Terror of Existence: Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer loved, then loathed, Darwinism
| November 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
Last Sunday we noted a new book by psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple, and writer Ken Francis, The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd. They tackle the same topics in twin essays, as a Christian and an agnostic. Francis kindly sends us an excerpt from one of his essays featuring Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994), murderer and cannibal:
One of the worst terrors of existence is the fear of being murdered or badly tortured. We read endless stories of homicide, both fact and fictional, and the ones that spook us most are those carried out by the psychopath. The Moors Murders in the UK during the 1960s were perhaps the most disturbing story of the slaying of innocent children by a couple of deranged ‘lovers’(more like partners in murder), Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, but the story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994), is not for the fainthearted. Dahmer was a sex killer who not only murdered his 17 victims, but also dismembered their corpses and cannibalised some of them. Before being killed in prison by a fellow inmate, during an MSNBC interview in 1994, Dahmer claimed that Darwinian unguided evolution, which was taught in school, made him believe humans were insignificant animals.
Thanking his father who was present during the interview, Dahmer thanked his dad for sending him scientific material on theism. He said: ‘I always believed the lie that evolution is truth, the theory of evolution is truth, that we all just came from the slime, and when we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing – so the whole theory cheapens life. I started reading books that show how evolution is just a complete lie. There’s no basis in science to uphold it. And I’ve since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true Creator of the heavens and the earth, that it didn’t just happen. I’ve accepted him as my Lord and Saviour, and I believe that I, as well as everyone else will be accountable to him. . . . If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point in trying to modify your behaviour to keep it in acceptable ranges?’[1]
[1] ‘Remember serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer? Darwinism played a role in his crimes too’, Uncommon Descent website, June 28, 2012.
One thinks of the role Darwinism played as a motivator in the Columbine murders as well. As a theory in science, it seems uniquely able to captivate violent people.
Has anyone ever founded a children’s hospital or an old age home for the poor on behalf of Darwinism?
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See also: Remember serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer? Darwinism played a role in his crimes too. Many may remember serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994), who killed and mutilated at least 17 men and boys and was killed in prison by a fellow inmate. Less well known is the struggle he had (or claims to have had) over the issue of unguided evolution, whose most popular form is Darwinism. (2012)
and
Theodore Dalrymple and Ken Francis on the terror of a materialist atheist’s existence
17 Responses to Terror of Existence: Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer loved, then loathed, Darwinism
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The whole point of Darwin’s theory is that Christian society’s support for the handicapped and weak is bad. It is a sophisticated attempt to discredit Christian Victorian morality (and justify slavery). It’s purely rationalized selfishness.
However, it seems like it takes a much stronger society to take care of the weak than to discard the weak. Strength is demonstrated by an excess of care. Hard to see bullying as a sign of strength.
Was Dahmer a psychopath before he learned about evolution in school or is the claim that the theory turned him into one? If it is being claimed that studying evolution turns people into psychopathic killers then we should see a much higher incidence of such behavior amongst evolutionary biologists. Is that is what we see in fact?
On the other hand, if Dahmer was already a psychopath but simply seized on “Darwinism” as a later justification for his murderous tendencies then how is evolution in any way to blame for what he did?
And we can ask exactly the same questions about the Columbine murders.
You mean something like the Christian-run boarding schools for Native American children?
No there are no children’s hospitals or old age homes founded for the poor on behalf of Darwinism or Newtonian mechanics or relativity theory or quantum mechanics. It’s a silly question. Those theories are about science not about human morality or ethics.
As for:
Are Christians saying that they only do what their Lord tells them is good, not because it is the right thing to do, but because they will be made to suffer if they don’t? In other words, they would have no way of knowing what is right or wrong unless their God told them?
On the other hand, if this life is the only one we have or ever will have then doesn’t the fact that it is unique mean it should be treasured and preserved for as long as is possible above all things? Far from simply throwing it away as worthless, shouldn’t we be making the best of it while we have it?
EricMH @ 1
No, it was not the whole point of Darwin’s theory.
Yes, as we all know, he wrote in Descent
But then we also know that he wrote subsequently:
Do you think Darwin was unaware that his theory was descriptive rather than prescriptive?
@Seversky, Description becomes prescription.
In that case according to gravity you should knock your computer to the ground.
@goodusername, which is a good indication that something more than gravity is at work in our world. Same with Darwinism. Since we do not logically follow through with his description that means his description is at least significantly incomplete. This was pointed out by the atheist David Stove in his entertaining and lucid book Darwinian Fairytales.
Seversky,
>…if this life is the only one we have or ever will have then doesn’t the fact that it is unique mean it should be treasured and preserved for as long as is possible above all things?
Different people seem to take this to different logical conclusions. Some take materialism to imply life is important, which mostly works itself out as being as selfish as possible–while not totally destroying the society around them–since that would ruin the fun. AKA hedonism.
Others seem to take it to mean that _other_ people’s lives are essentially worthless, as Dahmer did.
Seversky states:
And yet, contrary to Seversky’s belief that atheists are no more psychopathic than the majority of people who do believe in God, there are actually studies that show that people who do not believe in a God and/or a soul are more anti-social (psychopathic) than people who do believe in a soul:
Moreover, although atheists like to claim that they are just as moral as Christians, the fact of the matter is that, when the rubber meets the road to actually helping people in need, atheists by and large could care less for their fellow man:
In fact, atheism and/or Darwinism lay at the root of the greatest slaughters of mankind:
Seversky then claims:
Don’t confuse the pseudoscientific myth of Darwinian evolution with the testable and falsifiable sciences of Newtonian mechanics, relativity theory and quantum mechanics:
Moreover, unlike Darwin who sought to undermine belief in God, Newton considered his work to be, pretty much, a powerful apologetic for the existence of God:
Moreover, if anything is incompatible with the reductive materialistic foundation that undergirds Darwinian thought it is quantum theory.
Shoot, quantum theory even gives us powerful physical evidence for a transcendent soul that is capable of living past the death of our material bodies.
In the following video, entitled Quantum Entangled Consciousness, Stuart Hameroff states that ‘it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul’.
Moreover, both special and general relativity confirm Christian presuppositions about the structure of the universe. Namely of there being a higher heavenly dimension, as well as a hellish dimension, that exist in a higher dimension above and below this temporal realm that we currently live in:
Thus for Seversky to try to lump his pseudoscientific atheistic religion of Darwinian evolution with the rigid sciences of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, which both strongly support Christian presuppositions, is simply an insult to the Christian founders of modern science as well as being completely disingenuous to what the science actually says.
Seversky then states:
Seversky is trying very hard to ignore the Nihilistic elephant in the room by ‘inventing meaning’ for his life.
The fact of the matter is that if atheism is true then life is absurd and meaningless. Nothing we do really matters. Life, despite of ‘special’ we may want to imagine it to be, is simply pointless.
As the bible itself says in many paces, Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. i.e. take your mind off your impending nonexistence.
And indeed, the hopeless nihilism inherent within atheism takes a fairly significant toll on the atheist’s physical and mental health.
As Professor Andrew Sims, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, states, “The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally.”,,, “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life;,,”
In fact, in the following study it was found that, “those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%.”
Thus, it is readily apparent that the Atheist’s attempt to create illusory meaning and purposes for his life, minus belief in God and a afterlife, falls short in a rather dramatic fashion on both the mental and physical level.
Moreover, there are many lines of scientific evidence from modern science that can be brought forth that show that our lives are indeed objectively meaningful and that God, besides existing, really does care for each of us individually:
Thus Seversky, although he will never admit to the truth, has once again completely missed the boat with his post.
Shoot, he has completely missed the the greatest gift that any man can possibly receive. Namely eternal life with God.
Verse
ToE has inspired other school shootings: https://www.harun-yahya.net/en/Articles/159216/the-role-of-the-theory
Yes, electromagnatism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
Oh, and stupidity.
The primary, overriding, claim of atheism is that there is no objective meaning or purpose behind the universe in general or behind our own individual lives in particular.
For one example out on many, Dawkins claims that we live in a universe of ‘pitiless indifference’:
Thus for Seversky to claim, on the one hand, that atheism is true and that therefore there is no objective meaning or purpose behind the universe in general or behind our own individual lives in particular, and yet on the other hand, as he did at the end of post 2, claim that our lives are not ‘worthless’, is, in fact, as Dr. Craig points out, an exercise in self delusion.
Thus, Seversky’s claim that atheism is true and yet that our lives can still be meaningful is a direct contradiction in logic that can only be tolerated by a large dose of self delusion on the atheist’s part.
Moreover, as you can see from the preceding quote that I referenced from Dawkins, Dawkins based his claim that our lives are meaningless and that we live in a universe of ‘pitiless indifference’ on the ‘argument from evil’.
This argument from evil that atheists use to try to argue that the universe, and our live, are meaningless, is far from uncommon.
In fact, Atheists are heavily reliant on the argument from evil.
Darwin used the argument from evil in the ‘Origin of Species’,,,
And even today the knee jerk reaction of many supposedly intellectual atheists, that we live in a ‘seemingly meaningless world’, is not based on any scientific evidence but is based upon the, theologically based, argument from evil.
