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I've started reading Mere Christianity. It begins with a forward written by Lewis, then a brief new introduction by Kathleen Norris. She describes the wartime in England as having had a profound effect upon people. It implied to me that war can cause people to turn to religion. I think that is also what inspired the Old and New Testaments.
So far in the book his arguments have not been very convincing but I've only read a few chapters.
More than likely, only Lewis would know. There are many reasons that might a person might come closer or go farther from God. Even how we react to matters (in a positive/healthy or negative/unhealthy approach) varies significantly.
I've started reading Mere Christianity. It begins with a forward written by Lewis, then a brief new introduction by Kathleen Norris. She describes the wartime in England as having had a profound effect upon people. It implied to me that war can cause people to turn to religion. I think that is also what inspired the Old and New Testaments.
So far in the book his arguments have not been very convincing but I've only read a few chapters.
What do you think?
I'm just thinking of two prominent bods who lost faith because of war - Elgar ("I don't believe a word of it" and "Poor bloody horses") and Spike Milligan, who began as a sorta Catholic, though a bad one, much to his mothers' distress. In the North Africa campaign, his mother's food parcels were full of Holy Medals. Milligan used them as currency with the locals.
As to C.S Lewis, I seem to recall that it was Tolkien who converted him, though he was disappointed that he took up with Protestantism. But I'm sure than Lewis worked aout a lot of his own apologetics, such as a the notorious 'Lord, Liar or Lunatic' fallacy of Bifurcation - or in that case, trifurcation.
More than likely, only Lewis would know. There are many reasons that might a person might come closer or go farther from God. Even how we react to matters (in a positive/healthy or negative/unhealthy approach) varies significantly.
I don't think CS Lewis, or any other person could be that subjective about this. Because it seems like England in general was more of a traditional Christian nation during CS Lewis's time. The war is something that would have a general overall effect on religious belief. Just like with ancient Israel.
I'm just thinking of two prominent bods who lost faith because of war - Elgar ("I don't believe a word of it" and "Poor bloody horses") and Spike Milligan, who began as a sorta Catholic, though a bad one, much to his mothers' distress. In the North Africa campaign, his mother's food parcels were full of Holy Medals. Milligan used them as currency with the locals.
As to C.S Lewis, I seem to recall that it was Tolkien who converted him, though he was disappointed that he took up with Protestantism. But I'm sure than Lewis worked aout a lot of his own apologetics, such as a the notorious 'Lord, Liar or Lunatic' fallacy of Bifurcation - or in that case, trifurcation.
Surely you must understand that Tolkien was merely the "push" that Lewis needed. Maybe the question should apply to Tolkien as well. But honestly I have no knowledge about Tolkien and what his religious or other experiences might have been before that.
Surely you must understand that Tolkien was merely the "push" that Lewis needed. Maybe the question should apply to Tolkien as well. But honestly I have no knowledge about Tolkien and what his religious or other experiences might have been before that.
Yes. I thought that was possible. Conversion, like deconversion can go on almost unknown (subconsciously! ) and the Thing (often trivial) that gets quotes as the cause of conversion or deconversion is often a tiny or trivial thing that just triggers the Change. However, from what i read of Lewis (nb the Screwtape letters is thought to use his own life as the Christian that the demon is trying to subvert) it seems more reasoning (and doubtless discussion with Tolkien) that was the basis of his later belief and not horror at the war.
Yes. I thought that was possible. Conversion, like deconversion can go on almost unknown (subconsciously! ) and the Thing (often trivial) that gets quotes as the cause of conversion or deconversion is often a tiny or trivial thing that just triggers the Change. However, from what i read of Lewis (nb the Screwtape letters is thought to use his own life as the Christian that the demon is trying to subvert) it seems more reasoning (and doubtless discussion with Tolkien) that was the basis of his later belief and not horror at the war.
I could be wrong.
Reasoning is just like the influence of Tolkien. Neither one of them would have meant anything in a different period time. In a different period of time Tolkien might not have been religious himself.
For the smattering of people that turned to God after the war - or during it - far more became secular and even atheistic.
Which is why, even today, those nations who tended to suffer the most during the war, from Japan to Norway to Holland, have become the most secular nations on the planet.
Even those nations like Germany, France, and Britain have become far and away more secular than they had been, even if they didn't become secular to the same degree.
