Making and Begetting

"In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, `I've no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!'"

I agree with the hard-bitten old officer, actually. If you've experienced the divine directly I imagine that the images and words that we use to try and approach that divinity pale and seem useless in comparison. The problem is that most of us will never have such a direct experience. So we're only left with the descriptions of those who have had them, or the logical wonderings and conclusions of our own minds. Which we then apply to the descriptions the people who have experienced the divine directly give us. So it becomes rather like a game of telephone when you start to think about it.

God/god(s)/the universe/whatever you would like to call it communicates directly to one human being. Because humans are limited by their very nature, the experience is already a simplified or boiled down version of the actual presence of the divine. Then you take that and filter it through the recipients perception which is formed by their culture, their time and their individual experiences. Have them try and put that into words to convey it to other people. Then have those people translate what they took away from the talk/book/interview and filter it through *their* perceptions which are formed by their culture, time and individual experiences. Rinse and repeat. It's very easy to see how what is believed to have been the message of any divine encounter could be vastly different from what it actually was.

And I've wandered off on a rabbit trail there. My point remains! I think that theology pales in comparison to an actual encounter with the divine and anyone who has had one might have less need for the 'scientific' understanding that the rest of us are left with. Which is not to say that we should do away with theology of course. It's fascinating and I think that we can, in some small ways, use it to get a faint reflection of an idea of the divine. And it's fun to argue as long as it doesn't get to the insulting, personal attack side.

"Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map."

Must we? Again, I enjoy theology. It's fascinating. But do we *have* to use it? Or does it perhaps get more in our way than help us out? Block us from seeing the simple evidence of the divine around us because we're too busy arguing about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?

"You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion—all about feeling God in nature, and so on—is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach."

I disagree. All religion *starts* from that point. From a person having a singular experience of the divine. And who's to say that, as I said earlier, our obsession with theology and defining everything as closely as we can, on 'mapping' the way to the divine isn't preventing us from the very experience we seek?

Lewis goes on to state that since we're so educated now, since we are capable of such wide range discussion amongst ourselves, that we have to have theology. When everyone was ignorant it was okay to have 'simple' ideas about the divine.

"Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression—like believing the earth is flat."

Aren't all ideas about god theology to one extent or another? Whether they're simplistic or not. And how do you judge which theology is correct in any case? Just because it was rejected centuries ago doesn't make it incorrect. The parallel of comparing old, rejected theologies to the Flat Earth Theory is a false one. We can prove that the earth is not flat. You can't prove that one idea about god is more or less right than another idea about god. We just think that we can because we've been thinking in the same general path for so long that it's become an automatic assumption. Also, there are apparently people out there who do, in fact, still believe that the earth is flat. So...yeah.

"For when you get down to it, is not the popular idea of Christianity simply this: that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher and that if only we took His advice we might be able to establish a better social order and avoid another war? Now, mind you, that is quite true. But it tells you much less than the whole truth about Christianity and it has no practical importance at all."

Is that the popular idea of Christianity? Maybe it was at the time. Or maybe this is another case of my not having encountered this in my life. My understanding is that the majority of Christians do believe that Jesus Christ was God, which belief brings with it varying degrees of belief that salvation (eternal life in heaven) comes only through him. Now if you went outside of Christianity, among those who even believe that the man Jesus lived at all, I think you would find many who would say that he was a great moral teacher and if more people followed his examples the world would be a better place, none of which requires him to be of any more than mortal origins. And really, I think that following Jesus to a kinder, more accepting and generally better world has the most practical importance of anything relating to his life.

After all, how much practical importance is there to what may or may not happen to you after you die? Perhaps it's more accurate for me to say that the social teachings of Jesus have a more wide spread and applicable practical importance than the theology behind his being God. After all, no matter what your faith or lack thereof, you can follow the concepts of equality and treating others as well as you would want to be treated

Right. So Lewis says all this to say that even though people have told him he shouldn't talk about theology, he's going to anyway. And he does this by jumping into the difference between Christ who, as the third person of the Trinity is the *begotten* Son of God and humans who are the *made* Sons (and Daughters, though that phrase is never used) of God. 

"We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set—or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.

Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God."

(edited for clarity): The Father, in Christian theology, begets the Son but not in exactly the same way that we would understand a human father begetting a son. After all, if it did work in exactly the same way then the Father and the Son would be two distinct entities rather than one.

Let's all just say out loud what we all know. The doctrine of the Trinity is a hard one to get your head around. It's easy enough to lay out: There is one God. That one God, however, is comprised of three Persons. These Persons are, as we call them, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost/Spirit. While these three Persons exist, they are not separate gods. That's the simple, surface idea of it. And you're already going, 'But...' and raising your hand. You know you are, don't deny it.

It just gets worse from there. This post would get *incredibly* long if I went into it. Suffice it to say most Christians believe in the Trinity and acknowledge that it is impossible for us to understand how it works.

Back to the begetting. So the Son was 'begotten', but not in the same way, precisely, that humans beget. Because if he was then we've got one god spawning/birthing/fathering *other* gods which drops us right out of monotheism.

We, however, are made. Like statues. We kind of resemble the living thing, God in this case, but there's no life to us. What Lewis is saying that Christianity says to us is that we are created things who have the chance to become alive.

Like there's a warehouse full of statues created by the Father. Along comes his Son who wants to make the statues live. So the Father says, 'Sure. We can adopt them if they want us to.' and the Son runs around inside the warehouse making whichever of the statues want to be alive in the same way that he and his Father are alive, live. Only it's not exactly the same, since they're God and the statues can never be God. And the Father and the Son aren't separate entities but aspects of the same entity.

Faith, Part II

And in full awareness of the fact that probably no one cares what I think about this book, especially in light of yesterday's post, which I have now deleted because I'm a fickle, fickle beast and I just...I don't even know. I need to actually sort myself out here because I'm doing things that are going in opposite directions. Let's just call me confused and still looking, okay? Anyway, back to the book!

This is the end of the section of Morals. Aren't you all glad?

Here's how Lewis starts out the chapter:

"I want to start by saying something that I would like every one to notice carefully. It is this. If this chapter means nothing to you, if it seems to be trying to answer questions you never asked, drop it at once. Do not bother about it at all. There are certain things in Christianity that can be understood from the outside, before you have become a Christian. But there area great many things that cannot be understood until after you have gone a certain distance along the Christian road. These things are purely practical, though they do not look as if they were. They are directions for dealing with particular cross-roads and obstacles on the journey and they do not make sense until a man has reached those places. Whenever you find any statement in Christian writings which you can make nothing of, do not worry. Leave it alone. There will come a day, perhaps years later, when you suddenly see what it meant. If one could understand it now, it would only do one harm."

I am torn on my reaction to this statement. On the one hand, it's true that there are some things in every religion that people outside of the religion cannot make sense of. I tend to think that it's a lack of proper building blocks of knowledge in many cases, a lack of the understanding of the foundation of the belief. For instance, the Trinity. It makes absolutely no sense to many people who are non-Trinitarian, whether those are non-Trinitarian Christians or members of other monotheistic faiths. I think the Trinity probably makes a bit more sense to polytheists of certain stripes since they're used to thinking of a single divine entity that presents in different aspects or forms. And for other polytheists, it doesn't make as much sense because they're used to discrete gods. So yes, there is some truth to the fact that certain aspects of a religion don't make sense to those outside of it and might confuse them. My problem is the idea that people studying the faith or converting should 'just leave' the parts that confuse them in the hopes that it will some day make sense.

