day no. 15,466: artificial sweetener is no better than sweetlessness

"'Stop and smell the roses' is better advice than to pretend that our little hectic diversions are ultimately meaningful and satisfying. Honest hedonism is spiritually superior to dishonest self-delusion." -- Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life

The tenor of Ecclesiastes may be macabre in declaring that everything under the sun, if under the sun is all that there is, is meaningless, but at least it is honest and accurate. If this is all there is, there isn't anything to it. It would be better to simply indulge in the meaninglessness than to acknowledge that there should be meaning somewhere and attempt to infuse the meaninglessness with meaning.

Paul's conclusion is in favor of honest hedonism.

1 Corinthians 15:32
If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

If there is no ultimate reality beyond this one, then just enjoy the life that you have, don't bother yourself with questions of meaning and plague your sleep with questions about the afterlife. There isn't one. You have maybe 80 years and the 10 at the beginning and the 20 at the end quite restrict what you'd like to do, so use the 50 in between are all that's left to simply indulge in the simple delights that the world has to offer.

To turn the earth into an idol is to recognize that there should be meaning, but to attempt to fix the problem by giving it to things which cannot support the weight, instead of giving that to God above whose presence would define everything else. 

But you cannot separate God from meaning. Either He is real and there is meaning or He isn't and there isn't. The honest hedonist doesn't try to make food or sex mean anything other than what it is. The dishonest self-deluded try to manufacture meaning and purpose out of nothing and in an unfortunate attempt to be like God, they end up, not surprisingly, ill-equipped to fill the bill.

The good news is that God is real and this means that we can enjoy the world He has made without needing it to be anything more than it is or trying to render it less that it is. The only real way to truly enjoy it is to take it as it already is. It can only be enjoyed when received as a gift. If you make it into an idol, you ruin it in the process.

Artificial sweetener is no better than sweetlessness. And, in fact, it might be worse. God-given grace is good and being without it is bad, but factory-made, mass-produced grace substitute is worse.

Ecclesiastes 2:24
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God