Did I just buy a book condoning religion? I hate religion. I got this for the screwtape letters...

That's a totally justifiable belief, but don't discount skilled people in any unrelated profession just because they do.

yeah, you get to think it's silly, but not that the other people thinking are silly because they think it

...

>The vast majority of people have been idiots compared to my vast intellect. At this moment, I am euphoric.

>I don't understand where everything came from
>Aha, obviously it was one Mesopotamian deity who instead of being one of many gods is actually the only god and has the characteristics ascribed to him the a bunch of desert Jews! It's all clear now.
Or, you could just admit that the world is a big place and to understand any of it in a meaningful way we should proceed methodically and with caution, but sure.

it's funny because that's how I act. your picture is so true. anyone who's religious is retarded. I need to buy a fedora lol.

I have a lot of respect for religion but CS Lewis's smug tone makes me squirm with rage.

>wtf i HATE religion now!

it's a 20th century christian intellectual thing, he's a product of his time

I grew up in the bible belt where everyone is smug as fuck about Christianity and Lewis still stands out.

I think he's referring to the tendency to rub one's intellect in another's face. That's a very mid-20th Century thing, and also kind of an English thing, too. They're smart and they want to make sure you know they're smart.

To be honest it's kind of nice. It's nice to hear from people who seem to genuinely enjoy knowing things.

Lewis's apologetics don't hinge on knowing very much at all though. He just wants to convince you that you're being an unreasonable child if you don't agree with him. Like there's a anti-fedora on his head.

same and i agree with you. the intellectuals are/were the most smug.

Sounds like you are easily angered op

>belive

>strawman the argument

>Can't read about religion without getting pissed off
>Buys a book by CS Lewis

You are not a smart man.

Something hurting your feelings doesn't make it fallacious.

So, tell me, how is belief in a deity more reasonable and less silly than taking a general stance of studying things methodically and cautiously?

...

>study bible at church three times a week, twice more at home, attend religious school and college
>decide it's fucked and can't be fixed
>go through years of painful denial and questioning
>finally come to peace with it
But yeah, just another fedora.

Maybe you decided it's fucked because you didn't actually read it, because it appears that you can't read what all the anons were saying to you.

You aren't a fedora for being atheist.

You are a fedora for being a militant athiest who actually took the bait and can't handle opinion and belief that trails too far from your own

at least you're self aware

>finally come to peace with it

kek yeah, you seem at peace with it

So what, some things are worth advocating for. I'm saying I've been religious and still think that this kind of open mockery and condemnation is good for some people.

It was good for me. Made me read stuff that challenged my deeply held beliefs at the time.

>hurr anyone who argues for anything must be insecure and probably has a small penis too

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

>yfw Pynchon and CS Lewis both tried to warn us

“By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible.”

This is my last quote. I want this thread to be about the Screwtape Letters, which would interest me. Not about religion in general, of which there are 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 on the internet.

“Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is took weak and fuddled to shake off.”

think of it like this: the fedora is a fashion accoutrement. (representing archetypical unfashionableness)

The way things are today, anyone who spends any time on the internet sees someone under 65 years of age wearing a fedora and immediately all of these stereotypes spring to mind of neckbeards and losers- anathema to fashion.

so too, religion is (among other things) an article of fashion.

In particular communities, religion is extremely fashionable. To "go out" without religion would be social doom, similar to the fate for public masturbators in north american societies.

In many many communities, certain kinds of religion is unfashionable.

In a few all religion is unfashionable.

If you want my advice: don't get too caught up in the bullshit, just play the game for what it is.

spirituality/mysticism is not bullshit but fashion is

For a guy who claims to be so studious you sure don't seem to understand why using logical fallacies isn't actually arguing.

Stay at peace, fedora.

Thanks for the advice I already follow. I don't think anybody from my bible belt hometown except my dad knows I'm not religious, but it's just a matter of course where I live now.

The internet is for fighting though.

>I want this thread to be about the Screwtape Letters
>Not about religion in general

It's impossible to talk about CS Lewis' work without talking about Christianity, you dunderhead.

Open mockery is fine, refusing something like a child refuses food because they don't think they will like it, is idiotic and disgusting.