There are some things that I think you need to understand before you commit to a faith! And if you don't understand them then you shouldn't join the religion. Yes, some things are 'minor' or 'not salvation issues' according to some opinions. But those are just opinions and other people may believe that those same issues are a part of the heart of the faith. So if you don't understand them to your satisfaction, because I'm not saying that you have to be able to grasp every mystery of your chosen faith perfectly of course, are you really 'saved'? Are you truly a member of that religion?

Then again, this may be part of my own personal problem. I want to understand and the not understanding drives me crazy. I do know that divinity is so different from us that we can't understand it through our filter of limited senses and I'm okay with that. But the things that we do know, I want to understand. I want it to make sense to me. If I can't grasp even that much, how can I have faith in it?

"the question of Faith in this (second) sense arises after a man has tried his level best to practise the Christian virtues, and found that he fails, and seen that even if he could he would only be giving back to God what was already God's own. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy."

I have issues with the concept of moral bankruptcy as the default human condition! I always have. I don't see where people get that. In the Bible, does God create man? Yes. Is God the author of anything evil or wrong? No. That's one of the basic tenets at the heart of monotheism. God = good. End of story. He only contains good, so He can only create good. So if both of these statements are true, then man is inherently, morally good. I do know that this is a simple view of reality, really I do. But boiled down, this is what it comes to in my mind. If God created everything, then everything is at it's core good. That does not take away the fact that people do bad things. We make mistakes. Free will is a bitch, remember? But this whole idea that people are born morally corrupt and dirty just doesn't make sense to me. I much prefer and better understand the Orthodox position that the Fall didn't corrupt the core of human beings but more...smudged them up. So it's like having an incredible work of art covered by a layer of dirt and grime. The art is still there, still beautiful as the day it was created, you just have to get to it.

Since the next several paragraphs are all about the moral bankruptcy of humans and how we cannot understand our relation to God until we understand that we are scum...I just have to go, 'no' at Lewis and shake my head. I disagree. There are morally good people who don't believe in God at all. There are morally good people who believe in different gods. Believing that you are scum and inherently flawed does not necessarily lead you to being a better person or in a 'right' relationship with deity. It seems so very self-destructive to me, like being raised in a household where you're told the entire time that your every impulse is wrong, that your opinions are wrong, that you shouldn't think for yourself in some areas but leave the judgment to those who are your 'moral superiors'. This is a pattern of behavior that leads people to depression and no sense of self-worth when it occurs between human beings. How much worse is it when you believe that the creator of all things thinks that you're so bad He can't even look at you?

So...blah, blah, handwave, 'humans are morally bankrupt'. :p

"Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come."

This part I like, in a way. I view the whole faith vs. actions thing as a sort of chicken vs. egg thing. You can't have one without the other. Or, well, you can, but in the salvation economy of Christianity it doesn't work. You have to have faith *and* do good works. I'm not denying that there are arguments as to whether or not the good works are motivated by the fact that you have faith or not, but I'm not aware of any branch of Christianity (which doesn't mean that there isn't one, just that I don't know about it. My knowledge base isn't all inclusive) that says that you can earn your way into God's good graces. I know that some branches have been mis-characterised in that fashion, but it's simply not true. Even Islam, which is accused very often of being a works based religion, doesn't work without faith. I could pray salat five times a day for the rest of my life, give charity, make Hajj, do all the things that are outward signs of a good and faithful Muslim and it wouldn't mean anything if I didn't believe in the message of Islam.

Hope

"Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a con­tinual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do."

Hope, in the Christian sense of the term according to Lewis, does not mean that we leave the world as it is because we're busy thinking and hoping for the next world and Something Better. The people who do the most good in this world are also, he says, those who think the most of the next. They are looking forward to the next world, to meeting their creator and having Him look at them and know everything that they've done in life and they're working to try and be 'worthy'.

Not that any of them think that they can earn their salvation, mind. Just that they don't want to be in front of God and have Him say, 'And what did you do with what I gave you?' and not have an answer except for, 'Wait to die and be with You.' The scenario brings to mind so many examples from the Bible, including the parable of the talents. God has given us things, including the entire world, and expects us to be good stewards of it. He expects us to improve things. He expects us to do something with what He's loaned us and that's why those who think the most of the world to come do the most here.

In theory.

In practice, I think that there are a great many people at least in modern times who don't think this way. They've, according to Lewis' view (and I happen to agree with him at least in the sense that I think this is the only point of view in this area that has it doing any good), misunderstood the point of thinking on the next world. They think that it means that they shouldn't care at all for the things of this world because they are transitory and God is going to wipe it all out and bring it back in perfected form anyway so it doesn't matter. But it *does*, because we're not just spirit which is what the next world is concerned with but flesh and we have been given custody of the physical realm for a time. Not to neglect and abuse it but to work with and to show God that we understand what a gift we've been given.

Lewis seems to think that the neglect of the world is due to Christians ceasing to think of the next and perhaps is some cases this is so. But I maintain that there are too many who neglect this world because they think too much on the next.

Charity

Short chapter!

"`Charity' now means simply what used to be called `alms'—that is, giving to the poor. Originally it had a much wider meaning. Charity means `Love, in the Christian sense'. But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people."

So this is what Lewis is talking about in this chapter. Not charity in the sense of giving people money or food or other material items, though those are also very important but Charity in the sense of being charitable. In the sense of treating everyone in a kind and decent manner even if you don't like them personally.

"We `like' or are `fond of' some people, and not of others. It is important to understand that this natural `liking' is neither a sin nor a virtue, any more than your likes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact. But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous."

Sort of tangential: Have you ever had someone that you liked on sight or disliked on sight? I have, on both fronts. I wonder why that is. What part of their body language or speech triggers that reaction in us?

It's obviously much easier to be charitable towards people that we like. We're more likely to look with kind eyes on their actions or to forgive them for some mistake or slight. We're more likely to defend them against their detractors and to say things that raise their standing. Because we like them and we want good things for them. But what Lewis is saying is that a Christian should do all of those things even for the people they don't like.

More than that, that they should take care especially to do those things for those that they don't like.

"The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you `love' your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his `gratitude', you will probably be disappointed."

I think Lewis is saying that we sort of train our emotions in this sense. Spend time acting as though you like someone and eventually you will genuinely like them.

I know for a fact that this is not universally true however. Sure, sometimes you might find yourself seeing the good in that person and growing to like them but you are just as likely to find more and more things that you *don't* like about them and your dislike of them will grow. That being said, in many instances acting as though you like someone and treating them that was will still make your life easier. As long as everyone is acting polite and friendly things tend to run smoother and it makes a better environment. Usually. So I'm all for acting charitably toward *most* people even if you don't like them. I have to add that caveat because, well, I'm not ready to just generalise like that. I'm certainly not capable of pretending to like *everyone* I dislike.

2011 Books

Right, it's only about 5:30 here but I'm not going to get another book read before midnight.

So here's the count and list for 2011:

Final count: 186

The goal for next year is 300, as you can see by the little ticker I've got at the top of the blog. I don't think I'll make it, but that's the goal. And since my TBR 'pile' is 589 books strong I've got plenty to choose from.

