Philosophy


The Parable of the Madman – Nietzsche

August 27th, 2007

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

I really don’t think that a lot of atheists think though there philosophical view. Without God, there is no meaning. You will not find any meaning in science or anything else. In the scope of eternity, you are like dust. You exist only for a fleeting second only to return to an empty void. You can try to create your own meaning, but in the end it will give you no comfort. In the end, it would make no difference if you died in 5 minutes or 50 years.

Thank God I am a theist.

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5 steps when “reasoning” with a creationist

August 16th, 2007

For any evolutionist, debating with a creationist seems like nightmarish task. You can give hundreds of examples supporting evolution and smash every counter-attack a creationist can spit out, but it always seems to fall on deaf ears. In the end, the creationist is the one smiling. How could he think he won that argument? He didn’t have ONE good point. The next minute you see this creationist gloating to all his God-Fearing friends about his superior argument and how he ripped you apart. This will either leave you very frustrated or perhaps slightly amused.

If you just want to “win” the debate, the above approach is fine. You won’t convince a creationist of anything, but that doesn’t really matter. However, if you want to convince a creationist, you will need more than superior arguments. I should know, because I used to be that smiling creationist. When educating a creationist (or an ID supporter) about evolution, I found that following these 5 steps significantly increases your odds of reaching them.

1) Do not try to convince a creationist that God doesn’t exist. If you try to argue against God’s existence, a creationist will most likely take it as a personal attack and dismiss everything you have to say. The reason why a creationist holds onto “creationism” is because he believes in God. If you decouple the idea of God’s existence and Creationism, you can then both compare Creationism and Evolution based only on merit. Creationists don’t usually think that believing in God and Evolution as an alternative. Once he realizes that God and Evolution are compatible with each other, he will have an easier time accepting evolution. However, unfortunately, most atheists believe this is a ridiculous idea. But for a moment put yourself in the creationist’s shoes. If all your knowledge and personal experience supports God’s existences, what are you going to think when someone tries to convince you otherwise? You would think he was out of his mind! What do you mean God doesn’t exist! I talked to him yesterday! The next thing you know the baby and bathwater are out the window. You wouldn’t believe in evolution solely on the fact that this “evolutionist” is trying to convince you that God doesn’t exist.
2) Fear mongering is a big thing you need to overcome when educating creationists. Creationists usually have a very low view of the scientific method and the scientific community. More often than not, creationists think that science is tool of Satan and somehow these “scientists” are in league with him. If they don’t believe that Satan is personally involved, they definitely believe that scientists are misrepresenting the evidence towards creationism. Usually you can overcome this hurdle by properly explaining the scientific method. A lot of times creationists don’t really understand the scientific method. This will give you the opportunity to dismiss any false notions a creationist might have. The big thing to point out is that in science all theories are equal. The only difference between a good theory and a bad one is evidence. The only reason why creationism isn’t scientifically accepted is because there is no compelling evidence supporting it. Everything in science, at the moment, points towards evolution. Even theist scientists are in agreement with this. However, if at some point we find that evolution is wrong, it would be replaced with a more complete theory. This is the power of science!
3) The next step is to give examples of theistic evolutionists. A creationist will be a lot more open to listen to the words of C.S. Lewis or Billy Graham as opposed to Darwin or Dawkins.

4) Once you get to this point, you can start bringing up the evidence that supports evolution. There is no shortage of information on the subject. Remember to bring up evidence ONLY for evolution and not atheism. You will have plenty of time to debate God’s existence afterwards. The goal of this conversation should be to educate him/her about evolution instead of trying to convert him to atheism.

5) The last step, and most important, is to give the creationist time to digest the information. He won’t change his viewpoints overnight.

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God vs. Science debate and the manner we conduct ourselves

July 30th, 2007

There seems to be a big debate lately about God and Science… and God seems to be losing. There is a huge anti-God backlash in America which is led primarily by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Pharyngula. As a Christian, you would think I would be really upset about it, but I’m not. I think it is really healthy for Christian beliefs to be challenged. The church seems to only thrive when it isn’t complacent.

However, I strongly disagree about how both parties are conducting themselves. It seems that these “debates” often escalate to the point of personal attacks. Although we are dealing with a volatile subject, I don’t see any need to resort to this kind of behavior.

I think the root of the problem is the lack of respect for the opposition. I think the first misconception is that Religion and Science can’t co-exist. The Christian view of science has been skewed for a very long time. I do not agree with creationism, intelligent design, or any other pseudo-science. I am not saying that God is “incapable” of creating the universe in this manner. However, we are not given any evidence that this is actually how the universe was created. Although many people would disagree with me, the truth is that there are no scientific journals publishing articles supporting creationism or intelligent design. This isn’t because scientists are ignoring the evidence towards creationism or intelligent design, either intentionally or unintentionally, but rather because there is indeed no evidence supporting these world-views.

However, after saying that, I don’t believe that Evolution somehow disproves God’s existence. If you are a reductionist, I can see how you make that conclusion. However, I don’t believe truth can be reduced to the scientific method. There are very convincing arguments against reductionism and I don’t believe a person should be deemed “irrational” if they aren’t a reductionist.

If we could get past seeing our opposition as “irrational” or “evil”, I think we could have more fruitful discussions. The goal of these debates shouldn’t be to smite our opposition, but rather to learn something about the world and ourselves.

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