Talk:C. S. Lewis/Archive 1

message: I have replaced the references to Ireland for the reasons listed directly below. 
In 1898, Northern Ireland did not yet exist as a political entity.  Logically, his birthplace should be refered to as Belfast, Ireland (currently Northern Ireland).   BTW - Lewis specifically and repeatedly identified himself in his published letters and diary as being "an Irishman".
    
Lets get away from the Irish or not thing. Say he was born in Belfast, that he lived in England and let people come to their own conclusions. Otherwise we get this very non NPOV claiming of him for one nationality or another. Doesn't anyone here know how to sign their name with the  ~~~~ ? , Dabbler 21:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your change, Dabbler -- wise move.  Oh, and the conversation immediately below took place in 2002....I don't think the software then allowed the four tilde signature, and apparently these authors weren't in the habit of signing their remarks. :-)  Further down the page you'll see we mostly sign our comments. :-) Jwrosenzweig 22:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

text: As someone with Irish origins myself albeit removed a generation, I don't think that is the case here. I suggested that we let people make their own mind up, but you are putting in your POV that he was Irish. I didn't say he was British, I said he was born in Belfast, that is a fact. There are unreferenced claims above that Lewis said he was Irish.   Dabbler 02:01, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Old

message: I assume that the anon. user edited out the links either because they were duplicates (linked to earlier in the article) or because they were years without more general significance for the article.  There's some disagreement over the latter (some users want to link to everything linkable, others feel that too many links spoil the look and readability of the text and distract attention from the genuinely relevant and useful links), but I don't think that there's any over the former.  My sympathy is with those who want to cut down on links, but we could discuss it if you'd like. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:28, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate links 

message: 22 November 1963 was also the day of the first boradcast of Dr Who.
It was also the day that Aldous Huxley died. Dabbler 17:04, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor link

message: Should a section be devoted to his poetry like the Late Passenger?12.220.47.145 21:07, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Poetry?

message: I can say with all sincerity that some people in here have NOT read Lewis and his exposition of the Lord, Liar, or Lunatic argument.  The argument is specifically aimed against a specific line of reasoning among unbelievers; "The important thing about Jesus was that he should be remembered as a great moral teacher"  Lewis frames it specifically against those who accept him as merely a great moral teacher, but nothing more and also accept what he said as fact.  Lewis says that if we assume what is said by Jesus of the bible are his words, then he is either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. --Allthewhile 23:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  It cannot be taken as a "proof" of Jesus' divinity -- it merely demonstrates (fairly convincingly, to me) that Jesus' status as a "good man" cannot be divorced from his claims of divinity.  If someone accepts (largely) the Gospel accounts but believes they show merely a nice fellow, Lewis argues that they are failing to deal with the logical consequences of their position.  Jwrosenzweig 07:55, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, this is definitely the correct view; I just reverted a change that suggested otherwise.  To clarify, the trilemma says that either you accept that Jesus is the messiah or that you view Jesus as a liar or insane.  That is, there is no fourth option that Jesus is a great moral leader but not divine. Rlove 02:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The trilemma claims this, of course, but there are other options. For one, Jesus might not have said everything that the Bible claims that he said. Misquotations are hardly an uncommon phenomena. Secondly, even if he did say what he is alleged to say, they aren't necessarily unambiguous claims of divinity. Thirdly, even if he did claim to be God, despite Lewis' claims, there's no reason that "poached egg" or "devil of Hell" are our only remaining options. Lewis' trilemma is a false trilemma.--RLent 21:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First, the trilemma makes the assumption (as the beginning of the logical process) that the account of Jesus in the Gospels is accurate.  Second, the number claims in the Gospels to Jesus' divinity leave very little to interpretation.  Third, Lewis made the argument that if Jesus said He was God, then you can not assume anything other than the conclusion of the trilemma.  Jesus could not have been a truly moral man if he lied about his nature, nor would he have been a great teacher if he did not understand he was not Diety.  Perhaps you should look what Tolkien himself wrote about the trilemma to understand it better. --Bakkster Man 03:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd say that, aside from some very questionable premises, the arguments additionally fails to be sound due to the conclusion not logically following. For example, Jesus could have been a wise man with great moral vision yet still have been nuts. The trilemma is considered to be a poor example of apologetics precisely because it has so many easy refutations. Al 04:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification on the "Trilemma" 