List:

1. A Lick of Frost – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/1/11)
2. Swallowing Darkness – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/1/11)
3. Divine Misdemeanors – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/1/11)
4. Nightseer – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/2/11)
5. Strange Candy – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/2/11)
6. The Battle for God – Karen Armstrong (1/3/11)
7. Dead Beat – Jim Butcher (1/6/11)
8. Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs – Molly Harper (1/7/11)
9. Grave Sight – Charlaine Harris (1/8/11)
10. Grave Surprise – Charlaine Harris (1/9/11)
11. Fool Moon audiobook – Jim Butcher (1/11/11)
12. An Ice Cold Grave – Charlaine Harris (1/13/11)
13. Proven Guilty – Jim Butcher (1/14/11)
14. Dead Until Dark – Charlaine Harris (1/15/11)
15. Living Dead in Dallas – Charlaine Harris (1/21/11)
16. White Night – Jim Butcher (1/22/11)
17. Club Dead – Charlaine Harris (1/22/11)
18. Dead as a Doornail – Charlaine Harris (1/30/11)
19. Small Favor – Jim Butcher (2/1/11)
20. Grave Peril audiobook – Jim Butcher (2/4/11)
21. True Grit – Charles Portis (2/5/11)
22. Bleach Vol. 33 (2/5/11)
23. Definitely Dead – Charlaine Harris (2/6/11)
24. All Together Dead – Charlaine Harris (2/11/11)
25. From Dead to Worse – Charlaine Harris (2/12/11)
26. Turn Coat – Jim Butcher (2/13/11)
27. Dark and Stormy Knights: Even Hand – Jim Butcher (2/13/11)
28. Dead and Gone – Charlaine Harris (2/16/2011)
29. Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris (2/18/11)
30. Must Love Hellhounds: The Britlingens Go To Hell – Charlaine Harris (2/19/11)
31. A Touch of Dead – Charlaine Harris (2/20/11)
32. Changes – Jim Butcher (2/22/11)
33. Summer Knight audiobook – Jim Butcher (2/23/11)
34. Side Jobs – Jim Butcher (2/23/11)
35. Hannibal Rising – Thomas Harris (2/25/11)
36. Red Dragon – Thomas Harris (2/28/11)
37. Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris (3/4/11)
38. Hannibal – Thomas Harris (3/6/11)
39. Holidays Are Hell: Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel – Kim Harrison (3/6/11)
40. Dates From Hell: Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil – Kim Harrison (3/7/11)
41. Storm Front – Jim Butcher (3/8/11)
42. The Lost Gospel of Mary – Frederica Mathewes-Green (3/13/11)
43. Dead Witch Walking – Kim Harrison (3/13/11)
44. The Good, the Bad, and the Undead – Kim Harrison (3/17/11)
45. Death Masks audiobook – Jim Butcher (3/18/11)
46. Every Which Way But Dead – Kim Harrison (3/20/11)
47. A Fistful of Charms – Kim Harrison (3/23/11)
48. Finder Vol. 1: Target in the Viewfinder (3/24/11)
49. Finder Vol. 2: Cage in the Viewfinder (3/25/11)
50. For a Few Demons More – Kim Harrison (3/27/11)
51. The Outlaw Demon Wails – Kim Harrison (3/27/11)
52. White Witch, Black Curse – Kim Harrison (3/31/11)
53. Unbound: Ley Line Drifer – Kim Harrison (4/1/11)
54. Black Magic Sanction – Kim Harrison (4/2/11)
55. Pale Demon – Kim Harrison (4/3/11)
56. Blood Rites audiobook – Jim Butcher (4/7/11)
57. Treasure Trail – ed. Jack Hart (4/7/11)
58. Midnight Thirsts – ed. Greg Herren (4/8/11)
59. Bad Heir Day – Wendy Holden (4/10/11)
60. Fool Moon – Jim Butcher (4/12/11)
61. Fairyville – Emma Holly (4/12/11)
62. Inu-Yasha Vol. 54 (4/12/11)
63. Inu-Yasha Vol. 55 (4/13/11)
64. Inu-Yasha Vol. 56 (4/13/11)
65. Naruto Vol. 43 (4/14/11)
66. Naruto Vol. 44 (4/14/11)
67. A Thousand Splendid Sons – Khaled Hosseini (4/16/11)
68. Islam: A Short History – Karen Armstrong (4/16/11)
69. Naruto Vol. 45 (4/16/11)
70. Bleach Vol. 34 (4/17/11)
71. Naruto Vol. 46 (4/17/11)
72. Naruto Vol. 47 (4/17/11)
73. Naruto Vol. 48 (4/17/11)
74. Naurto Vol. 49 (4/18/11)
75. Blood Price – Tanya Huff (4/19/11)
76. Naruto Vol. 50 (4/20/11)
77. The Footprints of God – Greg Iles (4/20/11)
78. The Haunting – Shirley Jackson (4/23/11)
79. Posted to Death – Dean James (4/23/11)
80. The Jewel of Medina – Sherry Jones (4/24/11)
81. Carpe Demon – Julie Kenner (4/24/11)
82. Finger Vol. 3: One Wing in the Viewfinder (4/25/11)
83. The Beekeeper's Apprentice – Julie R. King (4/29/11)
84. Dead Beat audiobook – Jim Butcher (5/3/11)
85. Dead Reckoning – Charlaine Harris (5/6/11)
86. A Monstrous Regiment of Women – Laurie R. King (5/7/11)
87. Grave Peril – Jim Butcher (5/12/11)
88. A Letter of Mary – Laurie R. King (5/14/11)
89. The Moor – Laurie R. King (5/18/11)
90. O Jerusalem – Laurie R. King (5/21/11)
91. Summer Knight – Jim Butcher (5/23/11)
92. Justice Hall – Laurie R. King (5/25/11)
93. The Language of the Bees – Laurie R. King (5/28/11)
94. Voices Behind the Veil – Ergun Mehmet Caner (5/31/11)
95. Death Masks – Jim Butcher (6/5/11)
96. Bag of Bones – Stephen King (6/6/11)
97. Proven Guilty audiobook – Jim Butcher (6/7/11)
98. Carrie – Stephen King (6/7/11)
99. The World Religions – Huston Smith (6/8/11)
100. Interview with an Exorcist – Jose A. Fortea (6/9/11)
101. Christine – Stephen King (6/13/11)
102. Blood Rites – Jim Butcher (6/16/11)
103. Cujo – Stephen King (6/17/11)
104. Smokin' Seventeen – Janet Evanovich (6/22/11)
105. Dead Beat – Jim Butcher (6/29/11)
106. The Eyes of the Dragon – Stephen King (6/29/11)
107. Naamah's Blessing – Jacqueline Carey (7/3/11)
108. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger – Stephen King (7/3/11)
109. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three – Stephen King (7/8/11)
110. Proven Guilty – Jim Butcher (7/11/11)
111. The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands – Stephen King (7/13/11)
112. White Night – Jim Butcher (7/19/11)
113. Naked City: Curses – Jim Butcher (7/25/11)
114. White Night audiobook – Jim Butcher (7/25/11)
115. Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor – Anthony Everitt (7/25/11)
116. Ghost Story – Jim Butcher (7/26/11)
117. Bleach Vol. 35 (7/26/11)
118. Naruto Vol. 51 (7/26/11)
119. Ouran High School Host Club (7/26/11)
120. Spell Bound – Kelley Armstrong (7/29/11)
121. Small Favor – Jim Butcher (8/4/11)
122. 1 Enoch – George W.E. Nickelsburg (8/6/11)
123. The Naked City: Curses – Jim Butcher (8/9/11)
124. The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass – Stephen King (8/14/11)
125. Turn Coat – Jim Butcher (8/17/11)
126. Dark and Stormy Knights: Even Hand – Jim Butcher (8/18/11)
127. Small Favor audiobook – Jim Butcher (8/24/11)
128. Changes – Jim Butcher (8/27/11)
129. Side Jobs – Jim Butcher (8/28/11)
130. Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture – ed. Stephen H. Segal (8/28/11)
131. The Tyrant Falls in Love Vol. 1 (8/29/11)
132. Ghost Story – Jim Butcher (9/5/11)
133. The Help – Kathryn Stockett (9/10/11)
134. Finder Vol. 4: Prisoner in the Viewfinder (9/11/11)
135. The Lincoln Lawyer – Michael Connelly (9/14/11)
136. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (9/15/11)
137. The Eagle – Rosemary Sutcliff (9/16/11)
138. The Mythology of Supernatural – Nathan Robert Brown (9/20/11)
139. Turn Coat audiobook – Jim Butcher (9/21/11)
140. Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss – Christa Faust (9/22/11)
141. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah – Stephen King (9/24/11)
142. Author's Pet (9/24/11)
143. Bleach Vol. 36 (9/24/11)
144. Naruto Vol. 52 (9/24/11)
145. Supernatural: Night Terror – John Passarella (9/28/11)
146. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower – Stephen King (9/28/11)
147. The Dead Zone – Stephen King (9/30/11)
148. The Brass Verdict – Michael Connelly (10/5/11)
149. Desperation – Stephen King (10/7/11)
150. The Reversal – Michael Connelly (10/13/11)
151. Different Seasons – Stephen King (10/15/11)
152. Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King (10/15/11)
153. Changes audiobook – Jim Butcher (10/19/11)
154. The Fifth Witness – Michael Connelly (10/24/11)
155. Dreamcatcher – Stephen King (10/24/11)
156. Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (10/26/11)
157. The Silver Pigs – Lindsey Davis (11/02/11)
158. Duma Key – Stephen King (11/04/11)
159. Everything's Eventual – Stephen King (11/14/11)
160. Shadows in Bronze – Lindsey Davis (11/15/11)
161. Side Jobs audiobook – Jim Butcher (11/17/11)
162. Firestarter – Stephen King (11/19/11)
163. Venus in Copper – Lindsey Davis (11/23/11)
164. Explosive Eighteen – Janet Evanovich (11/26/11)
165. Perfectly Plum – Leah Wilson (11/28/11)
166. The Scottish Prisoner – Diana Gabaldon (12/1/11)
167. The Dresden Files: Fool Moon Vol. 1 – Jim Butcher (12/1/11)
168. Four Past Midnight – Stephen King (12/2/11)
169. From A Buick 8 – Stephen King (12/7/11)
170. Private Teacher Vol. 1 (12/7/11)
171. Gerald's Game – Stephen King (12/9/11)
172. The Iron Hand of Mars – Lindsey Davis (12/12/11)
173. The Green Mile – Stephen King (12/17/11)
174. Only Serious About You Vol. 1 (12/17/11)
175. The Tyrant Falls In Love Vol. 2 (12/17/11)
176. Ghost Story (audiobook) – Jim Butcher (12/20/11)
177. Two for the Lions – Lindsey Davis (12/20/11)
178. The Shack – Wm. Paul Young (12/26/11)
179. Bleach Vol. 37 (12/28/11)
180. Naruto Vol. 53 (12/29/11)
181. The Tyrant Falls in Love Vol. 3 (12/29/11)
182. The Tyrant Falls in Love Vol. 4 (12/30/11)
183. Hearts in Atlantis – Stephen King (12/30/11)
184. Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis (12/31/11)
185. In the Garden of Beasts – Erik Larson (12/31/11)
186. Hidden – Kelley Armstrong (12/31/11)

