My main issue with Narnia

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It's been awhile since I read any of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, but I hated the way he stereotyped all non-Christian religions as being evil, and, if you read even further into it, 'Satanic'. (Reread 'The Last Battle' to see what I mean.)
Sorry if I've offended any Narnia fans, but I just really, really felt like venting.
But I believe that if there is a heaven, you get there solely through good deeds, not through childlike innocence or faith in one particular religion.

If you had to get to Heaven solely through good deeds you would never think you had done enough.

And the kind of people who believe in strapping bombs to themselves on public transport and killing themselves along with many others are the ones who believe that is a "good deed" and will fast track them straight to Heaven. (Sorry but I am a logical thinker and take everything to its logical conclusion).

I prefer a childlike faith in Jesus Christ because if you believe in Jesus Christ it means you know that your place in Heaven is already secured through what he has done rather than worrying your whole life whether your "good deeds" outweigh your bad deeds. (Which they wouldn't anyway).

I mean 'good deeds' as in altruistic, humanitarian deeds.
And another problem I had with the Narnia books was the whole 'it's okay to hurt people if "Jesus tells you to"' aspect.
btw, your post didn't strike me as very logical. It read as if you'd only skimmed the post you referenced.

No, I did not skim the original post, I did read it, but I didn't have much to say about the Narnia books. I enjoyed them a lot as a child and do not like the idea of analysing them critically. I think it would spoil my enjoyment of them. I read them as a child before I was a Christian and had no idea at the time about the Christian content. Now I know, I don't really care to be critical of them. So I only responded to the parts of the post I felt moved to respond to.

It's actually not altruistsic if you're trying to buy your way into heaven. ((surprisingly, constantine actually got this aspect of christianity right. Not that that movie is accurate by and large.))

Exactly where did you come to that conclusion? It never seemed that way to me, even as I have reread several of them in the series in the past few years. As for the Christianity debate, I would rather not get into that here, but feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk about it more.

Yupa, have you ever read anything about CS Lewis' personal life? Some of the reasons why he wrote what he did can be found within that context and it actually makes sense there.

His other writings, when combined with the Narnia books really do make more sense.

BTW I LOVE your avatar, Namiko!

Sorry, but I just gotta say this: Have you read the Old Testament in the Bible recently? King David was loved by God, and he killed many. He was often told to by God to kill people. And King Saul, who was told to kill all the animals, the witches and other people. It was only when King David killed out of greed, like that woman's husband, by putting him into the front ranks of his army, that God got displeased with him. The whole Bible is filled with stories testifying to the "It's ok to hurt people if God tells you to" aspect.
The second thing you have to understand, is that there are many religions and many interpretations of the Bible in the world. For example, my Grandfather belongs to a religion where you pay a certain sum once a year, and your sins are basically forgiven. That's the religion he subscribes to. He doesn't attend church or anything else, only be good in general. He pays that sum, and he believes he is saved. You may not agree with it, but hey, its just as logical as any other religion. That is to say, not very. I really don't think he was portraying other religions as Satanic.
Also, if you reread 'The Last Battle', to where every living creature files past the doors, and the ones who look lovingly to Aslan are admitted, those who don't aren't. He is actually agreeing with what you said in your post. Plus, if you ALSO remember the plot in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", where Aslan takes Edmund's place, is actually a symbolism of Jesus on the cross. Edmund had to accept it, before he could be saved by it. A lot of his symbolism, is exactly what you are saying is what you believe.

ME TOO

PURE REASONED LOGIC

Believe it or not, when I last read that book, I was a teenaged Christian, and I was confused that the "ones who didn't know or weren't sure" (or something to that effect), got to go into the equivilant of heaven. It didn't jive with what I'd been taught.

C.S. Lewis was a Christian, and his books are written from that perspective.

Exactly. Any writer will write to their perspective. Myself being a Christian, I would find it very difficult to write something from an atheistic standpoint. As for CS Lewis, he was originally an atheist but became Christian later on in his life. Aside from the Narnia series, he also wrote quite a few books on Christianity, including Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters.

How does one write from an atheistic standpoint as opposed to a christian one?

i agree that jesus is the way to heaven only trough acepting himcan you go to heaven i am on the dawn treader in narnia

Different people have different standpoints of the world. It is entirely possible to write from an agnostic standpoint, an atheistic standpoint, a Confucian standpoint, a Islamic standpoint as well as a Christian standpoint. This is not just one monotheistic world, but 3 (judaism, christianity and islam). There are also other philosophies and religions, and writers can attest into different views.

This is not the religion forum, so I don't want to draw myself into such discussion. However, as a non-religious person who was educated in Christian schools, I found that monotheism usually causes intolerance in different beliefs other than their own. Look at the zealous efforts to vilify or even eradicate non-believers of any monotheistic religions through out the written history, or the current troubles between Christianity and Islam. One might think there should have a more tolerant and moderate approach into different beliefs. The current secular society creates that tolerance we have, but fundamentalism of all kinds undermines that.

This is the most embarrasingly literal answer I could have recieved, but I suppose I deserved it. There can be no question that authors of all belief systems have, and will continue to write. As a writer myself, my work should speak for itself, regardless of my beliefs, so I am often careful to make sure it reads as neutrally as possible, so that the reader can take away what they like. Any underlying thematic subtext, philosophical, religious, spiritual, or otherwise will be apparent if I have given it enough thought and appropriate verisimilitude.

My post was in response to Namiko's statement of:

I found this odd and wanted her to clarify. As symbolic beings, everything we express through our use of language, whether we like it or not, will reveal much of what we think and who we are. If Namiko is a Christian, then how can anything she writes be "from an atheistic standpoint"?

That should have been the end of your post, but you had to go on to say:

So I will reply by saying that as religious person who was educated in secular schools, I found that Christianity, Catholicism in particular, has been one of the most beneficial contributors to the development of Western civilizaiton. Look at how it not only single-handedly rebuilt the western world when the Roman Empire collapsed, but how it also formulated the truest rationale for basic human rights. Charity, economics, morality, international law, and equality all have foundations in Catholic thought. The church also gave us the first University system, and with it, the first literate society. It's also no accident that science itself as we know it first originated in the Monotheistic west and not the Pantheistic east, as it relied upon the Christian presupposition that God's creations operated according to laws which could be understood by man. One might think that there would be more tolerance in the current secular society we have, we wouldn't call religious snobbery "free thinking", religious censorship "civil liberty", and be lead to believe that before Christianity, mankind lived a peaceful and idyllic existence without bigotry, corruption, or warfare.

Sorry I haven't had time to reply sooner. I said "would find it very difficult". I have actually never been able to write something from an atheistic standpoint (I have a fictional character who is atheistic, however) because I am a Christian. I have been able to write stuff that is not directly Christian, but has Christian moral values and beliefs.

And I am not saying that I absolutely could not write something from an atheistic standpoint. It would not be quite impossible, though I would have to force myself to completely think in a different way (a way that I do not necessarily agree with) in order to write from this perspective.