The problem with the argument from evil for atheists is the fact that the argument from evil itself presupposes the existence of objective morality and thus presupposes the existence of God.
Specifically, in the argument from evil atheists hold that “There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good.”
And yet this is, once again, a self defeating position for the atheist to be in.
Specifically on the one hand, Atheistic materialists hold that morality is subjective and illusory.
And yet on the other hand, as David Wood puts it in the following article, “By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil.”
Thus the atheist’s main argument that we live in a ‘seemingly meaningless world’, i.e. the argument from evil, actually presupposes the existence of objective morality and therefore presupposes the existence of God and therefore, in the end, actually presupposes that we live in a meaningful world.
As CS Lewis has noted, ANY argument that tries to argue that the universe is meaningless must necessarily presuppose the existence of meaning in order for the atheist to be able to make his argument in the first place, and therefore ANY argument an atheist may try to use to argue for a meaningless universe is self-refuting in its basic presuppositions.
Specifically, C S Lewis stated:
Moreover, besides Christians using the atheist’s own self-refuting argument from evil against the atheist to prove that we do indeed live in a meaningful world, the Christian Theist can, as was mentioned previously, also appeal to numerous lines of scientific evidence to prove that we live in a meaningful world.
Perhaps the most direct piece of scientific evidence that each of of our lives have intrinsic meaning and purpose in this universe comes from the fact that life itself is now found to be based, not on matter and energy, or on ‘merely complex chemistry’, as many Darwinian materialists have claimed in the past, but is instead based on immaterial information.
As Stephen Talbott states in the following article which happens to be entitled “How Biologists Lost Sight Of The Meaning Of Life And Are Now Staring It In The Face”, “A given cell, typically contains more than a billion protein molecules at any one time. ,,, “The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells.,,, And then we hear that all this meaningful activity is, somehow, meaningless or a product of meaninglessness. This, I believe, is the real issue troubling the majority of the American populace when they are asked about their belief in evolution. They see one thing and then are told, more or less directly, that they are really seeing its denial. Yet no one has ever explained to them how you get meaning from meaninglessness — a difficult enough task once you realize that we cannot articulate any knowledge of the world at all except in the language of meaning.,,,”
In the following article, Talbott goes further and reveals that this overwhelming impression of meaning and purpose that is found in life is closely associated with there being immaterial information in life while an organism is alive.
Specifically, Talbott states that at the moment of a organism’s death “Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary.”
And yet this immaterial information, that Talbott refers to, that is keeping an organism alive “precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer” also provides empirical evidence for a transcendent soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our temporal, material, bodies.
These following two videos go over some of that evidence.
Simply put, quantum information, (which is now found to be pervasive within molecular biology and of which classical information is now found to be a subset), is ‘conserved’. Which means, unlike classical information, that quantum information cannot be destroyed,,,
The implication of this is fairly straightforward, as Stuart Hameroff states in the following video, ‘But the quantum information,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul’.
Thus ‘immaterial quantum information’, that is now found to be pervasive within molecular biology, provides empirical evidence strongly suggesting that each of us do indeed have a immortal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our temporal, material, bodies.
And thus also provides empirical evidence strongly supporting the Christian’s claim that each of our lives do indeed have, very deep, intrinsic meaning and purpose.
Moreover, the atheistic presupposition that the universe and our lives do not have any objective meaning or purpose behind them, by undermining teleology, undermines science itself.
Simply put, without presupposing purpose, and or teleology on a deep fundamental level, modern science simply would never have been possible.
In fact, the ‘knee jerk’ reaction of atheists themselves is to see the universe as being purposely designed. i.e. is to presuppose goal directed teleology
In fact, studies have now shown that atheists have to mentally work suppressing their own “knee jerk” reaction as to seeing purpose behind the universe:
In other words, it is not that Atheists do not see purpose and/or Design in nature, it is that Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, live in denial of the purpose and/or Design that they themselves see in nature.
Here is a particularly crystal clear example of an atheist suppressing his innate design inference:
Also off note: Denialism is considered a fairly serious mental illness:
Thus to conclude, I hold the preceding studies of atheists suppressing their innate ability to see design and purpose in nature to be confirming evidence for Romans 1:19-20
Seversky asks:
How would evolution NOT be to blame?
EricMH @ 4
In terms of moral prescription, which is what we are basically talking about, only if you make an impermissible leap across the is/ought gap.
William J Murray @ 15
If your intelligent designer existed then he, she or it would be to blame?
Besides, in what sense can a natural process be to blame for anything in the sense of acting with malice aforethought? Are you going to arrest the lightning bolt that accidentally kills a golfer and charge it with negligent homicide?