XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com   
      
   On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:10:40 GMT, "Dan Drake"  wrote:   
      
   >On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 15:51:30 UTC, Siwel Naph    
   >wrote (quoting Orwell):   
   >   
   >> And even beyond the grave his success would continue. According to   
   >> Buddhist belief, those who have done evil in their lives will spend the   
   >> next incarnation in the shape of a rat, a frog or some other low animal.   
   >> U Po Kyin was a good Buddhist and intended to provide against this   
   >> danger. He would devote his closing years to good works, which would pile   
   >> up enough merit to outweigh the rest of his life. Probably his good works   
   >> would take the form of building pagodas. Four pagodas, five, six, seven...   
   >   
   >How interesting. This is exactly the form of argument with which kids of a   
   >certain Christian faith -- you'd recognize its name in an instant if I   
   >gave it -- annoyed my mother in her youth, to the extent that she retold   
   >it to me years later: "If you sin, you go to Hell; but we can confess and   
   >get absolved."   
   >   
   >I am sure that any members of that well-known church who are reading this   
   >will protest that this is an abominable perversion of their faith.  I   
   >believe it.  (I'm guessing that the problem is something along these   
   >lines: if you plan in that way, you are trying to fool and manipulate God.   
   >Boy, is THAT a dumb thing to do! )  But people have said it, and it's a   
   >marvelous example of how people manage to mess up the Teachings in much   
   >the same ways, regardless of race, color, creed, or place of national   
   >origin.   
      
   But would such things happen in these imaginary lands where people *practised*   
   "mere Buddhism" and "mere Christianity"?   
      
   It seems to me that what Siwel Naph is trying to say is that in either case   
   the cure not only fails to cure the disease, but actually causes it; that   
   there is something in the teachings of both Buddhism and Christianity that not   
   only fails to prevent such behaviour, but sets it off.   
      
   I am reminded of what G.K. Chesterton said:   
      
        But I think this book may well start where our argument   
        started --in the neighbourhood of the mad-house. Modern   
        masters of science are much impressed with the need of   
        beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of   
        religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity.   
        They began with the fact of sin--a fact as practical as   
        potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous   
        waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted wash-   
        ing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere   
        materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly   
        disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain   
        new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part   
        of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some   
        followers of the Reverend R.J.Campbell, in their almost too   
        fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which   
        they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially   
        deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The   
        strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took   
        positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it   
        be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite   
        happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher   
        can only draw one of two deductions.  He must either deny   
        the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny   
        the present union between God and man, as all Christians do.   
        The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic   
        solution to deny the cat.   
      
   Now Siwel Naph seems to be (in the case of his "mere Christianity" world) not   
   merely denying the disputable water, but saying that it is the same as the   
   dirt, or rather that the water produces the dirt. In other words, feeling   
   exquisite happiness in skinning a cat is the expected and positive result of   
   perfect love.   
      
   In a world where everyone genuinely loved one another, with no reserve, no   
   dissimulation, and hate were banished, they would still treat one another with   
   hideous cruelty.   
      
   Now to me this seems rather like the ideologies in George Orwells "1984" --   
   "war is peace and peace is war". Siwel Naph seems to be saying that "love is   
   hate and hate is love".   
      
   So there is a failure to communicate.   
      
   Either Siwel Naph has failed to see the logical inconsistencies in his/her   
   postulated imaginary world, or I have failed to see the logical consistencies   
   in it, and so we've been going round in circles.   
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm   
        http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)