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Writght
Jan 3, 2006 18:36:22 GMT -5
Post by reyler on Jan 3, 2006 18:36:22 GMT -5
what on, in, or above the earth possessed you to be reading the horse and his boy? you should be reading the silver chair or the magician's nephew, if you must be reading lewis and his christian methodology in paganistic context.
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Writght
Jan 3, 2006 19:10:19 GMT -5
Post by chaney on Jan 3, 2006 19:10:19 GMT -5
That's almost exactly what Stuart said. And I still don't see anything that's overtly Christian, aside from the "sons of Adam/daughters of Eve" thing. Stuart pointed to Aslan sacrificing himself, but that's no more like to Christianity than it is to the multitude of lunar cults which sought renewal of all life in blood of a sacrificial victim (bull, boar, ram, human). And please don't say Santa Claus, it will make me sad.
And the fact that the entire Narnia series has been sitting on my shelf, unread, since I was a little boy is what possessed me. And I already read the Magician's Nephew, and it was good!
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stuart
crack the shell
Posts: 108
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Writght
Jan 4, 2006 18:52:25 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jan 4, 2006 18:52:25 GMT -5
Insert unfairly prejudiced anti-christian comment here.
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Writght
Jan 5, 2006 19:57:29 GMT -5
Post by chaney on Jan 5, 2006 19:57:29 GMT -5
Man, I'm going to eat every single soul you guys have.
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stuart
crack the shell
Posts: 108
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Writght
Jan 6, 2006 17:13:17 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jan 6, 2006 17:13:17 GMT -5
You would have to find a way to extract all the souls I've eaten from my bowels. Probably messy. Deja vu...
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Writght
Jan 7, 2006 15:39:04 GMT -5
Post by reyler on Jan 7, 2006 15:39:04 GMT -5
well then wait until you read the last battle. that's where it gets really obvious. and anyway, lewis himself had said at some point that part of his intent with the entire narnia series was to ease the unsaved heathens into worshiping yeshua mashiah (as the hebrews would have called him if they considered him the anointed one) by presenting what he viewed as being exclusively christian themes in the pagan's own mythological language. the ridiculously stereotyped persians in horse + boy clue you in to just how broad his worldview was. but another dead giveaway is at the end of (i think) dawn treader, where aslan says he's here in our world too, but (paraphrasing) "there you must come to know me by another name" or something like that. now, none of this stops the narnia books from being enjoyable reading (except last battle - i still can't stomach that thing), but it's something to be aware of.
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Writght
Jan 7, 2006 15:40:53 GMT -5
Post by reyler on Jan 7, 2006 15:40:53 GMT -5
oh, and it's aslan's motivation for self-sacrifice that types it as a christian theme: aslan dies in payment for edmund's sin.
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Writght
Jan 7, 2006 15:42:43 GMT -5
Post by reyler on Jan 7, 2006 15:42:43 GMT -5
and in further screaming, santa claus is based primarily on odin leaving gifts for the poor at yuletide in norse mythology, with his eight-legged horse sleipnir becoming the eight reindeer, so fuck the christians on that score.
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Writght
Jan 8, 2006 16:33:41 GMT -5
Post by chaney on Jan 8, 2006 16:33:41 GMT -5
I think I'm going to have to reserve judgement until I actually finish reading the series. Which might take a while, considering that this Cultural Geography class appears to consist of nothing but reading. But I'm halfway through Prince Caspian now.
But: Aslan replaces Edmund on the stone table in order to trick "the devil" (the Witch) and thereby defeat evil in Narnia and set up some Aryan kingdom in the woods... That's more than slightly different from George W Bush taking the sins of the entire world upon himself and thereby establishing a pipeline to heaven.
But I should probably read those books before I say that. Okay.
edit: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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stuart
crack the shell
Posts: 108
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Writght
Jan 8, 2006 19:37:10 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jan 8, 2006 19:37:10 GMT -5
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Writght
Jan 19, 2006 18:53:43 GMT -5
Post by reyler on Jan 19, 2006 18:53:43 GMT -5
uh. how did we get on the subject of dubyus caesar? also, what the fuck are you doing reading the books out of order? thirdly, how can it take you more than two hours to read any of the narnia books? and finally, in more literary diatribe, since we haven't had a good intellectual thread on this board in two years, the white witch quite easily represents the paganistic goddess-worship that held sway in the british isles before the arturius rex brought in christianity, and though goddess-worship wasn't an issue in jerusalem and the surrounding two thousand or so miles, one really has to look at it that way, because for all that lewis was educated, he couldn't seem to see beyond his front door. in fact, it's difficult to properly analyze the constructional basis for the narnia books, since lewis didn't really understand anything he was trying to incorporate.
