I note what you say about guiding our patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his unbelieving friend. But aren't you being a little naive?
It sounds like you thought that the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches was by winning the debate. That might have been the case if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it wasn't; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to change their way of life as
the result of a chain of reasoning.
But what with daytime talk shows and other such weapons we have largely changed that. Ever since he was a boy, your man has gotten used to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" of "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary", "conventional" or "ruthless". Nice sounding sayings, not logical argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that atheism is true! Make him think it is strong, or trendy, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.
The trouble about discussing ideas is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own
ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am
suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly inferior to our Our Father
Below. By the very act of discussion, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is
awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted
so as to end in our favor, you will find that you have been strengthening in your
patient the fatal habit of paying attention to universal truths and withdrawing his attention
from what is happening around him. Your business is to fix his attention
on his immediate surroundings. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by
"real".
Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. 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. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the library. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear What He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle it at the end of a morning", the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back to it after lunch and think about it with a fresh mind", he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a vendor selling hotdogs, and the No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the hotdog vendor) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about "that hard to describe sense of real life which is our ultimate safeguard against the trappings of mere logic". He is now safe in Our Father's house.
Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. 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. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the library. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear What He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle it at the end of a morning", the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back to it after lunch and think about it with a fresh mind", he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a vendor selling hotdogs, and the No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the hotdog vendor) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about "that hard to describe sense of real life which is our ultimate safeguard against the trappings of mere logic". He is now safe in Our Father's house.
Are you starting to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, these humans find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, real science) as a defence against Christianity. That will positively encourage him to think about realities he can't touch and see. There have been sad cases of conversion recently among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don't let him get away from that invaluable "real life". But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he already knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is "generally accepted fact". Remember you are there to keep him distracted. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
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