Into the Wardrobe

Rusmeister,

I don't think you're being uncivil or rude at all. It's just that there's nothing new to be said here. You've made every argument there is to be made many times over in the past, and we have made every counter argument there is to be made many times over in the past. It just seems like a waste of time to rehash those arguments yet again.

I agree with you that truth is absolute, and that one of us must be right and the other must be wrong. But at this point, does it do any good to debate any further? There comes point, even if you are 100% certain that you are right, when it is time to walk away from a matter.

Mark 6:11 says "And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."

One of us is in that position. We disagree on which it is and perhaps always will. It's time for that person, which ever it is, to walk away from the debate.

I am interested, rusmeister, what the state of religious life is in your community? I hope I'm not being too forward; are more people attending church? Are you being overrun with missionaries of every stripe? Are most people indifferent to religion?

My one question to maralewisfan is on the college course: What does the instructor believe and what do the authors of the texts referenced believe? This often needs to be inferred as they do their best to hide it in "impartial language". I wouldn't trust any world religions course to teach me the truth about religions. if you want to know what they believe, you have to go straight to the horse's mouth. (And not the dead one's! )[/quote]

The instructor is Christian, the author of the text is Sikh. This is just an overview course, not anything designed to teach the truth about religions. I am a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I was just looking for information on whether Lewis ever wrote anything about the Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, type of religions.

I am so sorry MarlaLewisFan. (What should we call you ... Marla? MLF?) We need to address what you said.

Anyway, I don't recall Lewis going into great detail about other specific religions. He speaks a little about them in Mere Christianity, but it's hardly an in-depth comparative study. He also makes some brief mentions of specific religions in The Abolition of Man.

Other than that, I just can't think of anything. But Sven might.

If Lewis wrote it, Sven knows it.

My understanding is that, when he first started out writing apologetics, most of Lewis' knowledge of Hinduism came from Frazer's The Golden Bough (the 12 volume original, not the better known abridged edition). Lewis later came to know a bit more from his long correspondence with his former student Dom Bede Griffiths, who was a Roman Catholic priest in India (and the dedicatee of Surprised by Joy.

Addition to my post above: I should reference one of C.S. Lewis's very negative--and, I think, very silly--statements on other religions. I'm not sure where the reference is, but it's probably Mere Christianity. He says that you don't have to consider all the worlds religions, you can just group them into different types. He goes on to dismiss the Eastern religions and then to say insulting things like "all that was best in Judaism and Platonism survive in Christianity."

Honestly, I find sentiments like these so laughable that it's almost hard to take offense. And they're generally spoken by people who don't go to the Seders of their Jewish friends, or Shabbat dinners, or the Torah studies at their local synagogues. In my view, people of different religions have lots to learn from each other--but you wouldn't know it from Lewis's careless remark.

He may have grown less careless as he went on. Moreover, I did read somewhere that when one of his step-sons wanted to practice Judaism, Lewis went out of his way to find a kosher butcher, which was no easy task in his area. (Both his stepsons are are halachically Jewish--that is, Jewish according to Jewish law.) If I'd been a neighbor and anyone had asked me, I would have told the kid just to keep dairy kosher so he didn't have to make his step-father's life difficult. But, if the story is true, Lewis certainly did right by the kid.