Was C.S. Lewis Being a Hypocrite, To Decry All Who "Shut Their Eyes To Facts"?

Like most of my blogs here, 
this is continued from a thread in a Stoicism group.

Why do most of my blogs start there?
Because it's the only group I'm still subscribed to on FB. 

The algorithm offers me ... whatever it thinks I might care about. 

Sometimes, an offering looks fun to chew on. 

Normally, I only plan to
have a small sample,
offer a thought about it, 
and then move on.

Sometimes, someone sees this as an opportunity 
to engage with me about our divergent points of view. 

This was one of one those times. 
--
--

Diving right in,
this is how it started ... 

• Active

  (Me):
  Ironic; given that he shut his eyes to facts.

    

  • L 
  •  (some guy)
      We all believe we have the "facts" already.

    • 
      
    • Active

      (Me):
      
      Granted. And we tend to be wrong by an impressively large margin.

      And yet, I find it better to just say something like "We all do this. Some minds do this more often than others. But let's try to help each other do this less".

      
      

      
      

      That way, the same issue gets raised, examples can be cited, and partial solutions can be proposed ... but we skip the part where the speaker pretends he has risen above it.

      

      
      
  • 
    

    (some guy)
    which ones?

    • Li
    • Active

      (Me)
      The ones I had in mind:

      All the facts he had to ignore, to convert to (the religion he joined)

      and then to write a book that desperately tries to justify and harmonize the various factions of that religion.
      
      

      •  (some guy) 
        
        
    • So those were what then?

      
      Me:
      
      
    •  We could fill libraries with all the obvious and readily-available facts he had to ignore.

      But I'd start here:
      

       
    • (some guy) 
      I'm familiar but my point is you don't know enough about him to make such a call.

 
[Note: I deleted that person's name and wrote
"(some guy)", in order to avoid making this personal, and to protect their right to anonymity.

I don't have a beef with this guy.
I just think the issues are worth diving into] 
--
--

[My further thoughts about this]

I know C.S. Lewis was smart enough to do his homework.

I also know that every person who lives in societies dominated by Abrahamic religions (even back then) lives in a society where:

A mountain of historical facts, the power of logic, basic human ethics, and the blood of countless innocents from thousands of years ...
cry out to be heard.

---

He joined a psychologically violent cult.




To be charitable, we can call it a religion.

To further soften the edges, we can call it a "faith".

To be ridiculously charitable, we can call it a "relationship" with a literal deity.

No matter what we call it,
and no matter how we justify it,...

Fundamentalist Christianity's tenants are grossly incompatible with Stoicism.

It's also incompatible with facts, logic, and basic human decency. 

Incompatibility with Stoicism
 does not bother me, since I'm not a Stoic.

I'm a proud cherry-picker, personal creator, and autonomous decider.

But I'd expect it to matter to a Stoic. 

--
--

C.S. Lewis joined a Psy-Op, Mafia-Grift
[as explained (albeit, with only minimal depth) in the video "Kissing Hank's Ass"].

He joined it as an adult.
So we can't even blame *childhood indoctrination.
[*one of the many crimes against humanity such cults practice as a "moral" imperative;
- violating every child's right to self-determination; hypocritically and disingenuously ... in the name of "free will"]

For everyone who joins a faction under the Fundamentalist Christian umbrella,
they basically scroll to the bottom of the very (very) long EULA and just click "agree". 

He did not fully verse himself in everything it says before he agreed to it.

***
The only "true consent" is:
informed consent.

He chose not to get fully informed before committing to it.

That is what the OP quotes him pretending he doesn't do.

This is also one of the many ways that Fundamentalist Christians don't understand ~consent~ as an ethic. 

People who join those
mafia-modeled power structures
~commit~ 
without reading all the fine print.

Nor could they really understand it all
even if they read it all. 

Instead, they take a leap of blind faith.

C.S. Lewis vowed to defend a narrative 
at all costs;
under penalty of worse-than-death.

That automatically means they vowed to
~demote~ all other concerns (facts, logic, ethics, etc.) into always-optional concerns.

Here's why I say that:

***
We can be loyal to the pursuit of truth
or
we can be loyal to a narrative.

We cannot be loyal to both.
***

Eventually, we will run into a conflict between these two things.

Even if we don't grant that this is inevitable, ...
the essential problem remains:

C.S. Lewis pre-obligated himself into
a conflict of interests
with the mere potential of any future discoveries which could be incompatible with the narrative to which he vowed his eternal loyalties. 

 "His Will Be Done".

~Seriously considering and allowing for~
 reasons to Doubt the Narrative
will offend "*Him"
[* a character in a story; scripted by other fallible humans,
in a narrative of "authority" which gives ~special~ people power over others].

