Let us begin a tripartite consideration of the mad Pagan skeptic whereby we will consider Friedrich Nietzsche’s virtual prophecy about what would come about due to the death of God. We will also consider a biblical statement about humanity’s natural knowledge of God and our purposeful negation of such knowledge.
Lastly, we will consider to what atheism has come as they seek to find meaning in a meaningless universe and seek to prop up their favored ideas upon contradictions of their own making.
This essay will be parsed as follows:
1) An Exposition of The Parable of the Mad Man 2) Neo-Pagan Atheism
3) The Modern Skeptic
An Exposition of The Parable of the Mad Man
Let us consider “Parable of the Madman.” If you are looking in your Bible’s index for the The Parable of the Mad Man you are looking in the wrong place. This parable was penned by the atheist Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882 AD. Let us consider the entire text of the parable:
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? Immigrated? 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?”
Let us now parse the parable and consider it in detail:
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!” It is not stated why this person is described as a “madman”—except, perhaps, that he is mad enough to seek God.
Note that he “lit a lantern in the bright morning hours.” But why light a lamp when it is bright? Perhaps due to his being mad. Perhaps the brightness of the world is really darkness and he seeks to shed light; the true light of God.
He seeks God and indeed, God stated, “you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
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? Immigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed.
This seems to be an allusion to Elijah who when confronting the prophets of Baal likewise mocked them due to the fact that Baal was not heeding their request for him to show up, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened” (1st Kings 18:27).
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.
The light is lit in the brightness, he cannot find God and is being mocked for his attempts to do so. Thus, God’s death, murder in fact, is proclaimed.
But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea?
This question and statement imply the accomplishment of an impossible task. Indeed, who could drink up the sea? No one. But then; who could murder God?
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?
This, and that which immediately follows, seems to imply the recognition that in a godless universe there is no direction, there is no meaning to which we are affixed (I distinguish between “meaning” and “purpose”)
The horizon distinguished between heaven and Earth, it is an absolute differentiation between one and another thing. Without God we are ultimately unchained and the universe has no reason to function as it does, fine tuned as it is, it is merely mass in motion, “Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?”
Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? I wanted to pause at this statement as it reminded me of Peter’s statement, “we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:14-15).
As G. K. Chesterton stated it, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing—they believe in anything.”
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?
Here continues the view of a godless universe with no absolute direction. Also note what may be recognizable as the assured entropy death of humanity the universe and everything as we—living on Earth what the atheist Carl Sagan referred to a “pale blue dot”—are merely swirling through the infinite nothing of empty space which becomes colder and closes in on us as the universe dies—the heat death of the universe, the ultimate outcome of entropy the hopelessness of atheism—carpe despero.
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
This seems to be why he lit the lantern in the brightness of morning as we attempt to keep lit that which is growing ever darker. This touches upon one of atheism’s consoling delusions: the delusion of subjective meaning in an objectively meaningless existence. We light our little flames and stare at them in wonderment while all around us cold darkness encroaches.
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.
This is a famous occurrence of Nietzsche’s famous line, “God is Dead” to which Richard Dawkins recently alluded in stating, “God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.” Next we see how the concept of God’s death leads to certain conclusions which are virtual prophecies of that which was to come in the 20th century; the most secular and bloodies century in human history.
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?
I have collected various statements by atheists who seek atheism spirituality which they practice in the form of nature worship as atheist-neo-Paganism. They also seek to establish a one world atheist religion (also see here for a specific example). Indeed, in the end, atheism is not about getting rid of God but about replacing a supernatural God with natural gods—the self-deification of individual atheists, or as I term it: iTheism.
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.
With God dead and humanity drifting aloft in a dying universe the higher history which was to follow was the terror, unlike that which the world had ever known, of atheism based regimes which not only lost vast portions of their own populace during war but slaughtered them during times of “peace,” by the tens of millions, as they sought to reach their various goals of a godless society. Social Darwinism and eugenics played a part in this. For example, Australian Aborigines were shot, stuffed and displayed in museums as missing links.
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.”
Considering already “many of those who did not believe in God were standing around” and mocked him; the actual death of God is not that which was too early to declare but rather, that which would follow was to come as atheism gained wide acceptance. It would require time for atheists to incorporate the death of God into their worldviews to the point that they would variously formulate concepts of how humanity came to be, how to corral humans as the animals that they are, how to be simply rid of undesirables like so much waste, etc.
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?”
A “requiem” is basically a non-biblical ritual whereby prayers are offered for the dead and “aeternam deo” means eternal God. Thus, the madman offered prayers (to whom?) for the death of the (apparently not) eternal God. The historical fact of the matter is that according to Friedrich Nietzsche’s rightful judgment it was not atheists who had murdered God, at least not directly, but it was liberal Christianity which in his time and place had basically the ritualistic trappings of theism but due to accepting the fallacious claims of “higher” criticism, etc. had all but abandoned the Bible and traditional Christian doctrine which was replaced by empty—godless—ritual.
Bill Honsberger presented an interesting lecture entitled, “Nietzsche, the Death of God, and the Emerging Church Movement.” While is it ultimately about the Emerging Church movement he arrives at that point via a circumlocution which basically consists of a history of philosophy: see here.
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