To christians

My experience corroborates what Pezer suggests – that they are acutely aware of his existence, and perceive him as a threat.

If Christians perceive N as a nihilist this is not entirely unfounded, since in order to arrive from Christianity at Nietzschean thought, one has to pass through a phase of honest nihilism. Christianity, as N perceives it, is based on the worship of nothingness, of the not-this, but it does so with the help of very human images – the Christ on the cross is basically an erotic symbol, a Greek statue in a rather perverted pose. For the purer Christians there has always been the Mary-cultus. In the more healthy periods and cultures of Christianity, the divine-fertility-cultus has been an esoteric superior to the culture around the crucified. This is expressed in the more accomplished architecture (“freemasonry”) of the Christian era, (of course all cathedrals have vaginas as entrances), and most explicitly that I know of in this building:

The Palais des Papes in Avignon, where for a period of time certain alternatively inclined popes were housing, and which has at its peak a large golden statue of Mary overlooking from above a crucified Jesus made of humble stone.

I digress, what I mean to say is that what Nietzsche called nihilism was certainly a general motive within the larger body of Christianity, but should not automatically be taken as a definition for the entire religion and all of its artists. That would be a bit too simplistic.

Indeed, indeed!

A very enlightening comment on the fluctuations of christianity, certainly I have noticed that Mary is much more important in the Third World than the developped countries.

Let me give you this beautiful piece of Nietzschean antichristism:

The nihilism in christianity is dressed in imaginary realities.

That is why he speaks of a synthesis of Apollonian and Dionysian elements.

I think he has a point I think you need to read some Nietzsche, saying he was all about power no matter what is an erroneous accusation. Sure some people chose to interpret it that way, but they hadn’t really understood his philosophy. Whilst I don’t think he was the best philosopher of all time, I do think he was ahead of his time. As others have said though your supposition is outrageously simplistic.

Right, what I meant is that it shouldn’t be an active process where you logically decide to do some shit. Logic and comprehension is only a tool to help you realize how to behave naturally/optimally. The Dionysian doesnt need to be synthesized because it automatically comes into itself through unbiased observation.

Nietzsche doesn’t realize this because he is unethical and would probably think that killing a million babies would be an end to justify the means or some shit. :banana-dance:

But that’s what it essentially comes down to. Most people wouldn’t admit it because they are too busy getting their cheap highs off the power trip of reading his books to bother with the minutiae, or they have their own personal vested interests and biases.

Self-wanking and arrogance at it’s best, Adolf Hitler at it’s worst.

I read this a number of times and every time I thought I knew what you were talking about I realized I didn’t.

So far it appears everyone is concentrating on the discussion of Nietzsche.

Christianity is a diverse collection of religions factions, with a general tenant that salvation (going to heaven) is obtained by accepting jesus christ as savior, usually phrased The Lord Jesus Christ.

As a religious collection the lot are absolutists. Black & White. Thus if you haven’t accepted jesus christ as your personal savior then you are pretty much heading for a long sabbatical in a real hot place. For the most part there are just the two domains. If you don’t end up in one through personal choice, by default you end up in the other with the resulting moral consequence as well. Heaven = good, all else, evil = hell.

Some Christians sects have further divided hell into two domains purgatory and hell proper. It’s just not so hot in purgatory, and there you will find those folks, that due to life circumstance didn’t have the opportunity to make the choice. As a result of the requirement of it being a personal choice, Christianity had to spread the word, to insure that as many people were aware of the choice and purgatory did not become over populated. Property values must be a lot higher in purgatory and therefore it boils down to a matter of a cost effective solution.

It really doesn’t matter, from the standpoint of doctrine, what individual Christians believe regarding the assignment of a moral domain.

Curious, why you believe their opinion makes any difference. They could correctly or incorrectly assign the label ‘evil’ to another and it wouldn’t matter. Evil doers make it to heaven all the time. All they have to do is accept jesus as their savior and their “sins” are absolved (forgiven). Slate wiped clean no longer evil and sitting pretty in heaven. It’s not like a democracy where everyone gets together in the end and votes whether this person was evil and that person wasn’t. Unfortunately it does seem to have some impact here on earth.

I have been making an effort to separate myself from this line of thinking, that is mostly the reason. I want to observe, not dictate. You yourself are an object of christiandom (as am I, I think you get the picture), and I thank that that very fact calls attention to christianity.

It is not a cult among other cults, it is the cult to end all cults.

If you are what I call a “nietzschean,” then try to think :tools-wrench:beyond good and evil.

First of all, your question was loaded, it should have been perhaps " . . . why you care what they think." Nietzsche himself cared enough to write a book and a half on it.

Good point, that is another way of phrasing the question with less ‘load’.

Of benefit or detriment would be labels I tend to use, evil, in a devilish sense doesn’t exist. Good luck with any effort to convince a Christian that a devil isn’t ‘real’.

