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The Screwtape Letters
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The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (K.D. & Patrick) Start Date: Sept. 10, 2012
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K.D.
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Aug 22, 2012 04:02PM
Yes! Thanks, Patrick!
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Oooh just saw this. May I eavesdrop? :) It's been a while since I read the book, but I think I still have my highlights/notes. :D
I did not know that this is today, Patrick. I will start reading tonight. :)
pwede ding maki-eavesdrop? wala akong ginagawa ngayon sa office so pwede ko ding basahin ulit to hehe
Sure, Cary. I always want to know your views on any books.
K.D. wrote: "Sure, Cary. I always want to know your views on any books."Im actually done re-reading the first two letters. When I first read this, I didn't pay much attention to the preface so this statement kind of caught my attention:
People often make two equal and opposite errors regarding demons:
(1) To believe they do not exist
(2) To focus excessively on their existence
I believe this is true. When we believe that they don't exist, we can be easily deceived without even knowing it. On the other hand, giving the devil too much focus and attention will make us turn our attention away from God, and eventually give in to the devil's lies and deceptions.
With those posts, I will definitely start this tonight. Sobrang intriga ako. Ang gaganda ng sinasabi ninyo. But I am a bit ashamed di ko kaya yong depth ng faith nyo na lumalabas sa posts nyo. For I have sinned, in my thoughts, in my words, in what I have done, in what I have failed to do... :)
hehe, read it as it is K.D. I just realized mas madali at mas nakakatuwa tong basahin kesa mere Christianity.
Cary, I agree. Mas madali ito. I started last night and I could not contain myself with just reading the first letter. I'd wanted right away to know what the uncle Screwtape would be telling Woodworm in the next letter. So, I finished 2. Then this morning, while waiting for the internet to get connected, I read another one. Because they are all short and easy to understand (unlike Mere Christianity) parang ang sarap nitong basahin na di magwa-wander ang mind mo habang nasa kalagitnaan ka na. :)Patrick, oh yes, I agree with you too. Reading books about religion does not necessarily make your faith stronger. I read religious books because they normally make me feel good - get me attuned to my inner self. I get reminded that I have a soul and that there is God out there who loves me.
Day 1 - Letters I to III
Screwtape seems to be Woodworm's uncle who writes him letters instructing him how to manipulate his patient. Woodworm has a friend Glubose who works with him on this. We do not know yet why Screwtape instructs Woodworm through letters and why not do those instructions by himself.
Screwtape is a devil so he is against God that he refers to as The Enemy. Being older than Woodworm, Screwtape knows more about the ways of this world and he is here to destroy the faithful people.
The letters are funny but if you dig deeper, they are spot on. The first letter (yes, Patrick you are right) already has Science mentioned. Screwtape advised Woodworm for the latter's patient not to read science. Why? Because science and religion are reconcilable. They are not the two opposite ends of a pole. Knowing science can make one's faith stronger.
I will react to each letter as you go along Patrick. Parang mas gusto ko yata ikaw ang mag-lead para matuto ako sa yo. Baliktad tayo, ikaw si Woodworm (sa edad) at ako si Screwtape (sa wickedness haha). At ikaw ang magco-convert sa akin heehee.
Patrick wrote: "Letter #1In this first letter, Screwtape relates a story about one of his previous patients which was an atheist. This one story pulled me right into the book. It opened my eyes to the very real ..."
This reminds me of mere christianity, di ba Lewis was once an athiest and he confessed that his conversion started when he began to ask questions that challenge his present beliefs. So may pinaghuhugatan hehe.
K.D. wrote: "Cary, I agree. Mas madali ito. I started last night and I could not contain myself with just reading the first letter. I'd wanted right away to know what the uncle Screwtape would be telling Woodwo..."O di ba ang sarap nya talagang basahin, natutuwa talaga ako habang binabasa ko sya, kahit paulit paulit. Tapos dati sinasabayan ko yung pagbabasa ko nito with an audio book na dramatized version. Ang cute nung boses ni Screwtape.
Cary, wow, you have the audio book! I am dying with envy. *chuckle* Siguro nga magandang gawin yong sabay. Imagination ko scary ang boses ni Uncle Screwtape. Cute pala heehee.
sayang nga lang ngcrash yung laptop ko kaya d ko na narecover yung file. Hanap na lang ako ulit. Yup, cute kasi para lang syang matandang nagsesermon sa apo nya. Kaboses nya yung ghost dun sa a christmas car0l. Haha
Patrick wrote: "May underlying messages sa bawat sinasabi ni Screwtape and that's what I'm trying to get at. I'm just rereading this and I still see some new stuff I didn't see before. :) "true. I love how Lewis wrote this book in such a way that you can't help but reflect on your own thoughts and activities and realize that perhaps you are on the way to giving yourself in to the ways of the devil hehe.
Anyway may I post my thoughts on the first letter. In the first letter of Screwtape he presented some strategies that Wormwood may use to tempt his patient like convincing him that “real life” is just a stream of sensory experiences; keeping him from thinking about mortality; asking whether it’s “practical” or “outworn” or “contemporary” instead of asking whether something is right or wrong; disconnecting thinking from doing; and distracting people with bacon sandwiches. I believe that these strategies are applicable even to us today.
As I was meditating on the Book of Genesis lately, I realize that ever since the beginning of the world, the devil works by distorting the truth that comes from God. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because the devil, in the form of a snake, told them that contrary to what God has told them, eating the fruit will not surely cause them to die. He even added that God forbade them to eat the fruit because He knows that eating it will make them more like God, having a knowledge of good and evil. They bought the devil's argument and gave in to temptation and so the fall of mankind. All throughout the bible, we can see that the devil is always at work to snatch people away from God. Well, even Jesus was not exempted from temptation, but we know that He successfully overcame this temptation and I believe Lewis emphasized this when Screwtape mentioned that "Never having been a human (oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary".
