“But in reality
the origins of this passage have very little to do with savage, or even with
civilised, religion.”
“For one
probable relic of Celtic religion dug out of a medieval book we meet, clear and
emphatic, a score of references to Mars and Venus and Diana.”
“Their
cosmology and their religion were not such easy bedfellows as might be
supposed.”
“There
was no direct 'conflict between religion and science' of the nineteenth-century
type; but there was an incompatibility of temperament.”
Lewis,
C. S. The Discarded Image. London: Bentley House, 1964. Web.
Throughout The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis uses the word religion. The first
time he used it, it was going along with the meaning of savage that was being
implied. From searching through the Oxford English dictionary online, they
defined the word as a state of life bound by religious vows or as the condition
of belonging to a religious order. With the word religious being very similar
to the word being defined, I decided to find the definition of religious. Religious
means to belong to a monastic order especially in the Roman Catholic Church. In
general religion and religious have to do with beliefs in God and many people
who pray or attend church are religious. There are many different religions in
the world, and many different ways to express being religious. A way can be as
simple as saying a prayer before a meal or attending church weekly.
Lewis’ connotation of the word is closely
related to the denotation. In the sentence talking about the direct conflict
between religion and science, I believe the meaning is referring to the beliefs
people have in God. He is saying that science has no impact on what people
believe about their religion. They have their beliefs from the start depending on
how they grew up. When I searched the word in the PDF, it came up four times,
but religious appears frequently in the text and they have similar meanings. The
two words are just used as different parts of speech. The text also refers to different
religions so the connotations may depend upon what religion is being talked
about. Throughout the entire book, religion is used frequently every few pages
with the word religious being thrown in multiple times too. With the word being
used so often, Lewis is trying to tell us that religion was a popular topic in
the medieval times. The Discarded Image is
conceptually a “model” of the world in medieval times. The book is focused on
the topic of theology which has subtopics being religion and beliefs.
With religion being a pretty general word, there are
connotations that go along with it, but they are all similar. In medieval times
the word religion could be more serious than what people think of it as now. No
matter how the word is used, the main meaning of religion is always there. I would
say that the denotation of the word is used more frequently than the connotated
meaning. The book mentions Christian a lot which is still referring to the
term, it is just a narrower topic.
Overall, Lewis uses this word on purpose. Religion plays a
big role in this novel. With Aristotle being discussed, philosophical topics
are also talked about. From being in philosophy class currently, religion and
philosophy tie together. From reading part of this book, I believe that Lewis
wants us to think into everything and have our own thoughts on what is being discussed.
No comments:
Post a Comment