C.S. Lewis's Irrefutable Proof of Christianity (Or God)

[Avenio]

NUMBER ONE: SILLY BIOCHEMISTRY

If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.

Lewis' ignorance and refusal to understand chemistry is not an argument. Though, I suppose he can't be blamed too much for not knowing much about modern biochemistry; he did die in 1963, of course.

Do you have anyone that was born after the Kennedy assassination that you could perhaps use? I mean, we know things now that Lewis couldn't have dreamed of, and waving around his mouldy corpse to serve your point is just making him sound foolish.

NUMBER THREE: THE WORLD IS NOT A MILK JUG PART 2

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts–i.e., Materialism and Astronomy–are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

Lewis' ignorance of philosophy is surprising, to say the least. But his ignorance of evolution and the formation of the solar system is not.

[Chulainan]

By the way, OP; here's what George Sayer, a friend and biographer of C.S. Lewis', had to say about this argument..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_f ... Criticisms

How do we know he wasn't lying? There's no proof there.

But you didn't present any proof in the first place......all you did was quote one person who could still be wrong just like everyone else as no one has prrof on this matter.

Mighty hypocritical.

[Wisconsin9]

By the way, OP; here's what George Sayer, a friend and biographer of C.S. Lewis', had to say about this argument..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_f ... Criticisms

How do we know he wasn't lying? There's no proof there.

You? Asking for proof? The world is ending!

[Nordengrund]

Never read his books, but I bet he was a good author and that he was a devout Christian and that his works have some truth behind it. I think his stories were fictionalized to make it interesting.

[Menassa]

For the joy of a few more weeks of him sulking and coming up with more fallacious arguments. Duh.

Also post count.

Teach one..... to teach a thousand...... I still feel I should be quoted.

[LogiChristianity]

1: The wind in the trees is incapable of feeling emotions due to those biochemicals.
2: That's really fallacious. "If I do not believe in god, then my thoughts cannot be trusted. If I do, they somehow magically can be trusted, because god."
3:Accident is just a word. It doesn't mean that it's bad. Plagiarism is bad, though. And the mere fact that something exists without someone wanting it to does not make it false. Unless you refuse to believe anyone who said that they had a car accident and instead accuse them of wanting to get in a car accident.
4: He is depicted as doing some things. Some people focus on the good things, some on the bad things. He is depicted as saying a lot of things. Love thy neighbour. Fuck you, fig tree, for not anticipating my arrival and altering your natural processes so that I can have something to eat even though it's not the right time of year.
5: Other religions can claim that. People can even claim that christians do good out of fear of hell.
6: Hahahahahaha! Oh, wait, seriously? C.S. Lewis, credible on matters of reality?

1: Both are STILL random.
2: That's not what it says. It is saying that if thoughts are truly random, then why should I care about the "logic" in them? But if God created our thoughts, then it makes sense that we can use logic.
3: Accident though, means that it isn't necessarily true or intentional. You have it backwards.
4: But if he claimed he was God, doesn't that make him crazy if you think he is wrong? How can you justify believing his teachings?
5: But that's not what most religions actually do or believe.
6: Uh, yeah. He's C.S. Lewis. Have any evidence to say the opposite?

[Avenio]

1: Both are STILL random.

Wind is random? Is the entire field of meteorology nonexistent now?

[LogiChristianity]

How do we know he wasn't lying? There's no proof there.

Then there's no proof that CS Lewis was sincere when he wrote what you quoted in the OP.

Sayer has a reason to lie. Lewis does not.

[Myrensis]

NUMBER ONE: SILLY BIOCHEMISTRY
If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.

Hint: They don't, except to ourselves. The only people who care about what people think are...people.

NUMBER TWO: THE WORLD IS NOT A MILK JUG PART 1
Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.

You're here, that's all that matters. You can sit around in a nihilistic funk or you can do something productive. The Universe will carry on regardless.

NUMBER THREE: THE WORLD IS NOT A MILK JUG PART 2
If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts–i.e., Materialism and Astronomy–are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

Because we know how the "accidents" happen, and can predict further "accidents" based on those observations. If you only see the splash take a particular shape when it comes from jugs made a certain way and upset in a particular manner, you can probably expect the shape to give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

NUMBER FOUR: YOU CAN'T LEARN FROM JESUS UNLESS YOU BELIEVE HE IS GOD
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.

This makes....no sense whatsoever. Unless you subscribe to some fundamental Calvinist view that humans are inherently depraved and vile creatures, and the only time we can say or do anything remotely good is when we're being used as puppets by God.

