Is the Bible utterly insane or are you?

Well, I'm not a male-chauvinist pig.

I don't ask people to stone their unruly children to death.

I don't condone the mass murdering of 'heathens'.

I would never stand by and allow innocent women to be inhumanely tortured and then burned alive at the stake in my name if I had the power to correct the idiots who were doing that in my name.

I'm also willing to forgive people without any need to be appeased by nailing someone to a pole first.

You decide who's insane and who isn't.

Obviously it's a subjective call.

Very right, and the way you offer the idea is so romantic: Is a devout follower of God willing to sacrifice his or her eternal existence to God?

To answer yes is to be but a short cry from being comfortable with an important aspect of atheism.

You're right, it's good for people to come to terms with their fear of agnosticism. Again, I suggest the approach to openly accepting agnosticism be taken slowly though - first, to challenge beliefs in familiar territory, like you've discussed. Then, perhaps show them that dying and ceasing to exist is not so bad the way you describe. Finally, accepting the possibility that God may not be around won't be so difficult.

Has a single human ever lived who could be your equal? You are sinless, you created the only true religion and you are far more intelligent than CS Lewis.



Oh wait, I mean you are talking out of your ass and have no idea what CS Lewis wrote. You read a single quote, out of context, and bash the guy because you are too lazy and arrogant to read his book.

What about people who presume to speak for God?

What about the contradictions in the Bible?

What about the passages modern Christians choose to ignore?

I realize that you're frustrated because you can never refute my points but that's no reason to make nasty statements about my character.

For one thing I didn't "bash" Lewis. I simply stated the facts.

Lewise clearly accepts that every word of the Bible is the verbatim truth and he draws his conlclusions from that premise. I pointed this out by the fact that he has stated on many occassions that either Jesus was God, or a total lunatic.

Well, the latter conclusion can only be drawn if a person is locked into believing that every word printed in the New Testament actually came out of the mouth of Jesus verbatim.

What I've been proposing all along is that the authors of the New Testament used Jesus' martyrdom to prop up their failing religion.

Therefore, based on this premises we can't trust that the words assigned to Jesus are verbatim. On the contrary it's far more reasonable to assume that they were indeed slanted toward what the authors were hoping to convince the readers they should believe.

This is a very reasonable concept, and it has nothing at all to do with 'bashing' Lewis.

Clearly Lewis is a harecore "believer", he's holds that the Bible is the verbatim word of God, and he veiws it that way. Thus his statement are coming from that point of view.

His conclusion about Jesus being a lunatic if he wasn't God is unfounded becaused Lewis is assuming that every word in the New Testament actually came out of the mouth of Jesus in both cases.

My observation is pretty simple. If Jesus wasn't God and my scenario is correct that his martyrdom was being used to prop up the very religion that he had actually denounced, then of course the words that were printed in the New Testament are going to be a gross distortion of what Jesus actually had to say.

So my conclusion that Lewis is incapable of thinking outside of the box of his conclusion stands.

Lewis is determined to insist that the Bible is the word of God and therefore he goes on from that point to try to defend God.

I've been there and done that. It's not a defensible position.

If you like I can go through the article and show precisely why it's untenable.

Ok, Spider, just for you I've stared reading this particular article that you've linked to by C. S. Lewis:

I've already got a problem with his reasoning and conclusions in his very first chapter.

From Chapter 1: THE LAW OF HUMAN NATURE

"These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in." - C. S. Lewis
Fine, I have no problem with this at all.

However, Lewis jumps to the following totally unwarranted conclusion:

"It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong." - C. S. Lewis

He's jumping from the observation that humans are not perfect and that many cultures have certain ways that they feel they should behave, to the absurd notion that there is some kind of "real" Right and Wrong (i.e. like in an absolute sense)

That's a totally illogical and unfounded conclusion to jump to.

What is far more realistic is to recognize that not only do different cultures have differnet ideas of what is Right or Wrong, but even all the individuals within any given culture will not agree on precisely what is Right or Wrong.

So Lewis drastically drops the ball right in his opening chapter.

From Chapter 2: SOME OBJECTIONS

In this chapter Lewis claims to address some specific objections to his conclusions from the first chapter. However, he has truly chosen very lame objections to address, and has totally ignored my objection above. Which, IMHO, should be a very obvious objection of any thinking person.

In stead he address really lame things like a question put to him about burning witches:

"For example, one man said to me, 'Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did--if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather--surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house." - C. S. Lewis.

In this case, Lewis totally avoids this moral question concerning the witch burnings by just addressing why we no longer do it!

That's total avoidance to the original question concerning the morality of Christians burning witches in the first place.

