by rusmeister » May 28th, 2010, 3:33 am
Hi Jo,
I think you've read me quite wrongly. You seem to have taken what I meant as a general point that there is a practical limit to what any of us could know as an ad hominem attack.
But your idea that all comments MUST be confined to Lewis is illogical. It is not possible to have much of any discussion at all. We could not discuss any applicability of Lewis's ideas to us, or even the issue of whether those ideas are true or not. You are basically saying that you may criticize Lewis's ideas, but that I may not criticize yours. If you criticize Lewis you DO place yourself in a position above him to do so. I question your ability to really do that - I don't think that your basis to do so is as strong as you seem to think it is, and I don't think any criticism can even be seriously considered if it cannot be questioned. I see a difference between insults to a person (ad hominem) and attacking ideas. I do the latter with no apologies, I avoid the former as sin, an exercise in pride.
I am NOT engaging in personal attacks! I'm not saying you are stupid if you are ignorant of, for instance, Orthodox Christianity (my faith) - and I accept that you are fairly well informed on Buddhism and Hinduism - my point is that we are all invariably ignorant of some aspects of religion, and an apologist for any religion is going to be necessarily dismissive of something or other. That Lewis was dismissive of Buddhism and Islam in "Mere Christianity" is quite excusable, given the audience and circumstances under which he wrote it. I'd say he knew enough, and he does periodically display sufficient knowledge of them for an educated person in other works. I'm not aware of any specific treatises on Buddhism or Islam that he wrote, which, it seems, is what you might wish he had. (For that matter, so do I. I think it would eliminate some of your objections, as well as be very interesting in its own right.)
In sum, I'd say that you should first define what "in-depth knowledge" means, and then how possible it is for any of us to have it regarding all (if only) major religions. A modern comparative religion study course? To me such a thing is, generally speaking, most likely to be a farce and do the dangerous thing of giving a person an impression that they actually understand a religion when in fact they do not. As I said, the horse's mouth is best.
"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
Bill "The Blizzard" Hingest - That Hideous Strength