The Great Sin

I am really trying to at least finish reading this book before New Years, if not finish posting about it. I'm a chapter or so ahead of what I'm posting at the moment.

Mostly this is due to the fact that one of my Christmas presents was American Jesus by Stephen Prothero and I'm going to break protocol and read that one next rather than throw it into the Bag of Books! So I'm really looking forward to getting to start it but I need to finish Mere Christianity first!

Another of my presents, by the by, was In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, thanks to my fabulous Big Sis! That book is on Murdock so I'm reading it at the gym. I just started it, but it's already very engrossing. *blinks* I've just realised this means I'm not currently reading any fiction books. *waits to see if the world will come to an end* So far so good!

So let's see...we're up to Pride.

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in our-selves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

"The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride."

And that's because...pride was the first sin, right? According to most Christian thinking at any rate. Pride was what caused Lucifer to refuse to bow down and serve humanity, who he saw as being lesser than himself and all the other angels, and/or to believe that he could sit on God's throne. 

"if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, `How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride."

I think that's true, to a point. But then you also can't allow yourself to be a doormat either. There are people out there who don't respect opinions, etc. and will just move you around like a doll if you let them. Users. Do they maybe have an overdose of pride? I think so. But you not having any pride/spine isn't a solution either. Sometimes the scenarios Lewis lists are clashes of egos(pride). Other times they're other people being assholes and/or manipulative.

"Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."

"Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on. If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy."

"Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God. In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you."

I think it's obvious but I should point out that there is a difference between Pride and pride. And Lewis does make that point later on. There's the Pride that he talks about above, where it drives you to be in competition with, basically, everything and everyone under the sun because you need to be better than they are in every respect in order to feel good about yourself and then there's pride in things. We'll talk about that in a bit.

Lewis believes that people who are clearly Prideful cannot ever be truly religious. They 'worship an imaginary God' according to him and are in reality being misled by the devil. Or their own egos, since we know how much I hate blaming everything that goes wrong in a persons life (or the world) on the poor devil.

"They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—above all, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether."

I totally get this. I didn't think it at the time, but when I was covering I did fall into this category. I said that I wasn't judging the women who didn't cover, but I did. Not always consciously, but I did. I thought that I was better, closer to God than they were for doing so and that they just needed to be educated and then they'd see how wrong they were. I felt very good about being so humble.

The funny thing is this: Lewis points out that quite often people use Pride in order to overcome lesser sins. Cowardice, lust, anger, etc. have all been overcome by an appeal to Pride, that they are beneath someone's dignity.

"The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride—just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."

Okay. On to the lower case 'pride' which is not the same as the sin of Pride.

Lewis says:

1. Pleasure in being praised is not Pride. Feeling good that you've been told you did a good job is a good and natural thing. Because the pleasure comes not from feeling that you are superior inherently in and of yourself, but in pleasing someone that you wanted to please. The trouble, where this goes from pride to Pride, is when you go from thinking 'I've pleased them' to thinking 'How great am I that I've done all of this?' And the more you delight in yourself and the less in the praise, the worse you are. At the point when you feel completely self-satisfied all the time and don't care at all what anyone else thinks, ever, because you know that you're the best thing out there then you've hit rock bottom.

2. Pride in family, school, regiment, workplace. Lewis says that it all depends on what the person means when they say they're proud of such things. If they mean that they have warm admiration for them, then that's right and fine. You should feel good about the institutions that you join and participate in. But if they mean that they're somehow better than anyone else because they 'come from' such and such a family, or they went to such and such a school then that has gone over into the area of Pride.

