I am reading (and studying) this book by C.S. Lewis called The Abolition of Man. Lewis, a devout Christian man appeals to the non believer basically by exchanging the word "God" for this concept of the "Tao" (pronounced "Dow"). The Tao according to Lewis is the place we draw basic morals from.
We would all agree that it is wrong to kill your own children for fun. We would all agree that an unexpected act of kindness toward a stranger is "good." But what makes it right and wrong? Some argue that right and wrong come from society (IE, society says that its okay to smoke marijuana in some cases, but some societies disagree). Some say right and wrong comes from what we physically need or want really really bad. So it's right for me to have a child because it is my carnal urge to reproduce, even if I can't care for my child?
See the paradox???... the judgement of right and wrong has to come from somewhere!!! But where?
Lewis calls this place we draw basic moral "right and wrong" the Tao, PPinocchio says its his Jimminy Cricket, or it could be argued this "conscience" we have inside us says "don't punch your mom in the face its wrong" and "give that hungry baby a meal- its right."
Have you ever looked at the word Conscience?
break it down ---con-science. It goes AGAINST what science would tell you. Science says keep your money, you might need it, never give it to the poor. Science says the elderly are dying, invest in the future. Science says it is unnatural to love your enemy, and offer unwarranted kindness to strangers. Science says we could have evolved from an ape sometime billions of years ago, and that a fetus is just a collection of cells and hardly a real person. Science says genetically men and women are so hardly distinguishable that gender doesn't actually matter.
But our Conscience says otherwise. The Tao, as Lewis calls it, or as I will call it, God.
God says "Give to the poor, protect children and widows." God says "when an enemy is against you, pray for their well being, and allow them to potentially hurt you again, to show them our kind of unnatural love." God says "reach out to strangers, helpless and hopeless and love them like a brother." God said "I made YOU, and your ancestors. I created you to be the person you are because I love who you are! You are not an accident!" God says "I knitted you together while you were in your mom's womb, at NO point were you just a collection of cells." God says, "I made women and men different, not right and wrong, just different and I made you to fit together so perfectly, to compliment each other, and I made you this way ON PURPOSE!"
I have known many people who denied Christ, but were amazing people, lived honorably and with a just mind. I have seen these people do things that some Christians might not. I have seen them sacrifice, and do the right thing when they thought no one was watching. I have known many of these people to be what the Christians might even call heathens, Gay people, Aborters, divorcees, drug addicts and the like. But I would argue that they appeal to the "Tao" as Lewis would say, and God as I would.
I believe they actually acknowledge a God they deny, simply by living this kind of life! Funny how a philosophy class I have taken in my epic "strive to the top" has allowed me to see that every tongue DOES indeed confess! Intentionally or not!
Lewis says in that book, that some people are better than their principles. I would argue with him that some of those people just don't quite get it yet, but they are on their way. It's easier for a person who understands the loving generous good nature of God, to accept HIM as He is.
Sorry for the rant... I just can't stop thinking of all of my friends who live in the Tao, and how after all this time, turns out it is by the Tao standards that I have decided who to be friends with! NO WONDER ALL my friends are AMAZING!
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