message: Honestly, I'd like to cut any statement that "he was Irish" or "he was English".  It seems far fairer to me to say he was born and raised in Belfast, and lived most of his adult life in England, and let others decide what they will.  We could even mention his frequent holidays in Ireland (though not in the introduction).  Anyway, whatever we do, I'd like to hear some consensus on it so we can stop this silly slow edit war over the intro -- whether you agree or disagree with me, I hope some of you will comment so we can sort this out. :-)  Any ideas? Jwrosenzweig 08:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, there is a complex interplay of emotional responses between the descriptions "Irish" and "British". These are exacerbated when Northern Ireland is involved. If we just state the incontrovertible facts of lewis' birth and residence then people can have their POV not Wikipedia. Dabbler 10:49, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Then let's correct those other articles you refer to.  I see nothing wrong with noting that Beethoven was born and raised in "what is now Germany".  The same goes for Dvorak.  If Mann became an American citizen, then this should certainly warrant mention in his article.  Turning to Lewis, if he called himself an Irishman, he certainly did not do so often.  He is not commonly referred to as an "Irish author" by literary critics.  He left Ireland at a young age and did not return there to live.  I think this is then clearly a figure whose biography needs to avoid simply categorizing him as "Irish".  There's nothing inappropriate with being precise about where he was born and where he lived his adult life. Jwrosenzweig 22:14, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

text: You misunderstand.  Omitting Beethoven's German identity and Dvorak's Czech identity would be less precise - not more precise - because identity is not merely a matter of politics or living situation.  Beethoven and Mann identitified themselves as German and Dvorak identified himself as Czech.  Rightly or wrongly, we need to know that identity to understand them properly.  The same is true for Lewis.  Would an Englishman of Lewis's time have had such a complicated and paradoxical view of Catholicism as Lewis did?  Would an Englishman have drawn on Celtic mythology as subtly as Lewis did?  Would an Englishman have included such odd almost misplaced allusions to Ireland in his work (e.g. the green, harp room in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Celticized Latin of the Space Triolgy, the basing of the character of Merlin on W. B. Yeats, etc.)?  Please note that I'm not claiming that Lewis was an Irish nationalist; he certainly was not.  And I'm happy to include that he was from a staunchly Protestant family from the north. 128.6.205.70
I wish it wasn't an issue, but it is, so I have to weigh in by saying that Anglo-Irish is not the solution.  Reading the article shd. be enough to show this.  And Lewis isn't Wilde, either.  But if I'm the only one who thinks this, I'm fine leaving a niggling point alone. Sirnickdon 01:10, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Could this Irish/English argument '''be''' any more pointless?

message: The article makes a reference to Lewis's posthumous work.  Surely someone can't write something posthumously?  Is this supposed to be 'posthumously published'?--Sweet-indigo 16:08, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Posthumous work? 

message: : This section has not helped to improve the article, and should be merged with Talk:Heresy, where it may be productive. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 22:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have start to reply in the Talk:heresy section. MythSearcher 01:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

text: To be of some help, the article might be able to first change to "Some doubt that C.S. Lewis is a Christian, and his way of thinking seems to be different and maybe even heretical to some.   However, it seems like a majority still doubt that his thoughts should be doubted." MythSearcher 01:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible heretic? 

message: Anon - Let me put my question a little more specifically... Why do you believe that Jude, Revelations, and 2 Peter are inspired, inerrant, and infallible... but not The Shepherd of Hermas or Pilgrim's Progress?  Where does either God or reason tell us that we must believe the inerrancy of the 66 books of the Protestant Bible?  How do you know that those 66 books are God-written and every other book is not?  David Bergan 22:13, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please remove this discussion to Talk:Biblical inerrancy, where it may become productive.  — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 22:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Inerrancy?

message: Should TWHF really be listed as a "non-Christian" book?  It's not overtly Christian, but the Theophany at the end is pretty clearly the Christian God. Joey1898 14:43, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Till We Have Faces

message: *I'd like to know why the arguments in the "Clarification on the 'Trilemma'" section are not reflected in the article.
*Why the Lewis' and McDowell's versions of the argument are both dismissed in the same manner when, in fact, both claim different things? Does the assertion that Lewis argument have "fatal flaws in terms of both logical validity and underlying assumptions" still valid when we notice that Lewis (unlike McDowell) does not propose the argument as a proof of the deity of Christ? --Leinad-Z 00:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would guess for the sake of simplicity--Tznkai 16:14, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed it up abit. Does this address your concerns?--Tznkai 16:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your help; I just fixed up the section a little more :-) --Leinad-Z 01:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification on the "Trilemma", part 2

message: Narnia Narnia everywhere, and not a drop too...
Er, seriously folks, Narnia is refrenced 12 times in this article, and discussed in varying depths atleast thrice. Can we whitlle it down a tiny bit?--Tznkai 16:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Narnia 

message: Under "Conversion to Christianity", in the phrase that read "the most dejected and reluctant convert of all time", corrected "of all time" to "in all England".  Ref. Surprised By Joy
--Anon. Reader, Dec. 25, 2005
:I believe I may have added that quote from memory, in which case thank you for the correction. DJ Clayworth 21:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Detail Change 

message: The 'spoken word' file attached to the article starts with a ADVERTISMENT! To my mind this is SPAM. - Beowulf314159 04:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WARNING! 

