https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/a-hint-from-evil-to-god.html<\/a>):<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A second answer that comes from an older source, namely all the myths, just about all the myths of all the cultures of the world, is that something happened way back when before history. \u00a0Things aren\u2019t supposed to be like this. \u00a0Once upon a time, Adam and Eve ate an apple. \u00a0Once upon a time, Pandora opened a box. \u00a0Once upon a time, the magic bird that was supposed to drop the magic berry of heavenly happiness into the mouth of primal man fell in love with himself and swallowed the berry.<\/span><\/p>\nThere are various versions of the story, but it is astonishing how almost every culture has some myth of paradise lost. \u00a0Now, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s true, but it does mean that it\u2019s in the collective unconscious, and to say that there\u2019s no truth in it at all is to be a snob. \u00a0This is my fundamental argument against atheism, by the way. \u00a0If atheism is true, then the incredibly small minority of human beings \u2014 most of which are concentrated in our uprooted society \u2014 are the only ones who are wise, and everyone else is living their lives with a fundamental illusion at the center, exactly like Jimmy Stewart in Harvey<\/em>. \u00a0He believes in this thirteen-foot-high, invisible rabbit, even though he\u2019s in his forties. \u00a0That\u2019s a pretty grim view of humanity. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t prove anything, but at least it ought to give you a bit of pause.<\/span><\/p>\nThis universal myth that our present situation is unnatural seems to correspond to our present psychological data, that is, we all have a lover\u2019s quarrel with the world. \u00a0We can\u2019t obey the advice of our pop psychologists to accept ourselves as we are and accept the world as it is. \u00a0We just can\u2019t do it, if we\u2019re human. \u00a0Animals can. \u00a0There is a perfect ecological relationship between the animals\u2019 instinctive desires and their environment. \u00a0What they want they can get, but there is one thing we want that nobody in the world has ever gotten: complete happiness. \u00a0It\u2019s our glory that we can rise to the dignity of despair. \u00a0Thus, a nihilistic existentialist like Nietzsche is nobler than a nice pop psychologist. \u00a0He rises to this dignity of despair. \u00a0(50-51)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Eric Metaxas, Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Conversations from Socrates in the City (New York: Plume\/Penguin, 2011) includes, among others, a transcript of a 23 January 2003 New York City speech by the philosopher Peter Kreeft, of Boston College. \u00a0One of the tasks that Professor Kreeft undertakes is to set forth six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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