And in the second place C. S. Lewis simply states that we no longer believe in witches!

Well, DUH?

The Bible clearly states, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!"

So what is C. S. Lewis saying? He doesn't believe that the Bible is the word of God!

Clearly C. S. Lewis disagrees with the Bible!

Do I really need to waste anymore time on this guy?

Where's he going with this? He's already suggested that we shouldn't believe the Bible because witches aren't real! Yet we all know that the Bible claims they are!

I'm only at the second chapter and this is already a total waste of time.

Need I go on?

I'm sure it's just going to continue to get worse. He's already clearly demonstrated that he has no logic worth considering.

I don't know why C. S. Lewis just doesn't confess that he doesn't believe in the Bible.

Also, that moral question about the Burning Times that C. S. Lewis totally avoided is truly a paramount question.

Lewis is trying to build a case for absolute mortal values and that we need the Bible to obtain these, yet look at the kinds of moral values that this book has instilled in people all throughout history.

The Bible actually has one of the worse records of any doctrine for instilling immoral behavior in humans.

So this is absurd.

I might look at some more of this article, but I imagine it's just going to get much worse.

Well, I read chapters 3, 4, and 5 and I was rigth. Lewis just continues to harp on his original incorrect concluion that there must be an absolute Right and Wrong.

He keeps building up on that premise like as if it's an established truth (which he never established at all).

Also, his examples and statments though all three of these chapters just vividly brought to my mind how much Lewis would benefit from Zen Buddhism or Taoism, because the things he complains about in chapter 3, 4, and 5 are beautifully addressed by those phiolsophies.

I went as far as Chapter 6. I don't think I'll bother reading anymore because in Chapter 6 Lewis truly shows his ignorance of the pantheistic view. He apparently totally misunderstand Eastern Mysticism and has no clue that they are truly about.

He then goes on to try to support the "Christian" picture even though he had already suggested that he doesn't believe in witches which the Bible clearly does.

I think the man would truly benefit from Buddhism or Taoism if he could truly understand the concepts behind them. It's clear to me that he's just brushing them off as some kind of misunderstood mumbo jumbo.

He states:

"If you do not take the distinction between good and bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is, a part of God. But, of course, if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will." - C. S. Lewis

Well again, this stems from his erroneous original belief that there are absolute Right and Wrongs. Which he never truly established way back in Chapter 1.

So this is his point of view.

I totally disagree with this, and point out once again that Mr. Lewis did not prove his case for the need for an absolute notion of Right or Wrong.

That's entirely a subjective point of view that I hold to be totally invalid.

And I'm certainly not alone in this as this is indeed the view of all Eastern Mysticism and many other religions and phiolosophies as well.

So no, Mr. Lewis has NOT ANSWERED any of the questions that I had raised. And based on the fact that he's entirely hung up on this erroneous concept of some sort of absolute Right or Wrong he never will address them because this has been the main thesis of his entire argument thus far.

When you stop and think about what C. S. Lewis is saying you really need to stop and ask yourself if he's being rational.

He's basically saying,...

Well, I think most people seem to have a pretty good idea of what's Right and Wrong so the concepts of Right and Wrong are probably absolutes, but of course I don't believe in witches.

Therefore, I think I'll support the idea that the Bible is the word of God because it claims that God has absolute laws of Right and Wrong, even though the Bible also claims that witches are real and I don't believe in witches.

Does this truly make sense to anyone?

Let me guess Abracrabby, you're a Wiccan. You've poisoned your mind with some kind of junk obviously. Yes, some bloody things happened in the OT. There is a cosmic WAR going on. It's not his fault Lucifer fell - the god of this world and source of all misery here. But his greatest gift to Lucifer and all of us is FREE WILL. You are sure using yours to twist yourself into so many knots you may never be free. REAL love involves making a choice. He wants us to CHOOSE him, he's not forcing us. I suppose maybe also you are a gnostic and believe that God is the bad guy trying to enslave us and Lucifer is the good guy trying to free us. At least you are a thinking person, so there is still hope.

I shed a tear for those who practiced their belief system that wasn't ideal for Christianity and where burned on a stake for it.

Did you know 20% of the witches who were burned in this time where males.

The word "witch" has become synonymous with "woman accused of working magic," and the consensus tells us that the witch trials in Europe and Colonial America were simply a war against woman (ie, gendercide"). Most popular works on the subject ignore the men who were accused and executed for supposiedly practicing witchcraft. Academic works that don't omit male witches usually explain them away, as if they were just a few special cases and don't really count.