Thanks that’s what I was going for. O:)

Thats actually not the official position of most branches. O:)

If I were all that curious my comment would not have been so generalized.

“The foundation of Christian theology is expressed in the early Christian ecumenical creeds which contain claims predominantly accepted by followers of the Christian faith.[14] These professions state that Jesus suffered, died, was buried, and was resurrected from the dead in order to grant eternal life to those who believe in him and trust him for the remission of their sins (salvation).” (1.)

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in hell, they believe in the souls annihilation for unbelievers. Big difference?

So yeah I was overly flippant and general in the statements.

If you care to provide examples of the variations. As you please.

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

Evil? Well, yes and no. We have many approaches to the definition of evil. The soul isn’t inherently evil and evil can be demarcated in terms of magnitude, such as Hitler was way fucking worst in killing than say, a person killing just one person, though that one person might of put way more effort into directly killing someone than Hitler ever did. It’s a means and a effort different, and can’t be measured only in magnitude. The Quotent Basin is considerably deeper in Sin than in Nietzsche’s theology, for sin’s assumed grammatical basis, in the capacity of Adam and Eve to name Nouns as the core of their job in the Garden PRIOR TO GOOD AND EVIL (therefor Nouns are not inherently part of the grammatical synthesis of what is evil, therefor is evil a what?), and yet we Christians since the early times have noted sin to be more numerous than all the grains of sands in all the beaches of the world. This puts it in a odd place against concepts such as Archimedes’ Sand Reckoner as to the concept of Universals to the Anatomy of the Soul.

Many people viewed the soul differently, some it was the body, others a part of the mind, others transcendental. Some views since very, very, very early times the old testament as allegorical, others as variants of reality to absolute truth. It’s damn hard to narrow down what is Evil, and who is Evil. It’s not exactly a flaw of Christianity, but rather, a very logical result of it’s central logic… we’re not the judders of evil, and are not always in a position to judge the good for that matter. We’re not the judders on judgment day, but rather, must make the case for ourselves out of our own life’s actions at death before a all knowing God. It’s a process of self critical EVALUATION, and not a escape into values and it’s eventual degradation and overthrow which since the first books of the bible we’ve always been in a dialectic synthesis of acceptance and overthrowing.

It needs to be recognized… and Cezar… pay attention here, it answers the question you asked on the Kyklos cycle… it needs to be recognized Nietzsche wasn’t rebelling against Christianity but rather certain thinkers like Spinoza in his ‘Theological-political’ tract as well as his ‘political track’, Spencer, and Marsilius of Padua. His methodologies are predominately from WITHIN Christianity’s arsenal, and hardly overtakes it- they evolved infra-factional and not from without to exterminate, and it’s why there are no independent Nietzschean movements… it’s always a reaction TO Christianity of some sort… even in places where there is no Christianity such as Japan where they substitute something such as liberalism or conservatism in that culture and attack it as if it was a Christian synthesis.

This has been observed before: ia600306.us.archive.org/20/items … n_64kb.mp3

It’s one of the funniest Christian’s reactions to Nietzsche I’ve heard, and many Christians who are knowledgeable of Philosophy- which still quite outnumber the atheists interested in Philosophy due to our greater history and ethic to it do offer in some point a similarity to his critique.

I myself share some of it, as I do can’t help but notice Nietzsche didn’t really manage to do squat in overturning Christianity but rather recent enemies of it. His methodologies, such as the genealogical approach, is strongly Christ in and of itself with a long and ancient history to it, and can be pushed back on his deliciously if I ever become bored and twisted enough to do that. But I won’t. Nietzsche the man was pathetic, and he knew he was. He was sick, and grasped out honestly at things he thought would make him healthy again. Evolution was even more poorly understood in the post-Hegelian, dawning Darwinian era Nietzsche lived in, he knew his lineage, and it made as much sense as anything else to hit his own lineage and racial politics as to why he was sick, why bad, unhealthy things came into the world.

I just don’t care to attack Nietzsche’s understanding of theology, as he’s reacting a bit too much to Spinoza, and Spinoza, though he influenced me in my understanding of cultural and divinatory laws just as he did Nietzsche, isn’t a good basis for my own history… I’m not a heretical Jew trying to make sense of shit in a christian reformation. He’s closely related enough to cause me to look and study him, agree and disagree, but not enough to be driven to expound upon him and smite him. So much of Nietzscheanism is a reaction to his lesser known works. We hear Nietzsche reacting to spinoza, we think the tracatus… so much more so his other barely read works! To understand the twentieth century, one must go back and study his reaction to these works.

A Nietzschean can never escape the cross. Nietzsche never did. Truly, by default, he never did- he’s buried in the church of his forefathers. His last work, he opened up enough to contemplate and consider it- though even then he was a mixed pagan heretic… but honest.