3. God doesn't forbid Pride because He's offended by it. God wants to make people humble in order to make the moment possible where you can meet him. Lewis believes that you cannot get near God and not be humbled by it. (Which I totally agree with. If you were to really meet something so much more powerful than yourself, the only sane reaction is a realization of the very smallness of your own being.) So God forbids Pride because it is such the opposite of human nature in relation to Himself. Pride will not, according to Lewis, ever get you anything or where good in the long run, especially not in the spiritual sense. And since that's the ultimate end of everything, to die and go before God, that's the biggest thing to focus on.

4. A truly humble person is not one that is always telling you that they're nobody. It is someone who you would never even think of in that way. Someone who is cheerful and smart who people just generally like.

Forgiveness

I take it back. I think this is my favorite chapter, if only because there's nothing in it that I disagree with. There are things I don't understand, of course, but that's not actually a problem with Lewis and more an issue with Christianity itself. So hopefully someone can explain them to me here!

"I said in a previous chapter that chastity was the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. But I am not sure I was right. I believe there is one even more unpopular. It is laid down in the Christian rule, `Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Because in Christian morals `thy neighbour' includes `thy enemy', and so we come up against this terrible duty of for-giving our enemies."

This is true. Forgiveness is hard. We've been hurt. We've been wounded and we're bleeding, sometimes physically, sometimes psychologically, quite often both. And we want to make the person(s) who hurt us pay. We want to take the pain that we feel, carve it out of our bodies and give it back to them. To make them suffer as much as we've suffered so that we'll stop feeling it. The worst part of that though, is that it doesn't work. You could take someone and (somehow) manage to inflict the exact same wounds on them, the exact same amount of pain and loss. And you'd still feel yours. Sometimes there's a part of you that is relieved, that feels satisfied but that doesn't stop the pain.

Human nature is to seek vengeance. To seek a leveling of the field. We're bloodthirsty. Forgiveness runs counter to our base instincts. It does, however, work toward the ultimate goal of so many of our other instincts: the survival of the species. If our darker instinct, our blood lust, was left unchecked we would have killed ourselves off pretty quickly. Something else has to intervene, some order has to be imposed.

We're the ones doing the imposing, really. Even assuming that the order came from on high, a creator god or force that said, 'Okay, look. I know that you guys are just *angry* and want to give as good as you got. Better, even. But that's not in your best interests. If you can't work together you're going to die because I designed all the other animals with more on the ball in the natural defenses and physicality department. And if you keep trying to kill one another off you're eventually going to succeed. And then it's going to have been a total waste of my time. So here's what we're going to do. You're going to *want* to bash each other over the head. Don't. Forgiveness is better.'

Leaving aside that forgiveness is not even the first system that we came up with. We came up with a payment system first. Kill someone's donkey? Pay 30 sheckles (or *whatever*). Sometimes the payment was mandated by the government and could be a little bloody. I know we tend to think of the concept of 'an eye for an eye' as barbaric, but at the time? *That* was the restrained option! That was something that was imposed on the people to bring order out of the violence and chaos. So, you know, I think we've come a fairly long way.

Anyway...the point is, one way or the other, we've come to the conclusion that some measure of forgiveness is necessary to keep on rolling. But it's not what we feel in our guts. In our hearts. We (most of us, I'm sure there's someone out there, somewhere, whose first thought is gentle. Good for you.) want justice, which can quite often look like revenge. Forgiveness is something that we're trained into.

"Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive,"

I just like that. It's very true, don't you think?

"Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do—I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find `Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?"

Here's my question. Why? Why should it be that way? Let's go under the assumption that there is a God. Moreover, that there is very specifically the Christian God. He is supposed to be merciful, correct? Forgiving and loving. If God does not forgive us our sins, we cannot get into heaven. Yes, I know it's a little more complicated than that, there's the whole asking for forgiveness and salvation aspect but the point remains. God is, under this set up, basically holding salvation hostage. 'If you don't forgive the people who've hurt you, you're not getting in here.' Where does that leave the people who have been so hurt that they find it impossible to forgive? 

I get where forgiveness is useful to society. What I don't get is why it's essential to us getting into heaven. I mean I could come up with reasons; that our clinging to our pains causes anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. But what if none of that's true? What if we just don't forgive this slight or that but we're not terrible, angry people? Does that keep us out of heaven? Isn't God supposed to be better than us?

Here's the part that really made sense to me in a way that this never has before. Okay, so we're instructed to love our neighbors (including our enemies) as ourselves. Well what does that mean? Do we feel particularly fond of ourselves? Not always. Sometimes we don't even like ourselves very much at all.

"Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I some-times do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

"For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again."

Okay. And then I can hear some people saying that, well, doesn't that mean that we can't punish anyone? Because we certainly wouldn't put ourselves up for punishment.

No. What Lewis says, and I get what he's saying, is that if you commit a crime and later come to the realization (supposedly through conversion to Christianity) of the severity of your crime, then the correct Christian thing to do is to turn yourself in and be punished for it. Even up to and including being put to death if that's the punishment for your crime.

Now I honestly can't see a whole lot of people up and doing that. The sense of self-preservation in humans tends to be to strong. We might seek to make amends in other ways, but actually walking into a police station and confession to a murder (or even a lesser crime)? Not so much. It's a nice ideal, sure. But I don't think it's going to be implemented anytime soon. And, of course, the assumption is always that, as a 'true' Christian, you wouldn't do things that would require such punishment anyway.

"I imagine somebody will say, `Well, if one is allowed to condemn the enemy's acts, and punish him, and kill him, what difference is left between Christian morality and the ordinary view?' All the difference in the world. Remember, we Christians think man lives for ever. Therefore, what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or a hellish creature. We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it. In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed. I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will never feel it any more. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible. Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves—to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not."

*sigh* Anyway. My thing, if there is one, is this: I like what Lewis says in this chapter about forgiveness. Much of it makes perfect sense. I'm not saying that it's implementable or anything, but it's nice. There's plenty of things that Lewis says in this book that are nice, counterpointed with all the things he says that I don't think are very effective or correct. However, nothing in this book so far as made 'the case' for Christianity. It's all good if you already believe, but if you don't, or you have doubts, then it's just interesting and sometimes not very convincing.

All-American Muslim - Ep. 6 - A Chance at Redemption

*snort* So from the description this is going to be all about football. We'll see. *cares nothing about football*

Oh! Before we get started, I had an idea earlier. There's this whole expectation for converts to behave perfectly, to take up all of Islam in one go. But when Islam was being revealed, it was a gradual process. Like with alcohol being forbidden (yes, I had this thought while drinking a Tequila Sunrise). It was revealed in stages. So even though the people who followed Mohammed believed in his revelation they didn't have to to everything at once. I know that's because it wasn't all revealed yet, but my point is: why can't converts take things in stages? It only makes sense.

Yes, the whole revelation is out there, but the covert is like the people who originally converted to Islam. They have lives that they're changing for this religion. It makes sense to me that they take things in steps. Like when I was reading about a woman who is converting to Orthodox Judaism and she said that you take on the practices as you feel called and able to. Same thing. You know what you need to do and you intend to do them, but doing them whole hog cold turkey is too much of a culture shock.

Baby steps people. Baby steps.

Though I absolutely get the convert desire to just *do* and be the 'perfect' member of that religion. And there's pressure from born members and other converts too, because they see you as a representative of the faith and there's likely some questioning in their minds about the sincerity of every conversion.

Right then.

Okay. The Convert who will not be named and His Terrible Wife. I...care little for your 'pain'. Let's move on.

