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?" Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, pgs.181-82
Wow .... What a sterling indictment of human intellect. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The Madman's Opinion Ok, I'm confused... some wacky nutball walks up to a few atheists in a marketplace spouting gibberish about God being dead (his opinion) and somehow it is profound? Uh... So what? If the people there didn't believe in God in the first place, why would these atheists hang their heads at the percieved profundity of the madman's doggerel ("...they...were silent and stared at him in astonishment."). Makes no sense. ============================================== Tiassa wrote: What a sterling indictment of human intellect. ============================================== You mean that people think crap like this is profound? I agree! -Mike
You have to read Nietzsche to understand it, dumbies. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Awwwwww... ============================================== Xev wrote: You have to read Nietzsche to understand it, dumbies. ============================================== You mean to truly understand this story I have to re-read it in BOOK FORM? Come on Xev don't call me a "dumbie" (sic). Call me a f#&*$#%&%-ing *&%$#$#@. You know how I love it when you talk dirty. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! -Mike
No, Xev, I'm serious ... and what to do about Mike? Xev I'm serious when I say it's a sterling indictment of human intellect. Now, I know serious is something which causes you consternation, but why don't you take a swing at it in all your Nietzschean glory? The madman speaks the truth, especially after you look past the shiny bits about God. And the condition the madman describes is, indeed, a sterling indictment of human intellect. Mike How do you read parables? Because I can guarantee you, based on your assessment of the parable of the madman as "crap", that you have utterly missed it. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Mike: Yup! Read all of "The Antichrist" and you'll get it. I'm not feeling well (Nietzschean crisis) but I'll explain it to y'all in a bit. Oh, you fucking fundie moron. You blind little Christian sheep, you think I'd waste my time explaining Nietzsche to a stupid fuck like you? That better?
Music to mine ear... ============================================== Xev wrote: Oh, you f%$#ing fundie moron. You blind little Christian sheep, you think I'd waste my time explaining Nietzsche to a stupid f$#% like you? ============================================== Much better... a little more gesticulating, but that's just about right. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! -Mike
The 'shrooms and bongwater diet... ============================================== Tiassa wrote: Mike, how do you read parables? ============================================== Hmm... usually I read parables by visually scanning each word with my eyes so as to facilitate the act of reading. This is more often than not done via print media (i.e. books). ============================================== Tiassa wrote: ...I can guarantee you, based on your assessment of the parable of the madman as "crap", that you have utterly missed it. ============================================== Missed what? What he actually said, what he implied or what he did not say? -Mike Ps. Kudos on the short posts, Tiassa.
With that kind of literalism, you ought to be one of our atheists. Pretty much. I've found substance is lost on the stupid. Of course, I didn't expect that one should be particularly intelligent as a prerequisite to perceiving the indictment of humanity, but what can I say? Live and learn. Live and learn. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
clear as pea soup ============================================== quote from Ekimklaw: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Missed what? What he actually said, what he implied or what he did not say? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tiassa wrote: Pretty much. ============================================== Try this... One day, an old man went to the marketplace to buy some fruit. While there he picked up an apple. Without warning, he began to moan and cry. A man tending the fruit rushed up to see what was the matter. "What is wrong?" he asked the old man. "My son, my son." the old man cried "Everyday I carries him to the market and every day he carries me home." The old man went on to explain how, a few years previous, his son had been killed. The fruit-tender looked around and noticed everyone was watching them. Their mouths were gaped in amazement, for the old man had been silent since the death of his son. "How can it be that you carry him here, but he carries you home?" asked the fruit-tender. The old man wiped his tears away and spoke in halting tones. "I carries him here many years ago... when he was a baby. He carries me here now?" "But where is your son?" asked the fruit-tender. "In my heart." the old man said...
Um ... okay Didn't I hear a poem about walking across a desert that reminds me of this? Yeah. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I like this story: A young man had been raised a devout christian. He loved god, god loved him, everything was just ducky. Then he was hit by a truck and died. The end. Is there a point to that? Nope. It's fuggin pointless crap. Same as St43t's story.
I didn't like the story about the diver, but I quite like this one: A young man who had been raised as a Christian was training to be an Olympic diver. The only Atheistic influence in his life came from his outspoken Atheistic friend. The young diver never really paid much attention to his friend's sermons, but he heard them often. One night the diver went to the indoor pool at the college he attended. The lights were all off, but as the pool had big skylights and the moon was bright, there was plenty of light to practice by. The young man climbed up to the highest diving board and as he turned his back to the pool on the edge of the board and extended his arms out, he saw his shadow on the wall. The shadow of his body was in the shape of Fredrich Nietzich. Instead of diving, he knelt down and cried, "Fredrich, Fredrich, why didn't I believe you earlier?". As the young man stood, a maintenance man walked in and turned the lights on. The pool had been drained for repairs. Moral of the story: If it weren't for the wonder that is Atheism, this tight-assed dude would've died... that would've been more a shame for me than for you straight people, divers are hot! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Oh, and why would somebody convert to Christianity just because they saw their shadow in the shape of a cross? That's sort of stupid. On the other hand the colour image of Fredrich Nietzich is much less likely for one's shadow to form than is the shape of a cross, so my story is more possible than yours. Hahaha! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, your story does not demonstrate any validity to the idea of god. It demonstrates coincidence. And really, if it demonstrates a little coincidence... big deal.
Ahhh!!! The word "demontrate" has "demon" in it! Demonstrate! Noooo!! Going to hell, going to hell...
I know this one story about this guy who is really nasty and domineering towards the temp in his office, until one day he starts yelling at her for typing up a report wrong, and instead of fixing it she pulls a bullwhip and a pair of handcuffs out of a drawer and orders him to get on his knees and - Okay, so there is this other story about this guy who cleans pools, and when he goes to a very upscale house in the 'burbs, where the sexually frustrated wife of a boring investment banker is lounging by the pool in a robe, and when he finishes cleaning the pool he goes up to her and tells her. "Oh, but I am still very, very dirty" she says, and pulls open her robe - There is this other story about these space aliens who try to take over the world by tainting our food supply with a drug that turns attractive women into uncontrollable sex fiends who - The moral? Believe in bad porno movie plots and be saved!
