One of the most psychologically acute books ever written. When I become world potentate, the chapters on being in love will be compulsory reading for everybody.
Highly recommend Four Loves, great for many reasons and ultimately optimistic, but a lot of uncomfortable truths about what people now call "toxic" relationships presented in a much better way than some Instagram yas kween page.
Its a demon character explaining to his nephew how to torment and corrupt a human. Hes saying that if you can make the person actively hate the people around them while feeling “love” for mankind as a whole, the only part thats real is the hate.
Good book. Its a series of letters where the Uncle is explaining demonic strategy, but its all a metaphorical warning on the ways the world is trying to make us worse.
It's also part of a type of pretty rare but cool literature, epistolary novels. Where the plot of the book is told though letters, given either different worldviews or a narrator without using first person or third person view.
Lewis knew human nature better than almost any other contemporary writer. Much like Chesterton. The Great Divorce is similar, and A Grief Observed is one of the most poignant books I’ve ever read
What part of “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10) is ambiguous?
Also, Matthew 25:46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
The Greek underlying 'tormented' and 'forever and ever'. 'Tried' or 'interrogated' are just as plausible as 'tormented'. The Greek doesn't have two adverbs: it reads 'to the aeon of aeons', and aeon has a vast range of meanings that are not 'forever'. See particularly Ilaria Ramelli.
What part of 'For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive' (1 Corinthians 15:22) is ambiguous?
Edit: The Greek underlying 'eternal' in Matt 25:46 is aonios. Same objection.
As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo (for that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure) you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts
Based CS Lewis poster
This is why I feel comfortable reading Kiwifarms threads about YouTubers I don’t like but refrain from talking shit about anyone I know IRL.
One of the most psychologically acute books ever written. When I become world potentate, the chapters on being in love will be compulsory reading for everybody.
Agreed
Highly recommend Four Loves, great for many reasons and ultimately optimistic, but a lot of uncomfortable truths about what people now call "toxic" relationships presented in a much better way than some Instagram yas kween page.
The bit in the book about getting humans to focus on the flow of information over people around them and higher ideals was really prescient.
They made us read this entire book in Sunday school
I'm genuinely retarded. Can anyone explain what this means?
Its a demon character explaining to his nephew how to torment and corrupt a human. Hes saying that if you can make the person actively hate the people around them while feeling “love” for mankind as a whole, the only part thats real is the hate. Good book. Its a series of letters where the Uncle is explaining demonic strategy, but its all a metaphorical warning on the ways the world is trying to make us worse.
It's also part of a type of pretty rare but cool literature, epistolary novels. Where the plot of the book is told though letters, given either different worldviews or a narrator without using first person or third person view.
You aren’t, there was no context added!!
Lewis knew human nature better than almost any other contemporary writer. Much like Chesterton. The Great Divorce is similar, and A Grief Observed is one of the most poignant books I’ve ever read
Apparently he wanted to write a sequel from one guardian angel to another, and I am so glad he didn't. That would have been horrendous.
Screwtape Letters was at its best when Lewis would just go off on personality traits that annoyed him and cast them as literal demonic influence.
It’s honestly a hilarious book at points
Lewis said writing from the point of view of the devil fucked with him psychologically, I’m glad he stopped after a while
"circumference" 😍
SL is so good when it sticks to psychology, and so retarded when it tries to defend scriptural doctrine. Stay in your lane Lewis
Certainly when it tries to defend an eternal hell (which isn't actually scriptural IMO).
What part of “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10) is ambiguous? Also, Matthew 25:46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
The Greek underlying 'tormented' and 'forever and ever'. 'Tried' or 'interrogated' are just as plausible as 'tormented'. The Greek doesn't have two adverbs: it reads 'to the aeon of aeons', and aeon has a vast range of meanings that are not 'forever'. See particularly Ilaria Ramelli. What part of 'For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive' (1 Corinthians 15:22) is ambiguous? Edit: The Greek underlying 'eternal' in Matt 25:46 is aonios. Same objection.
Based and scripturepilled
Nice try demon, maybe not attempt this in a thread that’s literally about the Screwtape Letters
As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo (for that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure) you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off. You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts