Religion Ask a Christian - Continued in Part 2

[Chief]

Continued in Part Two:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/ask-a-christian-part-2.1295001/unread

 

[Boston tiger]

Well I think subsequent findings about the origins of the Bible show us that Lewis wasn't working with a full deck of cards.

Subsequent findings ? Sounds like something from the publish or perish brigade.
Hey Roy

 

[Boston tiger]

And what does this prove or demonstrate?

He found some evidence .

 

[Total Power]

He found some evidence .

What would those be? C.S Lewis' big argument is 'You cannot trust your own thinking' - Hence God.

Do you think that's rational?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Subsequent findings ? Sounds like something from the publish or perish brigade.
Hey Roy

?

 

[Sweet Jesus]

He found some evidence .

What was the evidence?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Hardly validates the Gospel, C.S Lewis fell into his own trap, one place he says 'Brains and thoughts are not truthworthy', nek minit, he uses the logic and power of logical thoughts to deduce God through reductionism. Hardly a revelation.

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” —C.S. Lewis



lewis argues that without god, there would be no reason for the human mind to be reliable as a means of understanding the world. Lewis does not explain why God is the only possible source of a functional mind; he just can't think of any other source. It would have to be God, what else could it be? Yet he never gave us any reason to think that there is a God. His argument presumes that there is a God. Then he argues that since God is the source of the human capacity to reason, it would be impossible to use reason to doubt God.

Lewis never considers the possibility that, as I said in my previous comment a few pages ago, a reliable and functional mind would be a logical product of biological evolution, and no supernatural explanations would be needed. I will add that even if I did not have an evolutionary explanation available, it would still be more logical to simply say, we do not know why the human mind works as well as it does, than to say, human rationality must be a gift from God, a claim for which we have absolutely no evidence.

He also claims, morality comes from God. So where in the Bible can we find these moralities? Ten Commandments? Is owning a slave moral? how about homosexuality? Or morality is evolving as time goes by? if so, where in the Gospel can we find these universal moralities like he claims there is?

Great post.

 

[Total Power]

Great post.

People are not capable of their own thoughts. C.S Lewis believed Gospel is true, hence it's true.

He's right about one thing though that you can't trust your own thinking. That's why we have tools to overcome (or at least minimize) those limitations of our minds. The tools are called science combined with critical thinking, neither of which can honestly lead us to believe that a foreskin and self love (narcissism) obsessed god created the universe.

 

[Chief]

No evidence isn't the same thing as not true.

If it’s an extraordinary claim, it’s good as.

 

[Roylion]

Glad you mentioned the Gospels. C.S Lewis the great fantasy fiction writer converted from atheism due to him studying the Gospels.. being an expert in fiction/fantasy came to the conclusion that the Gospel couldn't possibly be works of fiction

Yet in an effort to reconcile his former athesim and his new found devotion to Christianity he still called them 'myth". Lwiis thought of the Gospels as “true myth,” that Christians ought to be aware of and be nourished by the mythical element in the New Testament. “It is the myth,” he wrote, “that gives life,” and therefore he rejected attempts to “demythologize” the Gospels.

"The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the dying god, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and
imagination to the earth of history. [...] It happens - at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate."

In this he was heavily influenced by his friend J.R.R. Tolkien (who was one of the ones responsible for converting him to Christianit and who argued for the importance of myth in understanding human language and perception. Tolkien contended the human mythmaking capacity is - along with reason and our moral sense - a divine endowment, there is always an element of truth in myth. Lewis himself puts it in "Mere Christinaity, myths - especially
about a god who dies and comes to life again’" - could be called “good dreams” sent by God into the minds of the poets."

Lewis took the idea of dying-and-rising gods from James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough. This offered an account of the origins of ‘primitive’ religion in the worship of magician-kings. As an atheist, Lewis had embraced Frazer’s work, and, when he ‘first seriously read the New Testament’, he was (as he put it in another of his works 'Miracles') ‘all agog for the Death and Re-birth pattern and anxious to meet a corn-king’. He re-interpreted the Gospels as part of this story cycle.

In a letter to his friend Arthur Greeves he is “nearly certain that [the events recounted in the Gospels] really happened,”

One of the attractions of the Gospels, for Lewis that they contained, in what is proposed as historical fact and that this powerful story of a dying and rising god which so moved and attracted Lewis could be grounded in a possible historical context (unlike Osiris or Balder etc) that gave the original myth legitimacy.

