Whether or not you agree with him, I think C.S. Lewis is one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, and certainly of Christian apologetics. It's been very intellectually stimulating for me recently to read his work with a fresh perspective and a more open mind; the contrast, but also the alignment with some of the eastern spice that's been floating around here provides a good springboard to dive into his ideas.
I recently came across these cool animated excerpts taken from his famous works that I thought I'd share with you guys. If anyone wants to engage with me on them, I have a few requests:
1. Let's try to stay on topics only within and relevant to the video I post. The conversation will hopefully remain disciplined and not branch out so quickly that it is impossible to keep track of all the concepts that would inevitably spill out.
2. Let's not bring pre-conceived notions of what God is, what Christianity is, or any other faith or spirituality into the conversation. I want to only focus on the exact concepts C.S. Lewis is talking about. I believe the only way to tackle such a topic is to do it piece by piece, one idea at a time, otherwise it becomes unmanageable.
3. Only serious, thoughtful posts, please. One liners or ignoring the parameters I've set will be ignored.
4. I am not a practicing Christian, nor do I have any immediate plans to convert to one. I simply enjoy exploring philosophical and theological ideas that are largely abstract. I've also been reading a lot about Taoism and Shintoism recently, as well as Sikhism. I mention this only because I know that since we all are Westerners there is a stronger emotional reaction to Christianity than other religions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlBCZ_5OYw
My takeaway from this video and the key concepts:
1. God existing outside of space and time. This is such an important idea for me, and one I came to on my own that has really influenced the way I think about not only God, but knowledge in general. I've said it before already but it bears repeating because it's so foundational: If God exists he must have existed outside of his creation (space and time), therefore, if science is the study of the universe (space and time) it is ill-equiped to discover God.
2. You can "find" God in the universe much like you can "find" Shakespeare in his plays. Not in a literal sense -- but you can get an idea of him through the quality of his work.
3. Finding God, or being found by God, is dependent on the individual. This will likely lead to the charge of subjectivity, but I find the emphasis on perspective and attunement to be legitimate. Have we all not at one point in our lives been closed off to something that later, under different circumstances, we retroactively realized to be correct?
That's all for now.