NUMBER FIVE: CHRISTIANS ARE DIFFERENT FROM EVERYONE ELSE
The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

Ah, so you are a Calvinist This kind of thinking kind of renders debate impossible, since it says that you're either a finger puppet of God or a monster, with no possible middle ground.

[The Corparation]

1)This isn't really saying all that much. Just because the way the mind works can be broken down to biochemistry doesn't mean its at the same level as the wind in the trees. Its much more significant in that its a much more complex and advanced mechanism. How it works is also irrelevant to the existence of god. If god exists, the brain is still going to work the same damn way, the existence or nonexistence of god doesn't change how biochemistry works.
2&3)These ones never made any sense to me at all. If god doesn't exist my thoughts are meaningless and that means that God exists? As for the end of Milk Jug part 2, its funny because with modern forensic science you can actually make progress in figuring out similar things.
4)I fail to see how a good teacher if morals lack of divinity automatically makes him a lunatic or devil . Ghandi laid out a lot of noble concepts and good moral values, and he didn't have to be the son of god to do it. You don't have to be the son of god to teach and encourage people to play nice and get along.
5)I really fail to see how this one proves the existence of god at all. All it states in a broad (And incorrect) generalization of Christians and how they believe god's love to work.

[Condunum]

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/801500-mere-christianity
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/autho ... lewis.html
^^^All from here.

Hey guys, I don't know if you remember me, but I tried using several threads before on very broad topics to try to prove Christianity. That obviously wasn't the best idea, seeing as I had too much to handle, even though it was well supported and true nonetheless.

But I would like to bring NSG's attention to some simple flows of logic that make God (or even Christianity) seem obviously true. I might not be the best debater, but this guy, C.S. Lewis, clearly knew what he was talking about. I want to see if NSG can even begin to approach a way to disprove them. I think you'll find the answer is no; there is no debater on NSG good enough to prove that which is blatantly false. So, here they are, all from C.S. Lewis. Some of them also prove evolution not true.

PLEASE deal with my proof first before you try to bring in unrelated information. But, if you are going to make a claim using that information, PLEASE have a legitimate source.

NUMBER ONE: SILLY BIOCHEMISTRY

If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.

How is that proof of Christianity? At all?

NUMBER TWO: THE WORLD IS NOT A MILK JUG PART 1

Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.

You can trust your own thinking to be true by rationally scrutinizing your own thought, and making sure you're in your right mind. This is a nonsensical argument. If there is no creator, thought cannot be trusted? What the fuck is this shit? Keep your pseudo-philosophy out of my science.

NUMBER THREE: THE WORLD IS NOT A MILK JUG PART 2

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts–i.e., Materialism and Astronomy–are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

Thoughts are not accidental. They are the production of the biochemistry of the mind. Again, this is a nonsensical argument.

NUMBER FOUR: YOU CAN'T LEARN FROM JESUS UNLESS YOU BELIEVE HE IS GOD

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.

Again, what the fuck is this shit? I can accept that Jesus was a smart man (I don't), but only if I accept his divinity? No, fuck that shit, it makes no sense.

NUMBER FIVE: CHRISTIANS ARE DIFFERENT FROM EVERYONE ELSE

The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

Lol, no. Christians are no different from anyone else. The simple assertion that they are makes this argument bullshit. Every religion's god(s) love(s) their people. Unless it's not a god of love, that is.

And let's not forget how credible C.S. Lewis is.

C.S. Lewis is not credible. He's a author. he has no more credibility on any of this than a dentist who denies evolution.

Though, I suppose, if you didn't want to directly address the arguments (like many of you won't) then you could attack his credibility. But I assure, that is just as impossible to do.

He had none on this issue to begin with, because he is no expert.

[San Leggera]

Then there's no proof that CS Lewis was sincere when he wrote what you quoted in the OP.

Sayer has a reason to lie. Lewis does not.

Yes, because a friend of his who wrote biographies of him cannot be trusted in any way, shape or form purely because he said that Lewis felt humiliated by the disproving of his argument.

[Chulainan]

1: The wind in the trees is incapable of feeling emotions due to those biochemicals.
2: That's really fallacious. "If I do not believe in god, then my thoughts cannot be trusted. If I do, they somehow magically can be trusted, because god."
3:Accident is just a word. It doesn't mean that it's bad. Plagiarism is bad, though. And the mere fact that something exists without someone wanting it to does not make it false. Unless you refuse to believe anyone who said that they had a car accident and instead accuse them of wanting to get in a car accident.
4: He is depicted as doing some things. Some people focus on the good things, some on the bad things. He is depicted as saying a lot of things. Love thy neighbour. Fuck you, fig tree, for not anticipating my arrival and altering your natural processes so that I can have something to eat even though it's not the right time of year.
5: Other religions can claim that. People can even claim that christians do good out of fear of hell.
6: Hahahahahaha! Oh, wait, seriously? C.S. Lewis, credible on matters of reality?

