The Parable of the Madman

 

THE MADMAN

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?"

 

            ~Friedrich Nietzsche

 

This parable was written in the late 1800's.  Before we had seen any of the mass murders of the twentieth century.  And yet, the twentieth century was going to be Utopia.  It was going to be perfect.  What came out of that perfection?  Two World Wars, Eugenics/Nazism, the Cold War, Communism in at least two major nations, the Atomic Bomb, and abortion.

 

We look back and find that we have ended most of what happened in the last century.  Most everyone in the world of today is completely anti-violent, afraid of going back to the horror of the previous century.  (We do worry about terrorism, but that hasn't originated from Western Civilisation)  But, the one thing that has carried into this century is abortion.  Apparently, we haven't fully realized that abortion has killed, is killing, and will continue killing people.  We haven't realized that if it keeps going, it could be the largest, longest, and most widespread holocaust that the world has ever seen.

 

Read this part again:

 

"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? ... 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 hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? ... God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

Keep in mind that Nietzsche did not actually believe in God.  He was completely for all the big ideas that were beginning to grow in his time.  But he recognized something very, very important.  For the whole of humanity as we knew it, most people on the earth believed in at least one God.  Believed that truth came from God.  And now, he said, humans killed God.

So who took his place?  Us.  Man.  Stupid, ambitious, perfection-seeking, murdering Humanity.

Now, truth comes from us.  In the late modern era truth was whatever the most powerful person made it.  Now, in the postmodern era, truth is whatever works for me, which is different from whatever works for you.

Some of you may not have learned much about postmodernism as a worldview. The basic premise of it is that everyone is trapped where they are. Think of it like this: a person is inside a cloud of their own experiences and they can't see through it or around it; their experiences form their beliefs about the world, because the only part of the world they can see is their own. So, truth is based on interpretation. That's as deep as it goes. You've probably heard that there is supposedly no universal truth. That's exactly what postmodernists believe. Truth isn't something concrete that carries over to everyone. Truth is more like a piece of clay that everyone forms to fit their life how they want it to. You can probably see what this has done to morality.

See what this has to do with abortion?  The postmodern era began somewhere in the 1960's-1970's.  And what did we see?  The legalization of abortion (1973) in any form, at any point in the pregnancy.  This was at the time when most people had started to believe that truth (and therefore morality) was whatever an individual person decided for himself or herself.  And that philosophy, as we can easily see, is now going stronger than ever.

So, even though science has all but blown the pro-choice premise out of the block, abortion is still the strongest and most popular killing method in the world right now.  Why?  Because truth is relative.  Morality is relative.  Try arguing with a pro-choicer, give them all the different schpeels, and you'll probably come to the same conclusion I have. 

Honestly, I think it comes down to the fact that in their morality clay, abortion is completely fine for them and whoever else it "works for", don't tell them otherwise.  In our concrete, Biblical truth, abortion is completely not fine, don't tell us otherwise.

It's a battle of wills, and at this point, it doesn't look like anyone is going to give up.