What do you think of these words from the pen of C.S. Lewis (quoting Matthew Arnold), and from Sundar Singh?

C. S. Lewis and Sundar Singh happened to express the same idea about the relationship between wishes and truth. Sundar Singh taught that every desire we have is given for a special purpose, and we would have no desire to believe in God unless he exists. "The capacity for religion is . . . rather like thirst . . . Just as thirst has been created to make men use water, so the religious thirst has been created to make men come to God." In comparison, Lewis wrote: "But what does the existence of the wish [for God] suggest? At one time I was much impressed by Arnold's line 'Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.' But surely, tho' it doesn't prove that one particular man will get food, it does prove that there is such a thing as food! i.e. if we were a species that didn't normally eat, weren't designed to eat, would we feel hungry?"

What do you think of these words from the pen of C.S. Lewis (quoting Matthew Arnold), and from Sundar Singh?
i'm with you on that. the fact that we have a spiritual impulse and spiritual experiences (even without religious dogma) is proof to me that there is a spiritual side of life that is related to, and interacts with, but is distinct from the physical world.





there's more to human experience than science.
Reply:Oh, God exists alright. Its just that God is not an anthropomorphic figure in the sky, not a master puppeteer with a penchant for behaving like a middle-eastern iron-age megalomaniacal sadist.





I think that C.S. Lewis and Sundar Singh are on very squishy logical ground - and the LOGOS (and that does not mean the "word") is God. I think that the wish for their sort of "God" is indicative of the failure, common to most illusion-bound mortals, of intellect and nerve. We humans being are temporal. The sooner one understands that truth, the sooner one is liberated.





Sorry to be the one to tell you that Santa Claus is dead, but you asked.
Reply:My favorite line from C. S. Lewis is "What do they teach them in these schools?"
Reply:Great question! To me that means our desire to live on after death proves that somehow some part of us will. That's basically what all religions boil down to - they quell the fear of nonexistence.
Reply:Non sequitor.





-Biological organisms REQUIRE food and water.





-You can live a full happy life without religion.
Reply:I think you are reading deep stuff here. I am impressed with you.


I do like the though also.


thanks for sharing it.
Reply:"we would have no desire to believe in God unless he exists."





Correct, that's why Thor exists. And Batman.

narcissus