C.S. Lewis BIO by Blog Rube

"C.S." is used by this author as an acronym for, "Common Sense." Mr. Lewis’ move from atheism to Christianity is a subject he wrote much about and his missives still have the brainy and prideful (both Christian’s by mere label, and those who straightaway state God is nonexistent) in utter fluxing bedevilment. C.S. Lewis was unquestionably a brilliant thinker, prolific writer, and surrendered seeker who followed Christ and it is because of his imagination in tandem with scholastic wherewithal that firmed his convictions of Christ being God-Man.

Mr. Lewis’ uncommon ability actually tapped into the common part of human sense which was routinely abandoned by academia. Lewis' intellectual counterparts seemingly couldn't compete with his command of the King's English that he sought to keep simple. Lewis thought little of those who professed their intellectually enlightened state of mind. Such folks confused what the most callow of children could easily communicate with common words and compelling implications about God's renowned and present reality.

C.S. Lewis convinced both the agnostic and atheist that their assaultive arguments against God clearly suggested that such strongly peculiar opposition confirmed God's providential presence. As a matter of question:

‘Why, Sir, are you emotionally strained and under clear duress over an issue, called God, for which you assert does not exist? Isn’t your science and intelligence blended with your right thinking take all emotion and sharp anger out of all tête-à-tête regarding God?’

Very simply, one had not an argument against nothingness unless this nothingness was truly something over which to argue and be worth opposing. Hence, common sense made agnostics (clearly the atheists) wish such common sense didn't make such profoundly disturbing good sense. Succinctly, nothing made sense unless something made sense. Thus, a man with a lick of sense knew God made the man so he could reason rightly at all.” –Brian G. Jett

C.S. Lewis Quotations (Actual Meaningful Remarks In My, biased perhaps, Opinion)

C.S. Lewis Quotes – Life“You will never know how much you believe something until it is a matter of life and death.” “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.” – God in the Dock, page 52.

“One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human.” – God in the Dock,page 108. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself. – The Problem of Pain

C.S. Lewis Quotes – Atheism"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. . ." – Mere Christianity

"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable." – Mere Christianity

"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere -- 'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,' as Herbert says, 'fine nets and stratagems.' God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous." – Surprised by Joy

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?" - Mere Christianity

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." – Surprised by Joy

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. – Is Theology Poetry?

Emotionality of Atheist I Find Curious (No God? Why Is Anger Typically Involved Over a NON Issue?)

"Atheists have continued to predictably wax philosophical concerning their intellectually self-sufficient certainties of God's nonexistence. However, the ease of their perilously lazy cynicism will become increasingly thorny as they age and are forced to acknowledge that their previously chosen stance as atheists must, as a matter of course, empirically and ultimately bear out that they were neither overly intellectual nor self-sufficient; neither unpredictable in opinion nor genuinely philosophic to originality; neither competent in certainties nor cerebrally capable of explaining creation without stumbling over the necessity of a Creator; neither convicted atheists excluded from eternal questions nor naturalists undaunted by morose preoccupations for ethereal answers; and lastly, neither authentically acceptant of a life without end nor having ever been secure in trusting their facts based on science in lieu of who or what made their science possible." -B.G. Jett



What facts?

I just want one agnostic or "Atheist" as none truly exist to, with reason, undo their argument by asserting even a portion of the aforementioned axiom penned for fun as completely false. Indeed, it is either false or not. If there cannot be one truth, than there reasonably cannot be any truth. What, therein, is false or wrong if anything? Why do atheists do and say things that surely seem marginally if not considerably correct and suggestive of being a human being with a conscience? How can this be explained away? Learned behavior from apes? I don't wish to be discordant, but I simply am asking for (as are many atheist if honest with said position, if atheist) an intellectual, reasonable, and orginal positing of information and even possibly compelling conviction as to why God or one God cannot and does not exist?

It is not just a "Christian" who must be mandated to produce apologetics.
Thank you,

Hang Tough

Answers to Obvious Ones Only One Way Discerned (Musings)

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense -- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. -1 John 2:1-2

“No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.” -Karl Otto von Schonhausen Bismarck How very true the above maxim is and I submit the answers so obvious to each of us are continually questioned by Jesus Christ’s words to the Apostle Peter; “The flesh is weak; the Spirit is willing.” In the book of Mark, Christ states, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. “ Mark 14:38

Interesting to note the order of His statement of truth, One truth, The Truth, and if there Is Another truth we’re contemplating than instantly ushered in is confusion. Two truths cannot exist and this is the unresolved conflict we are in constant debate. In a world of patterns and people pleasing, we are apt to please our need for acceptance and give power to people of influence and even those who hold no social prominence.