How old are kids when they're expected to be able to do the whole fast? Or is there not a set age and it's just that they do it when they feel able to?

Oh, look, it's Nina's husband. Who we nearly never see. Maybe he's camera shy?

'gasoline distributor' - so many options. Does that mean he works at a gas station? Runs the tankers that move gas around? Owns a bunch of gas stations?

I do like that he's willing to support her in her desire to have a club. Good for him.

*laughs* Dear Nader: *men* need 'like 20 minutes!' at the gym. Women need a whole lot more work. And it's hard to find the time to go to the gym when you've got an infant. Or so I assume.

Football...blah...blah...

Them...blah...blah...

She Who Will Not Be Named's Mom is an awesome person on this subject.

'Hey, your husband has made a lot of changes in his life. Maybe you should back the fuck up and be a human being.'

*bitch-slaps She Who Will Not Be Named* Maybe you should have had those thoughts *before* you forced He Who Will Not Be Named to give up Wrigley.

'I would consider myself a control freak in some scenarios...'

O.O Really? I am shocked. Shocked. Nawal, I love you and I'm glad you're feeling better. But calling yourself a control freak in 'some scenarios' is understating the case.

The handshake thing. I'm with Nina: 'If you're going to shake someone's hand and get sexy thoughts, then you have a hand fetish.' And...it's not a universally accepted rule anyway.

I agree though that I prefer having a female trainer to. There are some things you do when you're weight lifting especially that can get very awkward.

If Nader freaks out about her shaking that man's hand I'm going to be at a loss. He doesn't seem like that kind of a guy. And I find the fact that she feels the need to 'confess' it very strange.

'literally felt like electricity went through my body or something' Really? That's weird.

Seriously. Nina is the most sensible person in the room on the handshake issue.

Football...blah...blah...

Commercial and then...more football. I will make a *terrible* football widow because I can't even pretend to care. Blah...blah...

He Who Will Not Be Named is on the tv...blargh. I know what's coming, and it's not helping you. So you went back and got her. Good for you. I don't forgive you for breaking her heart! Oh, but hey, fucking *compromise*, which should have been done in the first place.

And She Who Will Not Be Named - stop talking about the 'religious situation' because that wasn't your problem, you just used it as an excuse.

Moving on to More Important Things:

Ooof. That's cold. Three times in the back and once in the head when he's already on the ground? Over what? What in the hell were they fighting about and how do you feel that's the right response?

'We can't specify that murder only happens in a certain culture, or religion. It happens everywhere.'

Yeah. Just like every other kind of human evil.

I get what Suehaila is saying about wanting to be there to witness the killer being arraigned because the family can't be there.

*is all choked up*

Christian Marriage

I have to say, overall this has been my favorite chapter of the book. There are, of course, some things that I disagree with and some things that feel very old fashioned to me, but Lewis also espouses an attitude that surprised me coming from him! And then he ruined it for me with the last couple of paragraphs.

"There are two reasons why I do not particularly want to deal with marriage. The first is that the Christian doctrines on this subject are extremely unpopular. The second is that I have never been married myself, and, therefore, can speak only at second hand. But in spite of that, I feel I can hardly leave the subject out in an account of Christian morals."

So Lewis, like me, is talking from the peanut gallery on the subject of marriage. Just so we're all clear. This is someone who hadn't been married at the time writing about marriage and having his thoughts commented on by someone else who isn't married. We're Statler and Waldorf, basically. :)

"The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism–for that is what the words `one flesh' would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact...The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse out-side marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union."

I'm not going to go into polygamy, which existed at Christ's time (and afterward) and was never explicitly forbidden. This is one of those things where it's read into the text - that you can only be *completely* one with one other person. There're arguments on both side of that fence though. And there are some people who claim the title of Christian who do believe in and practice polygamy. It's not main stream any longer, but it does exist. So there's obviously, like in so many things, enough wiggle room within the text for people to come up with different answers to the same questions.

But Lewis saying that people who are having sex outside of marriage are trying to separate the kinds of union doesn't make sense to me. Just because these people may not legally be wed or wed in a religious manner doesn't mean that they aren't devoted to one another in the same way that people who have gone through one or both of those other options are. Do you really need a piece of paper or a ceremony to tell you that you're 'one' with the other person? Not always. Though, since we are humans we do like to mark special things like that with ceremonies. But it's not necessary.

"The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again."

Clearly Lewis has never heard of a wine or beer tasting.

"As a consequence, Christianity teaches that marriage is for life. There is, of course, a difference here between different Churches: some do not admit divorce at all; some allow it reluctantly in very special cases. It is a great pity that Christians should disagree about such a question; but...all agree with one another about marriage a great deal more than any of them agrees with the outside world...all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation...What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else."

*waggles hand* Most churches do teach that marriage is for life. And it's not something that I think should be entered into lightly, but it's (again) nothing that's stated outright. It's not even implied, but something that is inferred from the text. From the same line that is used to teach that marriage is between one man and one woman. The bit about a man and a woman being 'one'. Because if two things have become one, they can't be separated again. Right? Eh. Actually, in many cases they can be separated and become the two distinct things they were before being combined. Now I'm not saying that people should be divorcing willy nilly. I've lived through my parents' divorce, and it wasn't pretty. It's a nasty thing, which just means, to me, that people need to be far more careful when they're choosing someone to marry in the first place. Whether or not you believe that a marriage should last forever, you don't want to turn around and fight a divorce if you don't have to.

Lewis feels that marriage is related to two virtues. Chastity (of course) and justice. Where does the 'justice' come in?

"Justice, as I said before, includes the keeping of promises. Now everyone who has been married in a church has made a public, solemn promise to stick to his (or her) partner till death. The duty of keeping that promise has no special connection with sexual morality: it is in the same position as any other promise. If, as modern people are always telling us, the sexual impulse is just like all our other impulses, then it ought to be treated like all our other impulses; and as their indulgence is controlled by our promises, so should its be. If, as I think, it is not like all our other impulses, but is morbidly inflamed, then we should be specially careful not to let it lead us into dishonesty."

Now, everyone, contain your shock. I *agree* with the first half of Lewis statement, even though it's not the position he takes. I believe that it is the *promise* that should hold people in their marriages. Meaning, if you promise, whether it's spelled out or not, to be monogamous with your spouse, then you be monogamous. Period. If you can't do that, then you don't promise to do it. Don't get married. Be up front about it. I'm certain that, somewhere, there is a person who will be willing and happy to let you be yourself while being themselves in return. If you absolutely cannot control your sexual impulses, you have a mental issue and need to seek counseling. Most of us don't have that excuse.

For me it's not so much the 'having sex with someone who is not your spouse' that gets to be about adultery because if it's an open relationship, where everyone involved knows about everyone else and is accepting of the dynamics, then I don't have any problem with it. I have a problem with the deceit and the lies - the abuse of the spouse and their trust.

"If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not mean to keep. It is true that by living together without marriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. But one fault is not mended by adding another: unchastity is not improved by adding perjury."

This is the attitude that surprised me from Lewis! I would have expected him not to make such a concession, but to stick to the black or white attitude. Either you wed and are morally 'legal' to have sex or you are chaste. But I do get the angle he's taking here. If you're already going to be sinning, why add another sin?

The thing that I really liked about this chapter was Lewis' focus on the fact that 'love' is not the basis for a good, long lasting marriage. That first crazy flush of passion dies out. And if there isn't something else there, something slower burning than the crazy infatuation, then you're going to fizzle out.