Americans really can't appreciate the horrors of fascism, authoritarianism, and the loss of basic civil rights. Which is precisely why this country is circling the drain even as we speak -- and fascism and theocracy has now tightened its grip on our benighted United States of Ignorance.
The only positive outcome, perhaps, is after we go through a horror unlike anything any American has ever experirenced thanks to rampant stupidity and unrestrained ignorance, is that America too will join the ranks of highly secular and atheistic nations that finally figures out that, if God fails to intervene even through something this bad, then how can a good and benevolent God exist at all?
It's one of the reasons why Israel is one of the most secular nations - a lot of Jews lost their belief in God due to the Holocaust. They kept their cultural identity and still call themselves Jews, but they're not at all religious.
Apparently, America will have to go through the same horrific time and be rescued by the Old World before we finally learn the lesson we SHOULD have learned by 1945. The Greatest Generation isn't even completely gone and already we're praising fascism and authoritarianism, the cross and the swastika together again like the good ol' days of Nazi Germany.
As for individuals like C.S. Lewis, anyone who turns to God during a war and gets no response - which there wasn't - must have powers of rationalization that beggers the imagination. How anyone can still believe in an omni-benevolant God after a war like that, with billions of prayers flying up to Heaven on a daily basis while God sits with arms folded uselessly, doing nothing but watching like a sick voyeur, is simply beyond anything I could ever understand. Or would ever want to.
Reasoning is just like the influence of Tolkien. Neither one of them would have meant anything in a different period time. In a different period of time Tolkien might not have been religious himself.
But we are not talking about a different period of time.If they'd lived in our time, they might have been atheists, since we have the best arguments and they apologetics they used would not stand up. Tolkien would probably have stuffed his fingers in his ears, but Lewis would probably argue - as he did with Arthur -C Clarke who was a smart guy and a fine writer but wouldn't have the skill in apologetics. And Lewis might, as you say, have been affected by the war, though I see little sign of it in his writing (1), or some other way have slipped into Godfaith, in which case discussion might be wasted. I'd love to have the chance to debate with him though.
Another fine Shirina post. I could imagine those actually in the War might lose faith (all this crap, and God does nothing) but those sitting at home (I'll look it up but I'd make a small wager that CS Lewis was sitting behind a desk during it all) might well (Like the USA, apart from those actually fight in it and coming home with the 100 mile stare) see the fact that they Won all the proof of God that they needed.
(1) wiki entry - He eventually returned to Christianity, having been influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and Christian friend J. R. R. Tolkien, whom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 May 1926, and the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. Lewis vigorously resisted conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape".[42] He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen [College, Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.[43]
After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England – somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would join the Catholic Church.[44][page needed][incomplete short citation]
As I say, if he really had been looking for a chance to escape Godfaith (when he should have been looking for the best case) I reckon I could have given him all the reasons he wanted.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-07-2018 at 06:22 AM..
But we are not talking about a different period of time.If they'd lived in our time, they might have been atheists, since we have the best arguments and they apologetics they used would not stand up. Tolkien would probably have stuffed his fingers in his ears, but Lewis would probably argue - as he did with Arthur -C Clarke who was a smart guy and a fine writer but wouldn't have the skill in apologetics.
nipped
As I say, if he really had been looking for a chance to escape Godfaith (when he should have been looking for the best case) I reckon I could have given him all the reasons he wanted.
lmao. "we have the best reasoning" ... thats funny. deny everything, because what was it you said? oh yeah, let me list them
1) it doesn't matter so a less valid belief is ok
2) the more valid stance gives theist something to use and makes atheism harder to sell
3) some of us believe religion is so dangerous we are justified in doing anything we want.
4) because of my atheism I must change the wording to "bla bla bla, just another prant from a fundy'
5) use the words "apologetic"/semantics as the reason to deny reality instead of the actual observation.
all of them debunked as easily as a creationist line of reasoning line of reason. it so darn easy because the personality types are the same. lmao ... you could beat him as easily as any other person that puts a statement of belief about god ahead of reality. just ask you, you will tell us that' so ... lmao, yeah, just ask you. too funny.
thanks for the laugh, I needed a good joke after work.
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) and the Thing (often trivial) that gets quotes as the cause of conversion or deconversion is often a tiny or trivial thing that just triggers the Change. However, from what i read of Lewis (nb the Screwtape letters is thought to use his own life as the Christian that the demon is trying to subvert) it seems more reasoning (and doubtless discussion with Tolkien) that was the basis of his later belief and not horror at the war. 
