(urth) Religious writers and audiences

[brunians at brunians.org]

Maybe one or two are not insane.

.


> Is that the friendliness we talked about earlier?
>
> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 8:47 PM, <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
>
>> All atheists are insane.
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>> > The comparison is a personally interesting one. Perhaps the difference
>> is
>> > largely one of timing. I too felt somewhat betrayed by Lewis; I
>> > encountered Narnia not long after Middle-Earth, around second and
>> third
>> > grade.
>> >
>> > Wolfe I discovered much later, and while I'm still waiting for the
>> Great
>> > Atheist Novel, I don't feel betrayed at all. And Rand was clearly
>> insane
>> > from the beginning.
>> >
>> > ------------------------------
>> >
>> > Message: 4
>> > Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2010 16:53:02 -0400
>> > From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
>> > To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>> > Subject: Re: (urth) Religious writers and audiences
>> > Message-ID:
>> >       <AANLkTinjYKw22zcNqAXleQGE49YCYlD9jhZRTChMEgF5 at mail.gmail.com>
>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>> >
>> > Personally I find the "betrayal" narrative bizarre whenever I hear it.
>> > Secular writers and religious writers alike "color" their fiction to
>> > reflect
>> > their political, moral and/or metaphyiscal beliefs, yet one very
>> rarely
>> > encounters this "betrayal" storyline outside of discussion of certain
>> > Christian genre writers.  I guess in the right-wing fringe media we
>> hear
>> > about evil homosexual/pagan agendas hidden in works, but no one takes
>> that
>> > stuff seriously.
>> >
>> > I might ascribe this to the generally liberal or progressive attitudes
>> of
>> > most literary critics, academics, and, plausibly, much of the educated
>> > reading class in the United States.  But that doesn't really wash in
>> my
>> > experience.  I know countless people, many of liberal predispositions,
>> who
>> > have read and allegedly enjoyed The Fountainhead--and Rand is far
>> > preachier
>> > than Lewis, Wolfe, or even Card.  And Neil Gaiman has written about
>> his
>> > feelings of betrayal as to Lewis's religiousity, but never expressed
>> > similar
>> > feelings toward, for example, Kipling's imperialism.
>> >
>> > I think the problem (if there is a unique problem here and not just
>> soft
>> > bigotry against religion in general or a particular religion) must be
>> the
>> > perceived deception.  The idea that Lewis might be planting ideas and
>> > images
>> > surreptiously in one's head that would act to soften one's views
>> towards
>> > traditional Christianity can be conceived of nefariously.
>> >
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