message: I propose dividing Lewis's fiction into two seperate categories: fiction and pseudo-fiction. “The Screwtape Letters,” “The Great Divorce” and “Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer” are not really fiction (in the sense that they have no story), even though "The Great Divorce" is technically in the format of a novella. "Pilgrim's Regress" toes the line in my opinion; it's technically fiction, but it's so highly allegorical that it reads like an outline. I would leave it in fiction proper, but just barely. I haven't read "Boxen"; is it Lewis's actual juvenalia or just a summary/analysis of it? If the latter, then it shouldn't be in either category. I'd like to see a vote on all this. Snowboardpunk
:I'm not a big fan of the proposal--Boxen is actual fictional juvenilia (unless Kathryn Lindskoog is right, and half of it's forged), the Great Divorce is clearly a novella (sure, it's message-driven, but so is A Christmas Carol), Screwtape is an epistolary novel (though the author of the letters cannot, by definition, exhibit any personal growth), etc.  I've argued over Letters to Malcolm before, but am content with its current placement.  Dividing the works based on whether they're "really fiction" is too troublesome, IMO -- one might see LWW as strict allegory and "not fiction" while another sees it as a fantasy tale.  The same goes for most of his work.  I agree that there's a lot more story to Perelandra than there is in the Great Divorce, but I can't see any good way of distinguishing between them so that one is fiction and one is not fiction in a meaningful way. Jwrosenzweig 04:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Psuedofiction' is a terrible term here, as it seems to be saying that the works are 'not quite fictional'. The Great Divorce has a perfectly good story, and Screwtape is no less fiction because it is formatted as letters than is Bridget Jones Diary because it is cast as diary entries. DJ Clayworth 17:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal to divide Lewis fiction to two categories

message: I am troubled by this paragraph:
:"As a teenager, he was wonderstruck by the Richard Wagner and the songs and legends of the North. They intensified a longing he had within him, a deep desire he would later call "joy." He also grew to love nature—the beautiful scenes in nature reminded him of the stories of the North, and the stories of the North reminded him of the beauties of nature. In his teenage years, his writing moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began to use different art forms (epic poetry and opera) to try and capture his newfound interest in Norse mythology and in the natural world."
From what I have read he was influenced by English "Faerie" primarily which gets no mention. How important was Norse actually? I will wait until I get finished reading The Narnian The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs before attempting a rewrite but are there any sources on Wagner, etc.? Rmhermen 15:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't re-read many of the sources on his early life recently, but my recollection of the picture from his letters and Surprised by Joy is that the Norse influence was much stronger than much of English legend.  Outside of MacDonald's influence and William Morris, I can't think of anything "Faerie" that was hugely important to Lewis.  Whereas with the Norse, he goes on for some time in SBJ about how piercingly beautiful he found the lines "Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead".  He attempted, along with his childhood friend Arthur Greeves, to write and compose an opera about the god Loki.  And I recall numerous other mentions of his love of Norse myth (I believe the music of Wagner was a big part of this, but have no references at present).  If you need some references, I'll do what I can to track them down, but I feel very confident that the current paragraph is not inaccurate.  Perhaps more mention should be made of MacDonald and Morris, but not at the expense of Norse legend, which as I recall was the most profound influence of his teenage years. Jwrosenzweig 07:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Norse or English inspiration

message: This appears to be one of a number of articles receiving linkspam from the owner of the site bookthoughts.co.nz, owned by user Kiwifaramir.  See the user's talk page for discussion on this issue.  I'm removing the link to bookthoughts, as the site is not demonstrably relevant to C. S. Lewis in any way and was evidently originally posted by the site owner.  However, if previous experience is any indication, there is a high probability that a sockpuppet of the site owner will repost the link almost immediately.  Most recent edits inserting links to this site are by users with no contributions or edits aside from the link to bookthoughts inserted with identical text ("Read And Write Reviews On Novels By...") into an article on a given author, seeming to indicate said linkspam sockpuppet behaviour.  Examples presently include Alice_Sebold, John_Grisham, Dan Brown, C._S._Lewis, Martin_Cruz_Smith.  Advice from where to proceed if this linkspamming continues would be appreciated, from any more precedurally experienced wikipedians --Yst 01:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would think the next step is to document this and file for an RfA. Alienus 01:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bookthoughts Linkspam

message: anyone fancy expanding that article? Clinkophonist 21:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[God in the Dock]]