Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis

BOOK REVIEW

I finished it and at the request of a local pastor, we gave him our personal and candid impressions as unpopular as they may be.

This book is one of several hundred religious ideologies, opinions and biblical interpretations. It is a well written account of personal experiences and beliefs, fraught with the presupposition that the reader must believe in a supernatural being that only exists in the minds of human beings that cannot accept death as the natural course of nature which form the basis of spiritual legend and tradition.

Spirit-based religion was created by humans to furnish an ideal and necessary ideology that eliminates death as a natural, fundamental, biological event. To be sure, death is merely a molecular recycling of atoms and molecules that has existed since time began.

To imagine that death is more preferable and comfortable, is the nature of self deception. Human fantasy about the “life hereafter” is absolutely necessary to cope with the unpredictable and arbitrary nature of a tolerable existence in our life cycle.

Since humans first appeared, the concept of death has evolved into an imaginary extension of a more acceptable, alternative illusion that is variously defined as an exquisite state of perfection replete sometimes with righteoussouls,pearly gates, fluffy clouds and angels strumming harps or alternatively, some other very specifically described and highly palatable eternal existence after our biological death.

To contradict these classic beliefs is the much reviled and questioning skepticism that dares to challenge and confront the multitudes of divergent beliefs and fundamental deficiencies of spiritual existence.

The “other religion” which excludes imaginary supreme beings, enables people to apply the principles and practices of spirit-based religions without “joining the club” so to speak, and live their lives by adherence to a non-authoritarian leadership style in which leaders try to give the least possible guidance to subordinates, and try to achieve control through less obvious means. They believe that people excel when they are left alone to respond to their responsibilities and obligations in their own ways.

The rational, conclusive acceptance of death as the natural, biological termination of a particular assemblage of atoms and molecules that comprise the human being is not so distasteful to accept.

There is no awareness of anything which for some people is abhorrent, unacceptable and consequently, unbelievable.

“Eternal life” is the hopeful and accepted norm for the great majority of human population and lends itself to a more tolerable and bearable existence which hopefully provides a certain amount of faith that human beings won’t continue their propensity towards committing a conceivable, frighteningly achievable and worldwide autogenocide.