The Bible said that every Christian is in a spiritual battle against the dark forces of evil in the heavenly realms and so we should always be on guard. In a way, knowing the enemy's strategy is always helpful in winning the battle.
Parang may gusto akong gawin. Gusto kong i-summarize ang sinasabi ni Screwtape for each letter haha. Yong isang trusted friend ko na Americana at yong kuya ko parehong di gusto ito. Na-intriga tuloy ako.
Wow, another Lewis book. I wanna join, pero marami pa kasi akong books na binabasa. Pero one letter a day lang, right? Maybe kaya ko 'to hehe. BTW, di pa pala ako tapos sa Miracles. Haha. I'm stuck with that book. I got busy and lost my momentum. Tough din siyayng basahin, more challenging than Mere Christianity.
Day 2 Letters IV to XVIIII learned today that Screwtape and Woodworm are tempters. We don't know where they are but they are souls. Woodworm is assigned to a young man who is a new convert to Christianity (Lewis?). The young man has a mother who has rheumatism and the young man prays for him. Then the war breaks out in Europe and so Screwtape is telling Woodworm to take advantage of the chaos.
I reread Letters I-III last night and started to mark (with ballpen) the specific advices of Screwtape to Woodworm. Once I'm done, I'll make a summary. Then I will try to put side-by-side each advice what God (in my recollection of his teachings from the Bible) says. Yan ang ambitious project ko this weekend haha. Sana matuloy.
Patrick, gusto ko rin sa second letter yong quote tungkol sa mga bisyo ng tao na nakaupo sa simbahan. Actually, may check sa book ko yan.
Minsan nalilito ako. Sa pagbabasa ko pinapalitan ko ng "God" yong "Enemy."
I already started what I have in mind. I just need your help hehe to put the biblical instructions of God (Bible verses) in between the main points of each letter with my own comments. Letter I: By the act of arguing you awake the patient’s reason. Do not attempt to use science as a defense against Christianity. We have to ask questions and discuss about our faith (Christianity or other religions) including how science can make it stronger. Science and religion as reconcilable and they don’t sit in the opposite sides of the pole like what is depicted in the issue in the courtroom drama, Inherit the Wind
Letter II: Never let the patient ask what he expected Christians to look like. Let him wander how to reconcile the people, sitting on the pews near him in Church, who have lots of vices. Work on the emotional disappointment during his first few weeks as a churchman. We are our brothers’ keepers. We need to spread the word of God to the people we encounter as much as possible. There might be vices or sins around us, but if we show ourselves as examples, somehow, we can turn this world into a better place. Satan is always lurking and waiting for us to commit sins.
Letter III. a. Keep his mind on the inner mental state of mind, where he won’t discover any of the facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone else. b. Make sure he is always concerned with his mother’s soul but never her rheumatism. c. Work on being annoyed at minor physical nuances, not realizing that he has them himself. d. He must demand his utterances be taken at face value while hers be suspected intention. We are all created in the image and likeness of God so we are inherently strong. However, most of us do not know ourselves. The devil perpetuates that by not challenging us so we think that we are weak. We tend to criticize, condemn and complain about others without seeing that we ourselves are not faultless.
Letter IV. a. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling. b. They are animals, their bodies affect their souls. God always hears us. Sometimes we think that our prayers are unanswered. No. Sometimes, God works on mysterious ways and we are just incapable to discern or understand His answers. Our body sometimes gives in to temptation (lust, gluttony, greed, etc) and the devil celebrates whenever we succumb to these things.
Letter V. What permanent good does war do unless we make use of it to bring souls to our father below? War is crazy. The devil uses it to his advantage to gather the souls of those who participate in it particularly those who take advantage of it to their benefits.
Ako na ngayon ang mahaba ang post heehee.
Onga. Sige, babagalan ko. Pero ang style ng review ko ay parang ganito:Screwtape says:
God says:
Parang magsasagutan si Screwtape at ang God (based on the Bible) ha! ha! Para kasing Bible ito ng mga Demons eh. Si Wormwood (thank you) eh parang prophet ni Screwtape (Satan).
Day 3 Letters XIX to XXIV The patient is now falling in love so Screwtape focuses on sex. For the meantime, the war is on-going and I think the patient will be drafted so Screwtape can also use war to muddle the patient's faith through Wormwood (ayan, tinandaan ko yan kagabi habang nagbabasa).
Day 4 Letters XXV to XXXIDone reading. The story is okay (2 stars) but I like the message and the concept behind the book (3 stars). So, this book is either 2 or 3 stars. Still undecided.
I will not post what happened because that would be a spoiler. But the plot is very simple and I guess this book's main purpose is to preach rather than to entertain. I did not find anything funny to keep me reading or even shocking aside from what happened to Screwtape but having read recently Kafka's Metamorphosis that did not really shock me as much.
But the concept of writing an epistolary book similar to how God seemed to have instructed his prophets like God talking to Moses atop Sinai, is unique and should be appreciated. Very clever. It's like a bible of the devil. Unthinkable especially for an Oxford professor.
Also what happened to the Patient seems to parallel the events in the life of C. S. Lewis. So, while writing, he was thinking of himself being tempted by the Wormwood. How imaginative.
I will start writing my review this morning. Not sure when I will finish but ignore it. I will still discuss with you here in this thread even in the next letters. We can still do 1 letter/day. I'd like to review them one day at a time.
Thank you, Patrick.
FINIS.
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