I suspect if he thought he was honest, and it appears he thought as much, he might of made it to heaven. However, his theology appears to of been blantant evil… I do not know how else to describe the Nazis Reich of Artists Furthers leading the evolution of supermen as being anything other than pure Nietzschean. The eugenics movement, and the killings I saw in Iraq, have root legitimacy (though not root motivation) in Nietzsche. The premature abolition of corporal punishments in the late 19th century due to Nietzsche’s writings targeting the upper political class to preemptively abolish it on principle is now degrading- it’s not as easy saying it’s as wrong to water board someone as to torture someone classically, it’s not as easy to say solitary confinement is as bad as the rack- now the unearned principle is unraveling via it’s negation in parts, and is being submitted to a legal genealogy. We’re going to be left with a long term acceptance of torture, instead of a bottom up rejection of it. This is a sin that will hunt us for generations LONG after it should of naturally died off. It’s much harder to expunge such ways of thinking via this method once they inevitably reemerge, as it’s not really seated in the morals of the people, but the cultural logic in precedent at that time that can be atomized and divided into countless parts. Any revolutionary change worthwhile must be found in the deepest level of the soul of the body politick and appreciated there. Education can’t turn this form of bias, and even the most clever of lies can’t cover the complexity of it naturally evolving and seeping in from every direction. It’s why a American can appreciate a life and death fight for democracy but are leary of enforced democracies handed down to by a departing king or enforced upon a population by fiat in war such as WW2. Libya wouldn’t ever have a chance of lasting if it wasn’t deeply felt, and earned with setbacks. All Mexico has is a thin Sixth of May. Canada doesn’t have shit… they were informed one morning they were independent, and no one quite knew how to take it.

Nietzscheanism is going to continue on as a Christian heresy for generations. It influenced Le Vay’s Satanism, which branched off into Ecclesiastical Gnosticism that came back to forms of Christian and Johnanite gnostic theology, and some are coming back into mainstream christianity. I suspect many will do similar things over time, and Christianity will in time largely absorb him.

Nietzsche may of been honest in his self interest in rejecting Christianity in part (accepting it in the Spinoza sense though- he never broke from that) but his disease was clearly by overwhelming default Nihilism. It is central to Nietzsche, there is no reason to focus so hard on it if it wasn’t for the fact he was suicidal, and now philosophy is dominated by people who are focused on NOT finding a reason to kill themselves. I think this is asinine in the extreme, and want nothing to do with this nihilism. I don’t care to juxtaposition my philosophy on finding ways to not off myself. I don’t walk around thinking about ending it all. Now, this superman superstition… as superstitious and absurd as any primitive superstition… is a direct evolution of it contemplating evolution. We have a entire generation of Nihilist aping philosophical terminology looking for a future messiah that will pass their useless asses up and triumph over their useless lives… and they then lay claim to the christian doctrine of eternal return as a way of legitimizing themselves in the process! They themselves as they are now in the moment isn’t directly considered unless in relationship to the myth of a superman or the possibility of this becoming again. They can’t accept themselves, they have to always abstract a excuse for themselves. It enforces useless feedback loops to evaluation, and places a system of awkward values in place over them. Nietzsche assumed future Nietzscheans would naturally follow after Spinoza’s Universal Moral law of Jesus… but the dipshit forgot to tell them of even this aspect outright in giving reason to reject religious forms and the priesthood… it’s the lacuna in his thought that his morality is structured around, and it’s not even seen anymore in the present day! Cause no one reads Spinoza outside of his main work save for people like myself interested in Statecraft, which Nietzsche has a clear, budding interest in (to the point of even making a outline of a book modeled off of classical themes from it)

It’s just a whole lotta bullshit and silliness. We’ve lost millions upon millions of people because of him to war. However, as God never said HOW he judges, be it a Radamathine or Natural Law methodology… I can’t say where he is, or if the places given… such as Hell, are as it is said to be- The Nouns of Adam, apply to the verbs we know post Eden. I have a great degree of skeptical indifference to this, as it’s not the root of my concerns. My worries are my own conduct, and my own actions. The other stuff comes as it comes with or without me, but I must do as I must do, to the best of my abilities.

Nietzsche wasn’t that great of a philosopher in the first place. Nihilism isn’t the best method to attack Christianity… as Christians are not Nihilist by default, Nietzscheans are. It’s been done better by others.

This is the understanding of Nietzsche one gets when hearing about Nietzsche second-hand from people who have horribly misunderstood his works.

