Posted on 05/11/2013 12:12:17 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
Ayn Rand was no fan of C.S. Lewis. She called the famous apologist an “abysmal bastard,” a “monstrosity,” a “cheap, awful, miserable, touchy, social-metaphysical mediocrity,” a “pickpocket of concepts,” and a “God-damn, beaten mystic.” (I suspect Lewis would have particularly relished the last of these.)
These insults and more can be found in her marginal notes on a copy of Lewis’ Abolition of Man, as printed in Ayn Rand’s Marginalia: Her critical comments on the writings of over 20 authors, edited by Robert Mayhew. Excerpts appear below, with Lewis’ writing (complete with Rand’s highlighting and underlining) on the left and Rand’s notes on the right.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Because God, who created us, has a mind far greater than ours.
Rand was apparently unable to see this.
They may be leftists, but if they have access to sense and reason then it’s possible to help them understand how their errors in political ideology come from the same source as their wrongful view of God.
Whenever an exchange of ideas becomes a debate, strife between persons often takes over and truth is obscured.
With good will, hoping the Good Lord guides me in speaking truthfully to you, I tell you I believe the ideology of naturalism is inevitably refuted simply by thinking harder about it.
Darwin's "The Origin of Species" was updated in 1999 by Steve Jones, in a book titled "Darwin's Ghost."
Consider these book reviews.
"AN EXTRAORDINARY RIDE THROUGH DARWINISM, YESTERDAY AND TODAY. Jones is the in the premier league of what appears to be a new breed - brilliant scientists able and eager to share their writtten erudition with the rest of us." -- The Guardian (Book of the Year)"
"Jones has rewritten Darrin's narrative with the help of the latest insights from evolutional biology ... Adopting the rich anectodotal style much favored by Darwin, but seasoning it with a good dose of the sardonic humor that readers will recognize from Jone's previous books, Jone demonstrates how completely modern biology has vindicated Darwin's claims." --The New York Times Book Review."
Adding to that, the book has glowing reviews from six other prominent publications.
I'd recommend those reading this to read Jones's book. Jones's book is loaded with scientific fact and my wish to everyone is ... Happy Reading!
Interesting you should choose two of the world’s most left wing news sheets to promote a book on THIS website.
No thanks, I prefer to read Behe, Richard Milton and Phillip Johnson, thankyouverymuch.
Cheers!
Where's Galt's Gulch, then?
Cheers!
You've got the cart by the wrong end. Why did He bother at all?
Your problem is that you are implicitly applying an intrinsically mechanistic, "engineering" approach to things, and limiting your consideration to (otherwise irrelevant) material considerations, without allowing for the possibility that God had other priorities or considerations, to which we are not privy; nor yet again that there may be legitimate *spiritual* secrets which we have neither the ability to comprehend, nor the right to know.
Just because the Obama administration abuses government power, and lies to cover their sorry ass, does not imply that ALL authority is similarly corrupt.
Cheers! Cheers!
It’s based on some irrationality, an imperfection we can all identify with. Some superstition thrown in as well, some fear of the unknown, etc. We’re works in progress.
Very good analysis. Thanks.
She reminds me of this passage from Out of the Silent Planet:
"I see now how the lord of the silent world has bent you. There are laws that all hnau know, of pity and straight dealing and shame and the like, and one of these is the love of kindred. He has taught you to break all of them except this one, which is not one of the greatest laws; this one he has bent till it becomes folly and has set it up, thus bent, to be a little, blind Oyarsa in your brain. And now you can do nothing but obey it, though if we ask you why it is a law you can give no other reason for it than for all the other and greater laws which it drives you to disobey. Do you know why he has done this?"
"Me think no such person - me wise, new man - no believe all that old talk."
"I will tell you. He has left you this one because a bent hnau can do more evil than a broken one. He has only bent you; but this Thin One who sits on the ground he has broken, for he has left him nothing but greed. He is now only a talking animal and in my world he could do no more evil than an animal. If he were mine I would unmake his body, for the hnau in it is already dead. But if you were mine I would try to cure you. Tell me, Thick One, why did you come here?"
Cheers!
Cheers!
FReepmail.
A mind, in one way or another, seems to be present in every living thing; even if only to maintain life ... as in every bacteria in existence; and we're somewhat related to those bacteria.
Jones writes this: "About a thousand genes are shared by every organism, however simple or complicated. Although their common ancestor must have lived more than a billion years ago, their shared structure can still be glimpsed. It shows how the grand plan of evolution has been modified through the course of evolution.
Jones goes on to write: "One set of genes is found everywhere. It translates the information coded in the DNA and allows it to make proteins. The job is so essential that such structures changed little over millions of years."
Virtually every building in my town is made of wood. Does this mean the houses on 12th St. evolved from the houses over on 4th St., or simply that some building materials work better than others and an intelligent builder will have a propensity to employ them?
The existence of shared genes among different species is logically, but not empirically, consistent with a Darwinian type of evolution and shared origins.
But it is also consistent logically with divine creation.
It’s pare for the coures. Check posting history. So leftist it runs around in circles.
Excellent comments! I love CS Lewis’ books, wish I had more of them.
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