Pluralism isn’t to blame but the knavery excuse we choose to pattern our habits and hang ups on to the extent everyone else has their own foibles, faults, and multiplicity of options which justify our very own unjust and absurd patterns and problems. To accept Christ’s love for others is often easier than to swallow than the possibility that He could, in fact, love us for who and what we are even in the present. This is where ego and pride and self-consciousness, self-centeredness and our ravenously disturbing desire to compete wrongly to soothe our “Rightness Addiction” and press off from the withdrawals of possible wrongness – particularly if we know we’re wrong. The “plank” in our eye is not seen from the inside looking inward unless the Holy Spirit is in us to pluck it out. If what lies within us is nothing spiritual of the sort, it cannot be sorted. Blaming others for their fleshly faults we subtly or not so subtly assert that they change are our fleshly carnality in its most unseemly, repulsive and revolting demonstrations.

"If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed.” -John 8:36 The flesh is always tempted to be right, dead right. The Spirit is willing and it is always demonstrated from that which really is in a Christ Follower who has allowed what only the Holy Spirit must “work out” as it is our salvation, not our neighbor’s we win over. We must admit we need to lose everything and be willing to see it go for a testimony to be of use to another soul. Removing all “Ifs” that precede the promise of Christ setting one free is forever beckoning that the believer actually believe Christ, not merely in Christ as a folk hero or other sage with interesting things to say. What we are jealous of is Jesus Christ Himself. We don’t like to be told what to do by anyone and even if it’s for our own good temporally. To run from Christ and find other worldly wisdom to lean on so as to justify or minimize the dealing with of self is the other side of the fence we’ll straddle until God trumps our “free will” which is the very thing that He does by wooing us not with condemnation, but through love in spite of our desire to avoid the One Truth that can take the lid of the lightening bug jar.

We must see the opening and find peace by our final decision being decidedly final – Christ is God-Man and I can only stay awake for an hour to be with a someone whom I love above all else. Peter and the disciples did not do so for Christ because, perhaps, they took His repeated demonstrations of unconditional love and mercy for granted; He was familiar but He was far from being done with a lesson or two to get to only one thing – Himself! We are offended because we are defensive. There cannot be an attack by any man or woman on our personhood that ought cause us to become offended and, in due short time, defensive, with Christ or if Christ is our salvation, our only attorney, so to speak, whom pleads our case before His Father. We can only see the change in others when we’ve been freed to see the change in ourselves never done by will power or gritty determination. His Spirit is the reason we know we will be uncomfortable down here in the world and in our homes that are but feigned mansions regardless of size until we accept Heaven’s Mansions and He, Christ, who spoke of them. We must allow Him in and see that our goodness is of no concern to what His love sacrificed.

We cannot and will never do unto others so much so that we find ourselves viewing this life as unfair and our contributions bigger than that of our One God’s Son and His death for us. His death requires that we put to death self to see the horrid nature in us as revealed by God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit. There can be no real reason to judge another if filled with the fruits of the Spirit [which are grown in patience]; but to be filled up, all must move out that wants to reside in His temple and His creation. He loves us that much. Indeed, to live is for Christ; to die is gain.

"They have conquered Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death" (Revelation 12:11)

No fear of death when the only source of eternal life is fully embraced. Judging goes with such abandonment. (Brian G. Jett)

Lord, help me apply this.

Genesis 1 American Standard Version

Genesis 1 American Standard Version

Excerpt from C. S. Lewis -As long as X remains-

Excerpt from C. S. Lewis:

I suppose I may assume that seven out of ten of those who read these lines are in some kind of difficulty about some other human being. Either at work or at home, either the people who employ you or those whom you employ, either those who share your house or those whose house you share, either your in-laws or parents or children, your wife or your husband, are making life harder for you than it need be even in these days. It is hoped that we do not often mention these difficulties (especially the domestic ones) to outsiders. But sometimes we do. An outside friend asks us why we are looking so glum, and the truth comes out.On such occasions the outside friend usually says, "But why don't you tell them? Why don't you go to your wife (or husband, or father, or daughter, or boss, or
landlady, or lodger) and have it all out? People are usually reasonable. All you've got to do is to make them see things in the right light. Explain it to them in a reasonable, quiet, friendly way." And we, whatever we say outwardly, think sadly to ourselves, "He doesn't know X." We do. We know how utterly hopeless it is to make X see reason. Either we've tried it over and over again--tried till we are sick of trying it--or else we've never tried because we saw from the beginning how useless it would be. We know that if we attempt to "have it all out with X" there will be a "scene", or else X will stare at us in blank amazement and say "I don't know what on earth you're talking about"; or else (which is perhaps worst of all) X will quite agree with us and promise to turn over a new leaf and put everything on a new footing -- and then, twenty-four hours later, will be exactly the same as X has always been. You know, in fact, that any attempt to talk things over with X will shipwreck on the old, fatal flaw in X's character. And you see, looking back, how all the plans you have ever made always have shipwrecked on that fatal flaw--on X's incurable jealousy, or laziness, or touchiness, or muddle-headedness, or bossiness, or ill temper, or changeableness. Up to a certain age you have perhaps had the illusion that some external stroke of good fortune--an improvement in health, a rise of salary, the end of the war -- would solve your difficulty. But you know better now. The war is over, and you realize that even if the other things happened, X would still be X, and you would still be up against the same old problem. Even if you became a millionaire, your husband would still be a bully, or your wife would still nag, or your son would still drink, or you'd still have to have your mother-in-law live with you. It is a great step forward to realize that this is so; to face up to the fact that even if all external things went right, real happiness would still depend on the character of the people you have to live with--and that you can't alter their characters. And now comes the point. When you have seen this you have, for the first time, had a glimpse of what it must be like for God. For of course, this is (in one way) just what God Himself is up against. He has provided a rich, beautiful world for people to live in. He has given them intelligence to show them how it ought to be used. He has contrived that the things they need for their biological life (food, drink, rest, sleep, exercise) should be positively delightful to them. And, having done all this, He then sees all His plans spoiled--just as our little plans are spoiled -- by the crookedness of the people themselves. All the things He has given them to be happy with they turn into occasions for quarreling and jealousy, and excess and hoarding, and tomfoolery... But... there are two respects in which God's view must be very different from ours. In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind--the one you never do see.

I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom--to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as "Of course, I know I have my faults." It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives others the same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don't know about--like what the advertisements call "halitosis", which everyone notices except the person who has it. But why, you ask, don't the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried
to tell you over and over and over again. And you just couldn't "take it". Perhaps a good deal of what you call their "nagging" or "bad temper"... are just their attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don't know fully. You say, "I admit I lost my temper last night"; but the others know that you're always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person. You say, "I admit I drank too much last Saturday"; but every one else knows that you are a habitual drunkard.
This is one way in which God's view must differ from mine. He sees all the characters: I see all except my own. But the second difference is this. He loves the people in spite of their faults. He goes on loving. He does not let go. Don't say, "It's all very well for Him. He hasn't got to live with them." He has. He is inside them as well as outside them. He is with them far more intimately and closely and incessantly that we can ever be. Every vile thought within their minds (and ours), every
moment of spite, envy, arrogance, greed, and self-conceit comes right up against His patient and longing love, and grieves His Spirit more than it grieves ours.

The more we can imitate God in both these respects, the more progress we shall make. We must love X more; and we must learn to see ourselves as a person of exactly the
same kind. Some people say it is morbid to always be thinking of one's own faults. That would be all very well if most of us could stop thinking of our own without soon beginning to think about those of other people. For unfortunately we enjoy thinking about other people's faults: and in the proper sense of the word "morbid", that is the most morbid pleasure in the world. We don't like rationing which is imposed upon us, but I suggest one form of rationing which we ought to impose on ourselves. Abstain from all thinking about other people's faults, unless your duties as a teacher or parent make it necessary to think about them. Whenever the thoughts come unnecessarily into one's mind, why not simply shove them away? And think of one's own faults instead? For there, with God's help, one can do something. Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much. That is the practical end at which to begin. And really, we'd better. The job has got to be tackled some day; and every day we put it off will make it harder to begin. What, after all, is the alternative? You see clearly enough that nothing... can make X really happy as long as X remains envious, self-centered, and spiteful. Be sure that there is something inside you which, unless it is altered, will put it out of God's power to prevent your being eternally miserable. While that something remains, there can be no Heaven for you, just as there can be no sweet smells for a man with a cold in the nose, and no music for a man who is deaf. It's not a question of God "sending" us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud. The matter is serious: let us put ourselves in His hands at once--this very day, this hour. -(by C.S. Lewis)

Grandpa's Little Buddy (HCI Publishing, 2002) B. Jett

As Steven stood awkwardly on the bank of Lake Malone in Western Kentucky, his grandfather watched his "Little Buddy" desperately attempt to get just one of the many flat rocks he'd gathered to skip over the lake's sun reflective surface. "Keep at it son!" his grandfather shouted with much enthusiasm. 

"Grandpa," Steven asked in his pre-adolescent and breaking voice, "Why am I no good at anything I try? I want to be a great pitcher like you used to be!" 

His grandfather gently touched his shoulder while observing his grandson's eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Little Buddy, let me tell you why you are already a great pitcher and will be a better pitcher than your old grandpa ever was. Can I give you a little advice son?"