Of the 110,000 people tried for witchcraft and the 60,000 executed from 1450 to 1750, somewhere between 20 to 25 percent were men.

It varies to place to place though.

In Estonia men were the majority who where burned to stake at 60% and in Norway 73%.

The infamous Salem witch trials (six of nineteen) were men.

Although women were the overall majority of victims, the "burning times" were pretty rought for men, too.


Concerning CS Lewis, I think he was agnostic throughout his life trying to find the true meaning of life. He may have embraced Christianity at the end because some at a older age think more about what will happen to them when they pass away. Therefore, I think that he embraced its idealogy for he FEARED that something might happen to him if he didn't.

Like going to hell if one doesn't believe in the Bible.

That is my guess on it, for he was a atheist in his youngest years, then he experimented with different religions meaning he was agnostic, then he was a big apologist for the Christian religion and tried to embrace it later in his life.

Of course I wasn't there when he lived and I wouldn't know for sure. I am sure JRR Tolkien probably would have given a better observation of this since they were friends.

God's will??

He created man in his image and created woman from man so woman should be in his image to.

He created us with free will.

So why should he asks us to have faith without questioning if he gave us free will to believe or not.

Maybe he wanted to see who was like him who would question try to find the truth with our free will and inquiring mind.

Maybe he will save the ones on judgment day that dare to question, maybe he created some unbelievable Bible to test humans to see who would just follow blindly never questioning even if it showed a God that he is not.

He gave us a brain to think question inquire so why would he not want us to use it.


For the record I do not believe there is God just saying what if.

Well I thank you sir for your bigoted assessment of my spirituality.

May I ask where you came up with these extremely negative ideas?

Poisoned by junk?

Excuse me sir, but do you even have a clue who you are talking to or what I might believe?

Obviously not. You're just jumping to a lot of negative conclusions because you don't like the truth I share. Obviously you have no counterpoints to make or you'd be making them instead of slobbering vile uneducated accusations all over me.

I can also see by your purposeful respelling of my screen name that you have already decided how you will be viewing me.

So do you have any constructive counterpoints to make, or have I pretty much secured my position?

Well, clearly our creator gave us a brain and wants us to think.

It's the authors of the Bible who don't want us to think because they know that if we start thinking we'll quickly realize that God never told them to write any of the rubbish they wrote.

Interesting. You join this website and within 6 posts, you are attacking Abracadabra and me on two separate threads in the General Religion forum...hmm I wonder who you are really? I can guess.

Well pretty much you in light of the fact that you have made the claim to speak for god a couple times on past threads.

I would even take that sentiment a step further and say that Christians are basically Satanists anyway. They believe in Satan as a being who personifies pure evil and hatred on Earth.

They are half way there. The belief system is a duality between good and evil. It has two beings that reprisent those halves. That is their Yin and Yang. Wiccans and nearly all pagans (I’m saying nearly as I cant be certain of course) do not even accept the reality of the Christian understanding of a devil. This is part of the Christian belief in corresponding halves.

Abra,

I was laughing out loud when I read your analysis of the C.S Lewis writing. About 10 years ago, I decided to bow to a friends wish and read what she thought was the most amazing thing; a book by C.S. Lewis.

I think it was something like "A Case for Christianity", maybe that wasn't the name but it was supposed to be an argument for Christianity that COULD NOT be denied.

I sat down with my notebook (no computer at the time) and after 4 pages I had made 15 written pages of refutes.

So I got the idea to highlight anything that was a direct quote from the Bible or a direct quote from some other source in blue. Then, using red, I highlighted all the places where Lewis USED THE BIBLE, to substantiate the Bible.

This left only Lewis's OWN words, of which I contined to write my notes refuting his logic and showing his contradictions.

I was so intent in this effort that I got halfway through the book, used HALF of my note pad to refute his words, before I realized that I had written four times more, in my own words, than Lewis had written in his for half a book.

I quit at that point, laughing at myself for having been so silly as to have taken it that far. I gave the book and the information to my friend. She was so upset, she cried and went to Pastor, who told her, it would be best if the two of us did not discuss religion if we were to reamain friends. I agreed and we remained good friends for several years. Our parting was a natural progression and I was happy for the friendship we had.

BUT I WILL NEVER READ C.S.LEWIS AGAIN.

Well, this wasn't my first encounter with the ideas of C. S. Lewis either.

I dismissed the article as soon as I saw his name because I already knew that Lewis has extremely lame logic from previous things that I've read by him.

Spider was accusing me of not giving the article a chance. So I went ahead and read it some of it. It just confirmed my justification for steering clear of C. S. Lewis.

It's ridiculous.