That would put the subject character (the "self"; as also defined by other fallible humans) at risk of losing his "protection" 
from his extortionary wrath. 

Granted,
we ALL have narratives about who we are (unto ourselves, and in the context of other people, the larger world, etc).

However,
I eventually stopped crutching my sense of personal worth upon stories. 

I still have stories.

I even get some bonus points of worth from some stories. 
But those are not the foundation. 

Every part
of every story
has become ~tentative~.

I can fully question, amend, or discard any story (or story element) 
without fear of "eternal consequence"
and
without sacrificing worthiness to exist (or to be loved, respected, etc.). 

How?

 I shifted the foundation of my personal worth.

Into what?

My character,
my mind,  
and how I treat others.

Additionally, 
the strength it has taken (and continues to take)
to survive and grow.  

Even if someone (or some event) along the way
causes me to doubt or devalue any of those positive additions to my sense of worth, ... 

I have many nets waiting to catch me;
~well enough~ that I can begin again to climb. 

If I hit rock bottom,
I'd still value the climb. 

And I'd still value myself as someone who values the climb.

So if I reach a ~state of discovery~
where I discover being much less respectable than I previously thought, ...

 I'd still value/esteem myself for:

* The courage it takes to allow for such discoveries,

 and
* the accountability it takes to own my own failings, 

and then
* ~what it says about me~
that I'd begin anew; 
building myself back up with that whole new potential for growth;

- with so many prior illusions 
courageously discovered 
and then accountably shed. 

This way,
the more of my own failings I discover.
the more impressive I become.



For that reason, I can hardly WAIT to discover more of my personal failings. 

 I get excited just thinking about it. 

I don't need a larger-than-life Parental Figure to validate me.

I don't need someone external to me (aka: isn't me) to tell me what my life should be all about, or that I'm a good little boy.

I also don't aspire to retire 
into some physically absent and emotionally alien "Father's" castle;
- to live under His House/His Rules, as an eternally-dependent child; 
- who would never again even be CAPABLE of thinking, feeling, doing, or being ... anything he wouldn't approve of. 

I also don't need someone more powerful than me ... giving me reasons to refrain 
from doing horrible things to others. 

Nor do I need such a figure
giving me reasons and justifications TO hurt others.

Nor would I help maintain platforms 
which have proven useful for cunning predators to gain access to vulnerable victims.

Nor would I ever ~turn a blind eye~
to the suffering caused by any Ideological Movement (no matter how organized or disorganized it may be). 

Nor would I ever endorse such a sociopolitical construct as good, best, or necessary. 

C.S. Lewis made his choice.

Perhaps, if he lived a lot longer, he might have eventually matured enough to ~open his eyes~ to the mountain of inconvenient facts
that was staring him in the face.
But he didn't.

Instead, he volunteered
to let other fallible humans
place LIMITS on:
 what he was allowed to think, feel, say, do;

along with 
further obligations upon what he was required
to think, feel, say, do. 
[allowing, of course, for failing those standards;
on the condition that he shames himself for those failings;
- further deepening his dependence on the "authority" of the narrative, the conditions of the narrative, and the authority of those who "shepherd" over the shamed]

Meanwhile,
 ALL of that happens
 under coercive threat
(even if he might claim to give those threats no weight)
and
- for the sake of selfish emotional indulgence;
- with wishful hopes and hollow promises.
--
--
Now, I realize C.S.'s "mere Christianity" wasn't as hardcore fundamentalist as they come.
 By that standard, his was pretty chill.
But neither was it as sane or honest as they come. 
--
--

It was his journey.

He could pass his personal duties to someone else if he wanted to. 

A Stoic wouldn't.

Neither would I.

But he chose to.
And that was his right. 

"Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This.
Who Am I To Disagree?"

But then he sat on a throne of judgment
to decry everyone (else) who "shut their eyes to facts". 
--

Can we tell
when someone has made a choice to let other people install fact-filters onto their mind? 

Sometimes, we can. 

With it comes to this, I certainly can. 

He also made the choice
to join the effort
to install those onto other vulnerable minds.

He chose
to help ensure 
that the very thing he saw as ~cowardly~ 
would be enjoyed by more and more people;
under the pretense that this is a globally ubiquitous moral duty.

"Don't do that thing!"
But also 
"Do that thing, or else!".

--

Fortunately for him, he's dead.
So being called out for his hypocrisy won't sting.

Truth be told, 
I don't ~really~ care that much about the stupid games otherwise intelligent people play with their own heads. 

It's their sandbox. 
They can let other people crap in it and call it "clay",
if they want to. 

But then they probably shouldn't scoff at others for doing the same;
especially not while trying to force others (via coercion and other forms of manipulation) ... to do the very thing he said people shouldn't be doing.