It's also exactly what the religious who make foath look bad do. You aren't any different from goatfucker who wants to burn things because someone drew muhammad

You seem to be implying I was never sincerely religious. This is extremely false. I've converted several people who are still sincere Christians today.

>converting people
>getting mad when you see something you don't agree with
>believing that you've seen the truth of the universe in your short life and you know the answers.

You sound like a goatfucker or a bible thumper to me pal.

expanding on this because I'm baked and rambling and enjoying myself, deal with it nerds

In the same way that the fedora summons the neckbeard archetype to anyone inculcated to memekultur, so too does religion summon up various archetypes which color the persona of the religious person.

Among people who share religious communities, symbols which reveal their shared religious affiliation will foster understanding, trust and cooperation, because they know what to expect of each other and most religions have a positive in-group affect. The tribe-mate archetype.

>converting people to something you don't believe anymore
You might have missed the point of that.
I don't know shit. That's the whole point. Nothing about my experience means there must be or even probably is a Yahweh, and I invite people to consider whether it's the same for them.

The Screwtape Letters is perfectly fine even if you're an anti-theist, it has a lot of themes that are more about human nature rather than religion.

You were right. I did miss the point, excuse me for that.

But if you don't know shit, why not continue to search Christian ideas and people for the answers, the only time that information should piss you off is if its a lie deliberately meant to trick you or if it is condescending and rude

The assumption that I don't still read religious literature is a tad rude and follows from nothing I've said.

It's just that almost all apologetic literature I've encountered is beneath discussion from the perspective of serious philosophy and is almost novelty-tier with regards to the history of religion. Nobody becomes a believer reading that stuff. Conversion is a matter of an emotionally compromised person being offered an attractive deal.

>posturing this hard

No one is buying it, redditor. GO back to your hug box and pander for your virtual shekels over there, slave.

Pray for some salve for your anus.

Don't be boring. I had three big quotes from the book that had nothing to do with Christianity, so yes you can.

And no one would argue that you can't talk about Christianity without talking about The Screwtape Letters. That's what most of the people here seem to want to do. It makes this thread exactly like 10^99 other threads, as I said before.

“Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

>God out of nothing made the universe

It's always important to get a perspective on the other side. There is nothing more pathetic than someone who chooses to live in an echo chamber.

If God exists, by his divine nature he has always existed

>Everything has a beginning
>Oh except G-d because I say so

Not an argument

No, a refutation of your attempt to avoid infinite regress. It's special pleading.

I'll jump in.

God is the non contigent ground of all being.

The universe as we see it is causal and suggests a creation or creator.

I don't see how the idea of a God is any more of a miracle than a Universe that just exists.

Heres a couple more from an atheist turned believer.

...

...

A very fine argument for a creating force. A very poor one for the interventionalist and moralistic Christian god and no argument at all for the existence of objective morality or divine punishment/reward.

You can go ahead and call the quantum fluctuations that resulted in the big bang 'god' all you like but when you start using that interpretation to claim that those fluctuations took the form of a burning bush in an illiterate desert shithole to lay out eternal and unalterable (im)moral injunctions to all of humanity is when you take a step too far.

...

>A very poor one for the interventionalist and moralistic Christian god and no argument at all for the existence of objective morality or divine punishment/reward.

You said the idea of a God is a silly one. Thats where i started.

If God is perfect and works outside of our known constrictions and reality, how can we approach him? Consider the attributes of God.

> Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

We are remade in Christ, that we may be reconciled with God. This is why the Christian idea appeals to me.

This list is shit. There is no such thing as Christian Tarot.

your argument is the exact same smug bullshit everyone was talking about hating.

you are not a chosen people.
you are not special
you are walking meat
and you shit and eat
and know far less than you think you do.

still special pleading, god doesn't solve the creation mystery just because you attach a special attribute that says "non contingent ground of being" that's literally bullshit.

In fact the only "thing" that I can think of that could possibly be the "non contingent ground of being" is literally "nothing". So we're right back to creation ex nihilo except you scratched out nihilo and wrote in 'god' wow good work choirboy

creation ex nihilo makes more sense

I've never understood why some people think CS Lewis sounds so "smug". I just don't hear it. I think it's largely in your imagination.

