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I was sitting on the toilet enjoying some of Lewis reading - just to give a Twitter-like update (and perhaps some may even find this the most interesting part of this blog) - when I was reminded of the video below which I had watched some time ago:
‘The darkest truth about love' is the title of the video and below it reads: 'We are generally tremendously optimistic about how relationships can go. But every now and then we have to allow ourselves a glimpse of the darkest reality.' The video demonstrates pure naturalism, that is, a worldview that declares that everything arose and exists by itself. For that reason - and this is more honest than many are often willing to admit - the thrust of the video is that we live in an illusion. Man is 'existentially alone', we wallow ourselves in relationships and 'love' to avoid seeing the truth. The truth then is that nothing has a purpose, nothing has intrinsic meaning, and love is merely a biological response from an evolutionary drive.
Although that is more honest than many a naturalist is willing to admit, it still doesn't go far enough. We either have feelings about that life is preferable to death, or the feelings for posterity and caring for it, thanks to the naturalist, however, we know that we should not hold these feelings for a true understanding of what was once called "real value (Lewis).
We now know that one feeling is not superior to another and that there is no deeper rationality behind it, but arises from a long irrational sequence of spontaneous, accidental events. Therefore, one feeling or thought is not more or better than another. Good & evil an illusion, born of societal pressure to conform.
The moral choice is thus the same choice as the choice between red or white wine, the insistence on this choice driven by the strongest feeling. If you have a strong feeling to take care of posterity by living a conscious life on this globe, that is fine. If your feeling leans more strongly toward blue cheese, that is fine on the same level and depth. By the naturalist's explanation, the choice for the "better for the whole" has not increased over the individual drive to satisfy needs.
Now let those naturalists not destroy all my respect for conscience on Monday and expect me to still act on it on Tuesday.
C.S. Lewis
The joke, of course, is that even the most strict naturalists try to instill this in us as being "truth. But if our thinking arises from irrationality, no rationality (read: truth) can arise or be knowable from it. Also, they give these ideas a certain preference over the others as if one idea could be 'better' than the other. 'Better' here therefore indicates moral better, not rational better. But haven't they correctly demonstrated moral choice as illusion? As "the darkest truth" of which we have glimpsed?
Continue to preach this message I would say; because 'if we are to continue to make moral statements, we must believe that conscience is not a product of nature. It can only be valid if it is an offshoot of an absolute moral wisdom, a moral wisdom utterly self-contained and not a product of non-moral, non-rational nature' (C.S. Lewis).
