happened overseas, and a long time ago - and probably in another language.

Hmm.....this is going to be a long entry.

...that You have hidden these things from prophets and revealed them to little children...
It is almost ironic (in the pseudo Alanis Morrisette meaning of the word) that one who seems so intent to dismiss an involved God (something Lewis elsewhere expresses as an essential element to a Creator) would stumble, unknowingly, onto such a profound truth.
His basis premise seems to be that God and the Devil have some "interest" in the way human beings are living their lives. Both are trying to influence that. I just can't for the life of me understand why a God would want to do that.
I don't really understand that, either. But does that change the fact?
Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King, would die for me?
It often seems that people willing to dismiss any god who trys to relate to its creation on a personal level are perfectly happy with, say, karma, which basically says that there is some huge cosmic force which changes everything around you based on if you are 'good' or 'bad'. Or that instead they are unwilling participants in some sort of interstellar war, where it is the stars and planets which seem to have nothing better to do than alter the course of 1/12 of the planets inhabitants' love life in some random way on some random day. I would suggest that the problem is control - but I'm not here for that reason.

I'm rambling......the trouble is that my mind charges through all possibilities before arriving at a conclusion, and although I did that last night, it took a good deal of thinking to get there. Next time, I shall attempt to succinct myself.