In any case whether Lewis thought the Gospels were true does not mean that it was actually so. He was merely trying to reconcile a story motif that he was moved by with a historical context. He made the assumption it was true. If the Gospels were myth telling set in a historical context, this does not make them any less a myth.

Lewis is acknowledging the influence of older motifs on the Gospels at the very least. The resurrection of Jesus isn't a particularly original story.

 

[Boston tiger]

What was the evidence?

He deemed the Gospels to be a true account of what went on.

You don’t have to . It’s alright.

Don’t worry all life forms except us don’t see the evidence.
You are not alone and it doesn’t mean God will be hidden from you for ever either.

Chin up

 

[Roylion]

Subsequent findings ? Sounds like something from the publish or perish brigade.
Hey Roy

Hey what.

 

[Roylion]

He deemed the Gospels to be a true account of what went on.

But so what. A convert to Christianty deems one of the texts of his new religion to be true. If someone converts to Islam does this mean the contents of the Quran are true?

 

[Total Power]

He deemed the Gospels to be a true account of what went on.

You don’t have to . It’s alright.

Don’t worry all life forms except us don’t see the evidence.
You are not alone and it doesn’t mean God will be hidden from you for ever either.

Chin up

The same God that ripped off Sumerian myths, Buddha and Confucius?

What are the odds?

Or you mean non- Chrstian God? aren't you a Xtian Supremacist?

 

[Boston tiger]

Hey what.

Publish or perish is an academia phrase.

If you want to keep your job as university professor you better get something published sooner than later.
The newer stuff on Church history I find borders on the desperate. But what are you going to do it’s all been written before but if you can drum up a new angle there still a market for it.

 

[Total Power]

Publish or perish is an academia phrase.

If you want to keep your job as university professor you better get something published sooner than later.
The newer stuff on Church history I find borders on the desperate. But what are you going to do it’s all been written before but if you can drum up a new angle there still a market for it.

hahaha! you have answered your own questions about Gospels. Read a bit more on how Josephus' quotes on Jesus was manipulated to prove Christ theory.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

He deemed the Gospels to be a true account of what went on.

You don’t have to . It’s alright.

Don’t worry all life forms except us don’t see the evidence.
You are not alone and it doesn’t mean God will be hidden from you for ever either.

Chin up

So what was the evidence?

 

[Boston tiger]

But so what. A convert to Christianty deems one of the texts of his new religion to be true. If someone converts to Islam does this mean the contents of the Quran are true?

Yea so what . Nice little story of an atheist writer finding evidence of God in the Gospels. Nothing more nothing less

I’m sure there is some stories of atheist scientists finding evidence of God through science.

 

[Total Power]

Yea so what . Nice little story of an atheist writer finding evidence of God in the Gospels. Nothing more nothing less

I’m sure there is some stories of atheist scientists finding evidence of God through science.

So tell me BT, all these Christian converts to Islam meaning Allah is real and Jesus isn't?

What a horrendous argument! Even you can do better.

 

[Boston tiger]

So what was the evidence?

Woof woof

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Woof woof

Are you playing up to the stereotype that believers are gormless cretins?

 

[Boston tiger]

So tell me BT, all these Christian converts to Islam meaning Allah is real and Jesus isn't?

What a horrendous argument! Even you can do better.

We are doing evidence stories. Not someone converted so must be true stories.
What evidence do you see for all your Astro travel cosmos theories etc

 

[Total Power]

We are doing evidence stories. Not someone converted so must be true stories.
What evidence do you see for all your Astro travel cosmos theories etc

What evidence is that? your argument is C.S Lewis saw the evidence. I posted heaps about how and why C.S converted. There's no evidence, only his personal belief, which was bollocks anyway. Read my posts again.

So someone converting into a religion deems it as true. Hardly a revelation. Why do you deem Christianity as true and not Islam? you are hardly unbiased, although you think you are.

Why would a God rip off older myths? did C.S Lewis know that? i doubt

 

[Sweet Jesus]

We are doing evidence stories.

I'm not sure what you're doing.

 

[Number37]

So tell me BT, all these Christian converts to Islam meaning Allah is real and Jesus isn't?

What a horrendous argument! Even you can do better.

Muslims not only believe in Jesus they also believe in the second coming of Jesus.

 

[Roylion]

Muslims not only believe in Jesus they also believe in the second coming of Jesus.

But Muslims also believe Jesus was neither crucified nor died on the cross. They also reject the divinity of Jesus as God incarnate, or the literal Son of God.