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Writght
Jan 19, 2006 19:58:07 GMT -5
Post by chaney on Jan 19, 2006 19:58:07 GMT -5
we got on the subject of mr. dubyus because yeshua mashiah's more common name is a censored word on this board, and i forgot. my favorite telepastor, arnold muray, uses that name all the bloody time. you should watch him, he's hilarious. he's on in the wee hours of the morning on like 45 channels.
i'm not reading the books out of order, according to the numbers on this set that i was given as a child. they go: (WHOAH, CAPITALIZATION ON!) 1 the Magician's Nephew, 2 the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, 3 the Horse and His Boy, 4 Prince Caspian, 5 the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 6 the Silver Chair, 7 the Last Battle, and that's the order I've read them in, bozo.
I'm not sure if it's taken me more than two hours to read any of them, as I only read a chapter here by the river as I'm smoking a bowl, a chapter and a half there as I'm waiting for class to start, a chapter here before bed... and that's in between reading Primitive Mythology and this god damned shitty textbook from that boring, unchallenging excuse of a class. As an aside, fuck community colleges and fuck $85 dollar books.
The goddess worship of which you speak, according to Joseph Campbell in Occidental Mythology (a copy of which I don't have in front of me at the moment...) began in Crete thousands of years ago and spread all over Europe and beyond... it would not surprise me if lunar/goddess cults thrived in Jerusalem at one point, but I don't know if they did or not. Really, the good/evil conflict that exists throughout what I've read of the Narnia series seems to have more to do with the attempts of the Christian church (including the writers of the Gospels) to discredit the lunar/goddess cults than it does with the actual idea of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. That act is really more reminiscient of the myth behind a typical lunar/goddess cult sacrifice, which was more of a farmer's ritual, all about the renewal of the Earth. I still don't identify Aslan with Jesus whatsoever... but then, from the sound of it, Lewis didn't have much of a grasp on the history of western religion, so I really don't see the point in dwelling on his wide-eyed Christian literary missionary ideas when the books are in actuality a big mess of various European fairy tales and not sufficiently Christian to convert a bloody mouse.
But, again, I'm only on the 50th page of Dawn Treader as I type, so maybe that 7th book will piss me off and I'll change my mind.
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Writght
Jan 25, 2006 19:28:57 GMT -5
Post by reyler on Jan 25, 2006 19:28:57 GMT -5
i never said lewis did a particularly good job, i just said that was his intent. my apologies concerning the order of reading. i forgot that it was decided after all the books were written that they should be read in chronological order within the story, not order of actual writing. i just don't agree with that. the new spring may be a prequel to the wheel of time (as yet unfinished, i might add, which makes the idea of writing a prequel first a bit stupid, but robert jordan has an absolute talent for pissing me off while still dragging me into his story), but it's really not a good idea to read it before you read the main series. likewise for reading belgarath the sorcerer before reading the belgariad; especially because it tells you what already happened. like watching the recent three star wars movies before the original trilogy doesn't work out, not just because by the time you've gotten through attack of the clones you'll be too nauseous to watch more movies, but because the original star wars movie is where the story started, and even if you fill in the blanks from before that, it's merely an add-on. of course, i maintain that there never should have been any sequels to star wars, but nobody listens. did that sound judgmental? whoops. and anyway, of course lewis had no grasp of the history of western religion, because his own personal religion maintains that it's the only one, and before jim caviezel got nailed to a fencepost, there was no religion, just people running around being greedy and having flour, damn your censors. even the jews were dismissed as a people (which they were, really) and downplayed the fact that they had a religion. christians seem to have difficulty even acknowledging the existence of non-christians; they categorize people as "christian" or "unsaved, damned", with no alternatives. if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists. if you'd like, for an encore i could go on for a page and a half about how the physical differences between men and women dictate their behavior in personal confrontation. i worked it out yesterday on the bus. that's about all the bus is good for. well, that and getting around the swollen anus that is phoenix.
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Writght
Jan 25, 2006 22:52:54 GMT -5
Post by chaney on Jan 25, 2006 22:52:54 GMT -5
A town with a name like phoenix should not turn into a swollen anus. Also, it's really easy to say flower, you just have to bring the right watering can when you do it. Feel free to rant about anything which doesn't get the FBI on my ass, whatever that means. Paco hit a game-winning grand slam today.
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stuart
crack the shell
Posts: 108
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Writght
Jan 25, 2006 23:07:52 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jan 25, 2006 23:07:52 GMT -5
Paco?
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