Ted Bundy - Existentialist Hero
In I Corinthians 15:32, Paul says:
If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
Here, Paul makes the argument that if there is no resurrection of the dead, what does this life matter anyway? Another way of putting it would be, “If there is no resurrection, why shouldn’t I do as I “dang” please and who am I to care who gets hurt in the process?” Ted Bundy was actually one man who was intellectually honest enough to live out Paul’s argument, the doctrine that most philosophy professors only talk about.
Bundy was eventually executed for killing several women. In the investigation of one of the murders, investigators found a conversation that Bundy had taped with one of his victims just before he killed her (Laura - not her real name).
Laura: Where have you taken me, Ted?
Ted: To a place where no one can follow us - or find you - at least not until long after I have disappeared - and you are dead.
Laura: What do you mean?
Ted: What I mean is that I intend to rape and murder you.
Laura: Oh, my God, my God, why?
Ted: Because, my dear, it will give me the greatest possible pleasure to do so.
Laura: Please, please, spare me. Send for ransom, ask anything. I know my parents and their families and friends will do anything to save my life.
Ted: But you fail to understand me. I don’t want any ransom, or anything from anyone else. It is raping and murdering you that I want, and nothing can substitute for it. By the way, unless I have lost count, you will be the 89th young woman - person I should say - who has been good enough to gratify me in this way. Believe it or not, I am very grateful to my victims - although I do not think of them as victims, but rather as those making the sacrifices necessary for my freedom - the freedom to live my life the way I choose to live it. Nations praise those who sacrifice their lives for the freedom of others, as you will shortly be doing. I would be glad to erect a monument to your memory - adn to that of all the others, past and future, who have made and will make the same sacrifice - although I do not think it is practicable for me to try to do so.
Laura: But Ted, how can you possibly call raping and murdering “your freedom?” What about my life and my freedom?
Ted: I recognize that your life and your freedom are very valuable to you, but you must recognize that they are not so valuable to me. And if I must sacrifice your life and freedom to mine, why should I not do so? The unexamined life was not worth living to Socrates. And a life without raping and murdering is not worth living to me. What right do you - or does anyone have, to deny this to me?
In my next blog, Ted deals with the question, “But rape and murder are wrong. The Bible says they are wrong, and the law says they are wrong.”