From: sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe)
Subject: Re: Throop/Nietzsche problems
Organization: New Mexico State University
Distribution: world,public
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 05:27:58 GMT


Ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy, can I play too? :)

In article <182@fedfil.UUCP> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) writes:
>
>
>
>
>From:  Wayne Throop
>
>
>[quoting me]
>>>: From everything which we can directly observe and come to any general
>>>: consensus about, man's nature would appear to be much as Nietzsche and
>>>: later students of psychology have described it.  There are the three
>>>: basic drives of food, sex, and sleep, and above them if you believe
>>>: Nietzsche, the will to power.  And if you accept evolution, then all of
>>>: this is quite natural and even possibly desirable.
>
>Basically,  I was trying to point out the fact that evolutionism, as
>presently taught, offers man precisely nothing, as well as the far
>lesser known fact that new studies are revealing that the spiritual
>realm which most normal people believe in and can sense, once existed at
>least in part on this earth.  At present we cannot perceive this other
>realm directly or with our senses, and a goodly number of people have
>always been tempted to write off anything not amenable to description or
>direct observation.

OK I'll bite--got those references to said studies handy?

BTW, I lean more towards the Jungian notion of man's psyche.

>>The above is basically gibberish.  We can see that Ted is completely
>>innocent of even the simplest facts about evolutionary theory, by the
>>"nature red in tooth and claw", "survival of the fittest", "the powerful
>>exploit the weak" caricature he alludes to above.  Not to mention the
>>laughable simplification of psychology into a handful of "drives".  And,
>>of course, "desirable" is not a conclusion that can be legitimately
>>drawn from evolutionary theory, not even "possibly".
>
>What gets the Throops of the world so riled at this sort of talk is the
>following consideration.  Suppose evolutionists are right, that man is
>simply a freak accident, the final end product of a long chain of events
>governed by random and chance processes, originating with single-celled
>creatures somehow self-generating from inert/inorganic materials which
>somehow simply got lucky.  Then basically, you're saying to the common
>man, "Abandon hope!  You're going to die in thirty or forty years, and
>like as not, nobody will give a damn about anything you ever did 30
>years later, and that's every bit of it.  Even the greatest man of the
>age will be forgotton 5000 years from now, and that's just a grain of
>sand on the beach in the framework of the oceans of time we're talking
>about."

Well, compared to some religions, which threaten you with God's
eternal torture chamber for doing the wrong deed, or thinking the
wrong thought, or believing the wrong belief, oblivion doesn't sound
so bad.

>Is it any wonder that the common man does not buy any of this?  Is it
>any wonder that the masses do not beat a path to Throop's door?

Since when were "the masses" the arbiter of scientific truth?  Since
when has science been supposed to give us spiritual comfort?  Should I
reject nuclear physics because it doesn't give the spiritual
satisfaction of a rousing sermon?
  
>I have tried to point out, that if you have to rebel against
>Christianity, the logical starting point is Nietzsche and not Darwin.
>The NT really is about sin, and redemption from sin, and Nietzsche
>really does raise valid objections to the entire notion.  Beyond that, I
>have a problem with Christianity because the American Indians went 1400
>years without ever hearing of Christ, and I have a hard time squaring
>that with the notion of Christ being an annointed savior of mankind.
>
>There are other problems as well.  For one thing, the anti-sexual tone of
>Christianity does not appear to be a part of most versions of the antediluvian
>paradise.  The enforced other-worldiness appears to be a product of the times
>in which Jesus lived.

Ted, I'm stunned.  This actually makes sense.

>Nonetheless, I tend to hold jusgement of Jesus in abeyance.
>
>Jesus claimed to be a prince of the land which people inhabit AFTER they
>die.  The thing which totally separated him from all other people in the
>bible, is the statement of the apostles that "...he spoke as one with
>authority", concerning the afterworld kingdom.
>
>Consider the most grandiose nation ever put together (the Mongol
>Empire), as well as the longest lasting (the Byzantine), and ask
>yourself, "Where are they today?  What remains of them?"
>
>And then consider that the empire which Jesus established is still with
>us, that the best architecture on earth is still the collection of
>temples built in his honor.  Consider that the esteem in which Christ is
>still held is so great, that even the phoniest con artist on this earth,
>a man like Jim Baker or Oral Roberts, can make money almost in any
>desired amount almost effortlessly simply preaching his gospel.

If you want a nice, reductionistic theory on the hold Christianity can
have on people, check out a recent series of articles I wrote over on
talk.religion.misc called "The Mind of the Bible Believer."

>That has to be what gets to the Throops of the world.  How much money
>did you make preaching evolution this year, Throop?  How many people
>built temples and cathedrals in honor of Darwin this year?

Gee, how many articles do you think the Pope got published in
Scientific American over the last year?

>>Evolutionary theory models cooperation just as easily as competition,
>>dominance and "will to power", as anybody must realize if they know
>>anything about the evolutionary account of the nucleus or organelles in
>>cells, or anything about the evolutionary account of multicellular
>>organisms.
> 
>See what I mean?  Throop just doesn't get it.  The fact that man's
>entire existence becomes utterly meaningless under this system does not
>even strike him as a problem.  Kind of like somebody standing there
>naked in a blizzard and shouting to the world:  "GEE!  I've got it
>knocked!!!"
>
>
>You're offering mankind    N - O - T - H - I - N - G.
>
>That's why you're not having any luck selling that garbage in America,
>Throop.  They say you get what you pay for in life, and a contrapositive
>would have to be that most people don't pay more than they figure
>they're getting if they can help it.

Well, guess what?  Scientific theories don't offer any kind of
spiritual comfort.  They're not supposed to.  This is like saying,
"Gee, the fact that I can't pound this nail with this screwdriver
means that the screwdiver isn't well-designed."

I think the fact people have a hard time with evolution has more to do
with the fact that when you consider the scientific illiteracy of the
average person, Ted isn't such a remarkable phenomenon after all.

SD

PS--What's "HTE" mean anyway?  I've been trying to figure that out for
ages.  Maybe the FAQ file ought to have a (brief) section devoted to
Ted.