"There are several sound, social reasons; to provide a home for their children, to protect the woman (who has probably sacrificed or damaged her own career by getting married) from being dropped whenever the man is tired of her."

I have an issue with that statement, but it's a very time and place related one. Or it should be. I don't think that there's as much of a stigma about a woman working and be married any longer, but there are probably some places where there are. I do know that there are still problems with women working and having children. Yet another one of those things that is better but must continue to be worked on.

"People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on `being in love' for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one."

This is so true. Books, movies, etc. Pretty much every form of entertainment that has this as a facet. My question is, it's so widespread, where did it start? Where did we first get the idea that love was some flowery ideal that would last and last? Basically, whose butt do I need to kick? :)

"This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow—and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life."

I just like this. I think it's very true.

"Another notion we get from novels and plays is that `falling in love' is something quite irresistible; something that just happens to one, like measles. And because they believe this, some married people throw up the sponge and give in when they find themselves attracted by a new acquaintance. But I am inclined to think that these irresistible passions are much rarer in real life than in books, at any rate when one is grown up. When we meet someone beautiful and clever and sympathetic, of course we ought, in one sense, to admire and love these good qualities. But is it not very largely in our own choice whether this love shall, or shall not, turn into what we call `being in love'? No doubt, if our minds are full of novels and plays and sentimental songs, and our bodies full of alcohol, we shall turn any love we feel into that kind of love: just as if you have a rut in your path all the rainwater will run into that rut, and if you wear blue spectacles everything you see will turn blue. But that will be our own fault."

"Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question—how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not."

This. I don't know what or how Lewis thinks it should be made clear who is 'state' married and who is 'Christian' married, or that I even think that's necessary. But I do think there needs to be a distinction made between religious unions and legal/state ones, assuming that the second category even needs to exist. Religious custom should not be allowed to dictate policy for everyone.

"In Christian marriage the man is said to be the `head'. Two questions obviously arise here. (1) Why should there be a head at all—why not equality? (2) Why should it be the man?

(1)The need for some head follows from the idea that marriage is permanent. Of course, as long as the husband and wife are agreed, no question of a head need arise; and we may hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christian marriage. But when there is a real disagreement, what is to happen? Talk it over, of course; but I am assuming they have done that and still failed to reach agreement. What do they do next? They cannot decide by a majority vote, for in a council of two there can be no majority. Surely, only one or other of two things can happen: either they must separate and go their own ways or else one or other of them must have a casting vote. If marriage is permanent, one or other party must, in the last resort, have the power of deciding the family policy. You cannot have a permanent association without a constitution.

(2) If there must be a head, why the man? Well, firstly is there any very serious wish that it should be the woman? As I have said, I am not married myself, but as far as I can see, even a woman who wants to be the head of her own house does not usually admire the same state of things when she finds it going on next door. She is much more likely to say `Poor Mr X! Why he allows that appalling woman to boss him about the way she does is more than I can imagine.' I do not think she is even very flattered if anyone mentions the fact of her own `headship'. There must be something unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule. But there is also another reason; and here I speak quite frankly as a bachelor, because it is a reason you can see from outside even better than from inside. The relations of the family to the outer world—what might be called its foreign policy—must depend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world. Naturally, almost, in a sense, rightly, their claims override, for her, all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests. The function of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife. If any-one doubts this, let me ask a simple question. If your dog has bitten the child next door, or if your child has hurt the dog next door, which would you sooner have to deal with, the master of that house or the mistress? Or, if you are a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbours as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?"

*sigh* Oh, Lewis. I was enjoying this chapter, and then this. First, there doesn't need to be one person who is the 'authority'. I've been there, I've thought that, and I'm over it. If two adults cannot reach a compromise, there's something wrong. Marriage, in my understanding, is about give and take. Compromise and understanding. It's not about having a disagreement and then one party whipping out the 'I've got a penis' card and getting their way.

For the second half. Well, hah. It sounds kind of good, if you're not thinking about it. Women are *too* strong and tough to be allowed to run around and do what we want. We're too apt to think only of our family and our offspring and conquer the neighbors because we want their pool. Only what it means is that we're too ruled by our emotions to be expected or allowed to interact with the general population. So we need the calm, rational man to negotiate with the other families.

Sexual Morality

"We must now consider Christian morality as regards sex, what Christians call the virtue of chastity."


Must we? Well, if we must.

I think I should point out that Lewis deals mostly with the definition of 'modesty' as regards dress and 'chastity' as regards sexuality. There are other, related, definitions and there is a point where the definitions of both words sort of crossover and can become synonyms. But for the purposes here they're treated in that narrow fashion and I think it's easy enough to understand.


"The Christian rule of chastity must not be confused with the social rule of 'mod­esty' (in one sense of that word); i.e. propriety, or decency. The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes."


Interesting. But I think that there's some sort of underlying...assumption or belief that Christianity, whether it comes from the Bible, Tradition or just the consensus of the masses that there is a 'Christian' way to dress. I'm sure that it changes from era to era and place to place but the idea is that a Christian will not wear 'x' kind of clothing. There's also the factor that the concern over what is 'appropriate' clothing seems to focus mainly on the clothing of women. You cannot judge a persons spirituality or faithfulness to their religion based on their clothing, though we all do it. I'm certainly guilty of it, perhaps even more than most people. I'm trying to be better about that but it's something of an automatic process so it's hard to grab a hold of it and put a stop to it. 


Anyway. There are certain passages within the Bible that can be, and are in some circles, interpreted as directing what kinds of clothing Christians (mostly women) are supposed to wear. However there is, as far as I'm aware, no monolithic (as in believed by all of those claiming the title of 'Christian') consensus on a specific mode of dress labeling one as a 'Christian' or not.


And Lewis' point is that 'modesty' is a societal construct while 'chastity' is the religious requirement. He gives the example of a Victorian lady, covered from neck to ankles in clothing and a 'girl in the Pacific islands' who wears, essentially, nothing. Both, in their modes of dress, are meeting their societal standards of modesty. Both of them may *also* be chaste but their mode of dress is not an indicator of that chastity one way or the other. There is a tendency to equate modesty with chastity. It's a false connection though. One can be the most modest person in their own culture and not be chaste. In the same way someone can dress immodestly by the standards of their society and be chaste.


"I do not think that a very strict or fussy standard of propriety is any proof of chastity or any help to it, and I therefore regard the great relaxation and simplifying of the rule which has taken place in my own lifetime as a good thing. At its present stage, however, it has this inconvenience, that peo­ple of different ages and different types do not all acknowl­edge the same standard, and we hardly know where we are. While this confusion lasts I think that old, or old-fashioned, people should be very careful not to assume that young or `emancipated' people are corrupt whenever they are (by the old standard) improper; and, in return, that young people should not call their elders prudes or puritans because they do not easily adopt the new standard. A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems."


I wonder what Lewis would make of modern society? I'm guessing he might not be as pleased by the 'relaxation of the standards' as he was in his own time. I think that this confusion he speaks of is something that always exists. After all, pretty much every generation rebels against the one that came before. I'm sure there were 'old folks' back in ancient pick-your-culture who were railing against the clothes and music and actions of the younger generation while the younger generation were complaining about how old fashioned and stuffy their parents and grand-parents were. The world is, in many ways, like a washing machine. It all just keeps going around and around, the same thing over and over just with different clothes. And yes, that made more sense in my head. I'm leaving it though! Pretend it's some sort of wisdom-y Zen koan or something. 'Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.' Reality is a washing machine on spin cycle. Go with it.


"Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, `Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.' Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong."


I agree that some people find chastity hard. Others do not. So perhaps the problem is that we've tried to impose what is natural to a portion of the population on the entire population? I honestly think that many people would be better served if there wasn't still the assumption that only one way is the correct way to have a relationship. I don't believe that our instincts are wrong or that Christianity is wrong. Just that it *obviously* doesn't work for everyone on the planet. But nothing does. I've come to think that we're too diverse for any single theology or philosophy to encompass everyone and their needs.


"The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body."


Is that really the only purpose of sex? Maybe in animals, and while we may be descended from animals we've evolved since then. It's absolutely true that one of the primary biological purposes to sex is to reproduce and preserve the species. But for many humans there is also the biological need of companionship and bonding to be met. I think some people make the distinction and think of companionship as a mental need but I think, for many people, there's a physical/biological aspect to it as well. After all, if all we needed to feel fulfilled was an intellectual connection then the people who don't want children would never have sex. But they do. Yes, you could argue that that's part of our biology's way of forcing/tricking us into doing something that would produce children but even if that's so that doesn't change the fact that we have a biological *need* for sex in order to feel fulfilled, with or without the end result of children.


And yes, I am aware that there are asexual people who do not feel the draw of sex. That's why I said 'many' and not 'all'. It's very, very hard to make blanket statements about anything because there are always exceptions to the rule. And I find that wonderful. :D 


"if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function."


But that's not the way it works. Our *biology* ensures that not every single sexual act produces a child. The appetite is *not* ludicrous in excess of its function. I think it's important to keep in mind that not every sexual act produces a child and not every pregnancy lasts to term. I think it's also important to remember that the world has changed a great deal since our ancient progenitors sat in a cave and doodled on the walls. In the past the mortality rate of..well...everyone was much much higher than it is today. Than it was in Lewis' time as well though we've made a lot of progress even since then. 


When the sexual instinct/urge was developed it was appropriate to the needs of the species. Let's say, since I have no idea what the actual numbers were, that half of every sexual act historically, without the intervention of modern science and medicine, (in this case restricted to vaginal intercourse obviously) produced a viable embryo. So we have 1,000 couples having sex. Of them, only 500 embryo's are originally produced. Let's be nice and say that 75% of those make it to term. 375 babies are born. Of those let's say another 25% have some sort of birth defect that kills them before they hit puberty. 282 kids who are born healthy. Take away another 50% of those who are lost due to accidents, illness, etc. 141 children survive. 28% of the original embryos have survived to adulthood. 


Of those 141 adults, not all of them will survive to pass on their genes. Of those that do survive to the point of getting to try and pass on their genes, not all will succeed. Some of them will and the cycle starts again.


Of course these are all numbers that I pulled out of my ass, but you see the idea, right? Now days the rates of survival are much, much higher in developed first world countries. Our sexual urges, assuming that the main, if not sole, purpose of them is to drive us to produce future generations, are in proportion to the needs of the species as we evolved. Do we need to produce so many children now? Opinions vary. But assuming that your answer is 'no', that's why we invented birth control. And different sexual positions. Ones that do not include the possibility of offspring.


"a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage."

I find it charmingly adorable and funny that Lewis felt that he had to explain what a strip tease was. *laughs*


Lewis continues to equate the need for food with the need for sex. He says that if we went to a country where they had 'strip tease' style acts with food, where "you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon" that we would come to the conclusion that there is something very wrong with that country's appetite for food. And so, it being the same thing and all, there is obviously something wrong with the need for sex in any country that has such things as strip shows. *side eyes Lewis* Because those haven't been around since the beginning of time or anything, just like prostitution. Oh, wait, it's clear that Lewis believes that stripping is something new.


"One critic said that if he found a country in which such strip-tease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving. He meant, of course, to imply that such things as the strip-tease act resulted not from sexual corruption but from sexual starvation. I agree with him that if, in some strange land, we found that similar acts with mutton chops were popular, one of the possible explanations which would occur to me would be famine. But the next step would be to test our hypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food was being consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a good deal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon the hypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one. In the same way, before accepting sexual starvation as the cause of the strip-tease, we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since Pagan times."

Another explanation, apart from the 'starvation' or 'corruption' ideas is that there *was* starvation in the land and now that it no longer exists there're expressions of natural hunger that shock some people. People have always had the sexual appetites that we have now. The difference is that, as opposed to Victorian times (for example) we feel more free to express them. The culture is changing and so the visible availability of some things has increased. However, just because some people, in the past, chose to believe that such things never happened doesn't make it so. 

"You find very few people who want to eat things that really are not food or to do other things with food instead of eating it. In other words, perversions of the food appetite are rare."

That's not even remotely true. I'm going to chalk this one up to ignorance of the times and move on. 

"But perversions of the sex instinct are numer­ous, hard to cure, and frightful. I am sorry to have to go into all these details but I must."

Yes, dear lord, some people want to have sex for fun! *gasps in shock* I'm not entirely sure about which 'perversions' Lewis is referring to. He makes it clear that homosexuality is a perversion, of course, but I don't know if he counts wanting to have non-vaginal sex or perhaps the idea that women have (or would really like to have) orgasms. Or perhaps (probably) pain play, BDSM, roleplaying, or any other form of sex that is not 100% vanilla and 'normal' - and those are *sarcastic* air quotes around normal right there.

"We have been told, till one is sick of hear­ing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely."

I'm not advocating the idea that just getting rid of outdated ideas about sex and sexuality will fix everything, but it would help a lot of things. Think of all the people who feel the need to pretend to a sexuality or gender identity that is not true to them in order to please society or their family. And all of the ones who are so beaten and depressed by it and the harassment they are subjected to be people who believe that they are 'wrong' or 'dirty' or 'sick', the ones who wind up taking their own lives because they can't see any hope.

"They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think the human race originally hushed it up because it had become such a mess."

Um. Twenty years is not a very long time for centuries and possibly millenia of a cultural problem to get cleared up. Just saying. It took a long time to get that way and it's going to take a long time to get it out of our collective system.

Lewis talks about how Christianity is one of the only religions that is sex positive. I have my doubts about that, and even about how sex positive you can even claim Christianity really is. Does it definitively say that sex is evil? *waggles hand* Depends on your reading of the texts. Some say yes, some say no. It's a matter of interpretation. I think it has been hijacked, historically, by men who did have issues with sex and their interpretation became the most widely read and believed for the longest time. However, talking to Muslims you find them saying that their faith is the most sex (and matter) positive. I'm sure I could find Jews who believed the same. And Hindus. Etc. Everyone thinks they're the best and every religion can and has been hijacked. *shrug* Happily I don't base my views on sex on religion.

On the heels of that, however, Lewis says that the 'modern' (his time) view of sex *has* gone wrong. It is warped. We are ill in the sexual sense and need to be cured, but before we can be cured we must admit that we need to be cured. This is one of those things where Lewis and I are just not going to agree. I don't believe that our society, in its continuing attempt to embrace healthy expressions of sexuality (those that are not inherently wrong - pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia, for examples of those that I believe are by their very nature wrong), is sick. I think we're on the other side of that - we've admitted that we were sick, that the shaming and oppression of natural sexual instincts and needs made us sick and that we are now getting better.