The Town of Odyssey

As I said before, that is correct. But there’s a difference that must be understood between saying ‘it’s not allegorical’ and saying ‘Aslan isn’t meant to represent Jesus’ which was your original statement.

This video made me lol.

gunblader3 wrote:I have talked to some of these extremist and sadly most of them believe by not having knowledge about controversial subjects that goes against their religion/belief's, example of this is evolution, is a good thing for them because it might turn themselves away from God.

Wow, I believe the opposite. If you have a faith that is so weak that it will not stand up under scrutiny, you are setting yourself up for failure. What happens when someone actually makes a few good points for the opposite side? Do you just break? Unfortunately, I think many do because a lot of churches don't force you to get out of your bubble of beliefs and actually question them. But I say better to question them in a safe environment where someone can help you find the answers rather than when you are being straight-out attacked in the "real world". Faith is made stronger through learning more, and, horror of horrors, possibly modifying beliefs that may not be completely Biblical, thoughbeit traditional. Faith is meant to grow and develop as we learn more about God--we aren't supposed to learn the basics then stop. Like Paul talks about new Christians needing milk, then moving on to solid food once they have the basics...we can't quit as soon as we become ready for "solid food". Good faith is flexible and strong--able to be molded and with room to grow, and tough enough to stand through anything.

And something I heard that makes a good point..."Faith is like a rubber band. It's only useful when it's stretched."

bookworm wrote:As I said before, that is correct. But there’s a difference that must be understood between saying ‘it’s not allegorical’ and saying ‘Aslan isn’t meant to represent Jesus’ which was your original statement.

Oh that's why this conversation isn't working. I didn't mean Aslan isn't supposed to represent Jesus. (He does.) I meant it's not an allegory. So we actually agree.

Knight Fisher wrote:

bookworm wrote:As I said before, that is correct. But there’s a difference that must be understood between saying ‘it’s not allegorical’ and saying ‘Aslan isn’t meant to represent Jesus’ which was your original statement.

Oh that's why this conversation isn't working. I didn't mean Aslan isn't supposed to represent Jesus. (He does.) I meant it's not an allegory. So we actually agree.

Ah, very good.

The Christian vs. Atheist video was interesting. When you look at it, though, there are plenty of born-again Christians who either love the series or they don't really care; I think it's really a vocal minority who rants and raves illogically about how horrible it is.

I think Lewis looks at his series the same way Tolkein does his--it's not an allegory, but there are parts of it that correspond.

Now, personally, I would not call what God does magic, and the Harry Potter magic is a different matter entirely from what non-readers think it means, but that's just me. Carry on.

TigerintheShadows wrote:I think Lewis looks at his series the same way Tolkein does his--it's not an allegory, but there are parts of it that correspond.

Actually, Tolkien was quite adamant that there wasn’t intentional symbolism in his books. They were just meant to be a story, not to have religious or political parallels.

Ah. Well, at any rate, Lewis does look at it that way, so I'm half right.

Snap I'm not following your Narnia discussion at all.
KF thinks it's not an allegory, I got. But bookworm does? Or something?

It wasn't written as an allegory like "The Pilgrim's Progress" was. But there were supposed to be some parallels in Narnia and God and such.

And don't get me started on atheists. *lol, i had trouble spelling atheists. *

We resolved it. We both agree. It is a supposal with some allegorical parallels. At least I think we agree on that.

MANY allegorical parallels.

Fine, many.

ric wrote:MANY allegorical parallels.

Heh, exactly.

The reason there was confusion is because it’s a subtle semantics issue.
The Narnia stories are allegorical, but they are not allegories, strictly speaking.

Ok yeah what bookworm said. Now that his Avatar is creeping me out!

Well, it’s different now.
Because I posted.
(Will be explained later.)

bookworm wrote:Well, it’s different now.
Because I posted.
(Will be explained later.)

Good worm. I love that new avatar.

Yeah, so if anyone was wondering, my avatar kept changing because my Mission was to change it each time I logged in.

Whitty Whit wrote:I love that new avatar.

Thanks. It was SL’s from the Fall 2010 RRoD and I appropriated it because I think it’s cool.

bookworm wrote:Yeah, so if anyone was wondering, my avatar kept changing because my Mission was to change it each time I logged in.

Whitty Whit wrote:I love that new avatar.

Thanks. It was SL’s from the Fall 2010 RRoD and I appropriated it because I think it’s cool.

Ah, I thought it looked familiar.

I think I started getting especially suspicious several years ago when I started hearing the same nice little Christian "talking points" (I guess that's what you hip kids are calling them) from other people. I had always thought these were personal conclusions coming from the specific people who said them, not just regurgitated lines. That made the entire statements feel very shallow, almost fabricated, and the worst bit is that they're catchy — teach them to a young kid and they're sure to go around repeating them without having any form of foundation to their argument. It's reckless and unfair to feed these kind of simplistic expressions to children because it misguides them and sets them up for embarrassment.