I've never understood why some people think God is so "real." I just don't hear it. I think it's largely in your imagination.

How can people who never read plato, yet alone aquinas, kant, hume etc come onto Veeky Forums and actually act like op.

It's embarrassing.

>yet alone

hahaha oh man, what a moron

God is transcendental.
>empiricism confirms empiricism

hey man im not memeing around here!!

is that the guy from Whitest Kids u Know?

What has he been up too lately? I thought he was pretty damn funny.

You are a nut. You have a religion secular atheism and are too dumb to realise that your faith places you at the bottom of the barrel for idiocy.

There us a reason atheism and vapid intolerance is the mantra of socially challenged neck beards and autistics who are only high functioning on the internet.

CS Lewis is far too advanced for the likes of you.

I suggest dawkins or l ron hubbard is more your taste OP.

I think OP is an idiot for his strong hate just like I think you're a jackass for condescending to OP while using a different kind of hate. Atheism and Religion are both opinions. I try not to hate on religion or atheism, I pay it no mind.

>You have a religion secular atheism
Nah, atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby. He's just a garden-variety dick.

>Recommending Hubbardshit for any reason

I know only a handful of sincerely religious people out of the hundreds I met in college. Definitely not all neckbeards.

Try getting out of the Bible Belt one day and you'll find that being atheism is the default in the more productive parts of society and that while they don't go on the internet to bash religion, they also aren't going to give it a second of their time or even accidentally a dime of their money.

There's reading intelligible opinions to challenge your own and then there's the dead end of christian apologetics. Lewis was a doozy of a shit talker so I wouldn't recommend wasting your time op

>what is the ontological circle
Logically moot, go back to Sunday school

This. Christian apologetics are brutally tedious and circular. I know Christposters are going to jump on this and say I'm dumb and just don't get it, but if you're not of the faith, try reading some Lewis apologetics and tell me it doesn't make you want to spit.

I grew up reading a lot of it as a fervent believer, and Lewis actually made me doubt the faith more than I ever had before because he fucked up so badly.

It's good to see some sense on lit. too much ontological baggage for a little spiritual comfort

>militant atheist

Everything CS Lewis ever wrote was garbage.

Chesterton was a christfag, but at least he could write.

He proved nothing and disproved nothing.

That's fine though. I'm perfectly happy not having all the answers, and would rather be seeking honestly than accept bad answers.

At the very least he demonstrated that the arguments he was addressing are weak. Maybe that doesn't prove the answer to life the universe and everything, but it's useful.

Oh, really? The only rebuttal I saw was "muh god is beyond comprehension" which isn't a proper argument, it's what you silence children with in Sunday school

Ah the mantra of the modern lowest common denominator. the millennial militant atheist. So limited in their horizons and cultural perspectives that they think the American Midwest is representative of something other than the American Midwest. Atheists particularly militant ones are of the lowest intellectual calibre, constrained by the ironically their own primitivist faith based dogma.

Observing atheist angst and narcissism as well illustrated by this thread like watching a room full of autistics complimenting each other on their dress sense.

It's probably because you grew up a protestant you became a militant atheist.

They both have an attention seeking and anti-intellectual tinge to them.

Okay so, here's what I recommend you do when faced with something you don't like
>suck it up, pussy
>don't suck it up, pussy
Those are your options, either way you're a pussy for being bothered by ideas.

>I am very very smart look at all my words and totally intelligent generalizations
Kill yourself

>spend millions of dollars and even sacrifice lives to proselytize to every corner of the globe
>accuse anyone who publicly argues that you're wrong of being an attention-whoring narcissist anti-intellectual
Smells like butthurt.

A Grief Observed is one of the most beautiful, stirring portraits of grief ever written. It helped me through my friend's death earlier this year. Lewis is a fantastic writer and, even if you disagree with his theology, he's absolutely worth reading.

God is real.

It is a self evident truth we are instilled with as human beings.

You are just being deceived and mislead by evil.

C.S. Lewis pls go. You're dead.

No, it is not self evident. What we are born with its a cause and effect based thinking and a tendency to assign meaning where there is none.

God is in all of us.

Or perhaps there is.

Or perhaps there is not. What now?