1: Both are STILL random.
2: That's not what it says. It is saying that if thoughts are truly random, then why should I care about the "logic" in them? But if God created our thoughts, then it makes sense that we can use logic.
3: Accident though, means that it isn't necessarily true or intentional. You have it backwards.
4: But if he claimed he was God, doesn't that make him crazy if you think he is wrong? How can you justify believing his teachings?
5: But that's not what most religions actually do or believe.
6: Uh, yeah. He's C.S. Lewis. Have any evidence to say the opposite?

About your point 2, you can use logic without caring about logic and use logic while caring about logic. Whether or not you care has no effect on your ability to use logic.

Seriously, what are you even trying to say.

[Nordengrund]

Threads like this get us nowhere. Atheists will demand proof and Christians will keep on trying to convert them. Where does it end?

[Esternial]

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts–i.e., Materialism and Astronomy–are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

See the bold part? C.S. Lewis happens to be part of anyone else's, so we can't believe all this to be true. But if it isn't true, my previous sentence isn't true.

[Denecaep]

NUMBER ONE: SILLY BIOCHEMISTRY

Lewis' ignorance and refusal to understand chemistry is not an argument. Though, I suppose he can't be blamed too much for not knowing much about modern biochemistry; he did die in 1963, of course.

Do you have anyone that was born after the Kennedy assassination that you could perhaps use? I mean, we know things now that Lewis couldn't have dreamed of, and waving around his mouldy corpse to serve your point is just making him sound foolish.

NUMBER THREE: THE WORLD IS NOT A MILK JUG PART 2

Lewis' ignorance of philosophy is surprising, to say the least. But his ignorance of evolution and the formation of the solar system is not.

How exactly was he wrong about biochemistry? What ignorance of philosophy is he showing us?

[Westerveim]

And let's not forget how credible C.S. Lewis is.

The children's book author?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I have no goddamn idea why you're using CS Lewis as an expert on biochemistry and the evolution of life. I'M as qualified as he was to comment on scientific matters.

[Death Metal]

6: Uh, yeah. He's C.S. Lewis. Have any evidence to say the opposite?

His name wasn't C.S.

Also, you act like CS Lewis' word is infallible. Which would be blasphemy against Christian doctrine.

[Westerveim]

I have no goddamn idea why you're using CS Lewis as an expert on biochemistry and the evolution of life. I'M as qualified as he was to comment on scientific matters.

Yeah, and this guy is a complete moron.

I keed!

[Chulainan]

Threads like this get us nowhere. Atheists will demand proof and Christians will keep on trying to convert them. Where does it end?

You're on NationStates, it will never end.

You should of ran while you still could.

[Death Metal]

Then there's no proof that CS Lewis was sincere when he wrote what you quoted in the OP.

Sayer has a reason to lie. Lewis does not.

He does have a reason to lie; to get people to buy his books. Ever hear of A Little Million Pieces?

[Denecaep]

1: Both are STILL random.
2: That's not what it says. It is saying that if thoughts are truly random, then why should I care about the "logic" in them? But if God created our thoughts, then it makes sense that we can use logic.
3: Accident though, means that it isn't necessarily true or intentional. You have it backwards.
4: But if he claimed he was God, doesn't that make him crazy if you think he is wrong? How can you justify believing his teachings?
5: But that's not what most religions actually do or believe.
6: Uh, yeah. He's C.S. Lewis. Have any evidence to say the opposite?

About your point 2, you can use logic without caring about logic and use logic while caring about logic. Whether or not you care has no effect on your ability to use logic.

Seriously, what are you even trying to say.

[Condunum]

Threads like this get us nowhere. Atheists will demand proof and Christians will keep on trying to convert them. Where does it end?

It ends when NationStates ends. However, NationStates is as eternal as the AI and the Matrix. It shall never end.

[Silent Majority]

2: That's not what it says. It is saying that if thoughts are truly random, then why should I care about the "logic" in them? But if God created our thoughts, then it makes sense that we can use logic.

Nothing is "random", at least not in the sense that you're using it. Even at the quantum level, particles follow a set of rules.