Steven looked intensely into his hero's eyes and replied, "Yes grandpa! I'll do anything to be great like you!" 

His grandfather sat him down on a hollowed out log and pulled him in close. "Little Buddy, I want you to remember what I am about to tell you and all I ask is that you never forget what I had to learn the hard way. Do you promise you will remember?" Steven's grandfather asked. Without pause, Steven assured his grandfather he'd remember any and everything he told him. 

His grandfather continued, "If you think someone is better than you, always remember that you are the only one who is thinking the other guy is."

His grandson looked at him inquisitively and caught his grandfather off guard with his response. "So you're saying that I need to use my brain, is that what you said grandpa?" 

"You got it Little Buddy! Many folks focus on what they are doing wrong, but the winners figure out what they are doing right." 

His grandson replied with yet another super insight based on what he'd heard his grandfather say. "So I need to tell myself that I am good?" he asked. 

His grandfather smiled and went further: "Not only do you need to tell yourself that you're good, you must always believe that you are great! You see Little Buddy, you've got determination and grit. I've been watching you throw those stones for over two hours and anyone who stays at it that long has what it takes to be a winner even though he may get a bit down on occasion!" 

As they walked back up the hill to the home Steven's grandfather built for him and his wife 20 years earlier, his grandfather took hold of his Little Buddy's hand and stated the last piece of wisdom Steven would ever hear him provide. 

"You'll be at the pitcher's mound next season and I'll be there Lord willing. When you're on that mound, I want you to repeat to yourself what I'm about to tell you when you start to throw each ball. Are you listening son?" 

He glanced at his grandfather and boldly stated, "Yes Sir!" 

"Okay then, I want you to repeat this right after me. 'When I feel down, I know God will lift me up'!" 

His grandson repeated it three times before they finally reached the front porch. 

The next season came and Steven looked into the stands searching for his grandfather's always eager and proud face. "Mom, I don't see grandpa anywhere! Where is he?" he anxiously asked his mother of very strong faith. 

"Steven, grandpa won't be here today because God called him to be with him last night." she flatly replied.

Steven began to cry as his mother consoled him with a firm and comforting hug. "Steven, grandpa told me last night before he passed away to be sure to tell you that he loves you and to repeat what he told you to when you get up to that mound." Steven's dark brown eye's steadied as he wiped his tears away with his baseball shirt's sleeve. 

Steven's tears wiped away, he immediately looked up and stated, "When I feel down, I know God will lift me up." His mother's eyes began to water as she patted him on the back and directed his eyes towards the pitcher's mound. As he walked to the mound, his mother continued to hear him repeat what his grandpa instructed him to repeat. 

With two strikes and three balls thrown awry in the bottom of the ninth inning, the crowd watched as Steven paused, knelt to one knee, muttered something and stood upright and proudly. He gazed into the eyes of the batter and shouted loud enough for the entire crowd to hear, "When I feel down, I know God will lift me up." Oddly, he held the ball like the stones his grandfather had watched him throw that sunny day only one year ago. 

Steven poised himself with his gaze remaining in the batter's eyes. Before the pitch was released, he remembered his grandpa's other words of wisdom--"If you think someone is better than you, always remember that you are the only one who is thinking the other guy is."

He released the ball with a furious and awkward sidearm pitch that the "more-than-a little-bit" intimidated batter never seemingly saw curve over the middle of the plate. "You're out!" the umpire shouted and to Steven's surprise, the crowd mostly comprised of the parents of both teams, stood up and gave Steven a roaring applause. His team and the opposing team both rushed the field and carried him off the field. 

Things had settled down after all of the pomp and circumstance and Steven noticed an old man walking his way. "That was a heck of a pitch you threw son," the old man stated with the same look of pride his grandpa often had shown on his face. "Sir, thanks a lot." Steven appeared confused and asked, "Sir, do I know you from somewhere?" The old man grinned, touched Steven gently on his shoulder before uttering, "No son, you don't but your grandfather did."

Steven excitingly exclaimed, "You know my grandpa?" 

The old man's eyes began to fill with tears as he told Steven, "Your grandfather struck me out just like you did that boy when we were about your age. He told me something I'll never forget just before I got signed on with National Baseball League." 

Steven's eyes lit up as he waited for what the old man would say next. 

"Your grandfather told me that my greatest asset in the Big League wouldn't be my throwing or batting. He told me that if I ever thought someone was better than me, to always remember that I was the only one who thought the other guy was. What he never told me was what you shouted while standing out there on that mound. Your mother called me long distance late last night and asked that I come on down. I was feeling down on the trip to get here, but thanks to you son, God has lifted me up!"

--- Copyright © 2001 Brian G. Jett