Hitler indeed. :slight_smile:

Never really quite understood the whole idea that Nietzsche was what he wasn’t, but then I have read some of his works: first hand, as you say it does help. The guy wasn’t that big an asshole. :slight_smile:

Read first then judge, also sprach some guy who actually bothered to read the material. Product of his times, even if he was ahead of them, the first existentialist some say, well I disagree with that assumption, but he certainly was the first person to take a lot of other peoples works and make a coherent attack on faith. Now a days we all attack faith it’s easy, hell few people I know are religious, but at least give the guy credit for being in a wholly religious environment and attacking something that he knew would be troublesome, to say the least.

Contra-Nazi: by the way you put far too much stock in people who interpret Nietzsche and far to little stock in Nietzsche himself. I agree some of his works are easy to make into dogma for idiots and fascists, but then we can say the same of The Bible.

What…is Nietzscheanism? It sounds like you’re suggesting that Nietzsche’s entire body of work is first and foremost in opposition to Christianity…

NIETZSCHE IS . . . CHRISTIAN HERESAY. I can see the movie now. But no, there’s a lot more to Nietzsche than whatever unpleasant (but insightful) things he’s said about Christianity.

Nihilism was not invented by Nietzsche. It was his term (I don’t even think he was the first to use it) for a complex phenomena he observed during his time and in a future he envisioned.

This doesn’t make sense to me at all. Are you saying Nietzsche was suicidal and that this fact of his psychology is echoed in his philosophy? That’s an unusual claim I’ve never heard before. What makes you think this?

Are you saying Nietzsche is responsible for Hitler…?

This is just absurd… You think Nietzsche strove to overturn Christianity? You think that is the legacy he was trying to accomplish?

Yes, it’s clearly the legacy he was trying for. If you missed that, then you gotta go back and read. If you can’t read and require a audioversion, give me a heads up. No excuse for not picking up on this one.

Anyway, this is a thread for Pezer in relation to a question, not for Nietzscheans crying and defending a mythology built up since WW2 that has nothing to do with Pezer’s question- he’s asking OUT bias and what we think. I’m more than willing to talk about it elsewhere… I don’t exactly hide my stance and am more than approachable on this. And believe it or not, I am just a tad, tiny bit read up on him. Just a little. Wee bit. Small. So I might not act as retardedly as the dipshits academics like to handpick for debates so they can lord it over their students afterwards. Shit’s not gonna go by the normal script with me. But this thread will continue by it’s script. Post your shock at someone not gleefully going along with your worldview, excuses, and rebuttals elsewhere. I’m not exactly hard to find on this site.

Definetly. Nietzsche strove, above all else, to re-evaluate all the values of Europe. This is exactly the same as saying he strove to overturn Christianity.

On the contrary - the more I read and understand Neitzsche, the more I come to realize that Im pretty sure he had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

Particularly in relation to ancient greek philosophy and poetry dramatus. You have to basically read and thoroughly comprehend greek philosophy and poetry to really come to a truely foundational grasp of this. O:)

His philosophy is so crippled by his bitter resentment of basic morality that he tends to relate virtually anything - even irrelevant aspects of philosophy back to some sort of pseudo-scientific attack on classical morality. The agenda is about as clear as day when you basically interpret the substratum of ideas that are being worked with. The problem is brainwashed fools who refuse to accept that shit maybe is black and white like it appears.

He is still a slave, moreso than the people he generally reprimands, just like people are slaves to the bullshit and hypocrisy they own up to and own of their own acceptance.

Okay, maybe that’s true to some extent. Obviously Nietzsche had great dislike for Christianity as a system of morality, that’s clear, but it seems disingenuous to make out Nietzsche’s entire philosophy as merely a bitter reaction to Christianity. That’s just such a narrow and selective reading of N. in my opinion.

I haven’t read all Nietzsche’s major works, but I think I’ve read enough to call out an unfaithful representation of the spirit of his philosophy. I wouldn’t call Nietzsche an atheist or a nihilist or an existentialist or heretic first, I would call him a philosopher for the future of mankind first and foremost.

Also, I can easily see how N.'s ideas about the übermensch and will to power can be construed in support of or perhaps as forerunner to Nazi ideology, however I cannot to the best of my ability see how N.'s ideas have any more in common with Nazism than a few unexamined ripples on the surface. I still have a lot more to read, but right now for lack of a direct counter argument I will just say that I am not following Contra-Nietzsche’s narrative at all.

When we say that he strove to overturn Christianity, why does it lead you to assume that we would also calim him to have hated it or been acting out of bitterness?

He was less of a philosopher than the philosophers he critiqued. Philosophy itself, other than original Greek philosophy, has been only footnotes to Christian theology. Once you grasp the overreaching power and influence of Christianity in European history, you begin to grasp why a person of Nietzsche’s caliber would become increasingly obssessed with waging war against it.

As for the Nazi thing, no serious person lends the link any credence. Politicians have been exploiting philosopher’s ideas since time immemorial (and will continue to do so until the end of silly politics).