A Lewisism

Sorry, but I have to shoot this one down, this is exactly the conversation I would have loved to have had with Lewis about one thousand times during my reading of "Mere Christianity".

When you wrote:

Many people scoff at the notion of our being "fallen," or "inherently sinful." But honestly, does any other explanation more fully answer the basic question why we are how we are?

Er .... yeah.

1. Our genes (programming) tell us to be -- selfish genes and the fight for survival will breed killers and "bad" behaviour. They are also the only thing that will get us off of Terra before Sol engulfs us in approximately 6,000,000,000 years. Why life struggles to survive is a mystery to me, but it does.
2. "Fallen" from "Grace" assumes Grace exists, and therefore the Christian God exists.
3. "Inherently sinful" assumes "sin" exists, and therefore the Christian God exists (you need a God to have sin)

That's what Lewis did, he argued from a standpoint that assumed the reader believed in such things as God and Sin. Is that the Duke of Wellington close Mr ex-Salesman? :-)

LOVE and PEACE on you brother.