>2016
>not going beyond good and evil
>not looking at why people believe what they believe rather than the appeal of the idea
>not destroying old idols
>not philosophizing with a hammer
>not accepting God's dead
>not reminding 4chan Christposters that they only see God's shadow, and we're in the thousands year long process of casting light on it
>not being thrilled at the thought of sailing open seas
>not being this fucking based
God is dead fellas.
Zoroaster > Jesus
Fakers can't even comprehend the original
>christfag threads blow up
>nietzsche threads get ignored
typical echo chamber autists
>>672599
Nietzsche has a horrible aftertaste.
"God is not real and moral nihilism is acceptable"
>>672611
>God is not real and moral nihilism is acceptable
Except Nietzsche said neither of these things.
>>672623
So the phrase God is dead literally means that Nietzsche saw the ending of one paradigms influence and the beginning of another paradigms influence. If you read The Genealogy of Morality by Nietzsche you would understand that he viewed morality as surmounted, something controllable for the detriment of mankind and his 'totem morality' concept meant that there shouod be a confluence of human wills ON morality, instead of morality being exercised on human wills.
Kierkegaard would state that he is making an error by not developing a positive unity between body and soul, and instead developing a negative unity between them, by asserting human beings are exercised on by morality. He also alludes to the fact that morality was somehow 'surmounted' by Jews, not by God with a divine purpose, but as a collective tribe to influence herd morality.
>Yfw you realize Gott ist tot
>>672638
>So the phrase God is dead literally means that Nietzsche saw the ending of one paradigms influence and the beginning of another paradigms influence.
No, it means he saw the ending of paradigms in general
>>672670
That's not entirely true either, he definitely thought that paradigms would somehow infinitesimally decrease in length to nothingness.
But of course, the only reason civilization was allowed to flourish in the first place was because of their belief in God. The waking masses have not understood this but that is why up until now all nations have been predominantly religious.
>>672719
>But of course, the only reason civilization was allowed to flourish in the first place was because of their belief in God.
Which god?
>implying Nietzsche would want you edgy dickheads quoting his work.
>implying he didn't see paganism as a way to empower the modern European man
>implying he didn't think nihilism, cynics, and skepticism wasn't dumb as fuck
Its almost like no one actual reads his fucking works. Its a shame edgy atheist have reduced him to a meme because le God is dead.
>>672723
The one true God.
Yahweh, Allah, the one who has made himself manifest to those who listen.
>>672795
The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Mesopotamians, Chinese and Mayans were monotheists?
>>672638
nietche did not invent ''god is dead'' by the way.
>>672809
Polytheism was chasing after what was true, but not yet revealed. Plato was closer to the essence of God in The Republic than Homer ever was.
>>672874
Doesn't matter, you claimed this:
>But of course, the only reason civilization was allowed to flourish in the first place was because of their belief in God.
That is demonstrably wrong. If anything, the invention of agriculture and people settling in cities has a whole lot more to do with civilization flourishing. Then again, proposing a singular, linear 'cause' is pretty dumb anyway and only shows your complete ignorance of the complexity of history
>>672890
What I am asserting is that God allowed these civilizations to flourish BECAUSE of their belief in God. The fall of the Greek/Roman empires actually probably could be attributed to their state of decadence and inability to accept a single God of worship.
But God is forgiving, wise.
>>672907
>What I am asserting is that God allowed these civilizations to flourish BECAUSE of their belief in God.
Yes, and I just demonstrated that that assertion is wrong, since the people that did make civilization flourish broke the very first of his commandments
>But God is wise.
And you're not, apparently
nietzsche is basically saying that the christian philosophy assimilated from their god is holding back the humans race and we should use a hierarchy to guide people. He suggests that there is no freedom in the world, only slaves and masters. i have only read beyond good and evil but this is what i gathered from it. >>672945
>>672890
>If anything, the invention of agriculture and people settling in cities has a whole lot more to do with civilization flourishing.
you do understand that those events are just consolidating hedonism ?
>>672611
>using real or not real in terms of God
Nietzsche would never do such a thing, and your description of his "moral nihilism" is absurd.
>>672984
Again, so what? It, the invention of written language, the recognition of the importance of rivers and the invention of tools in general by people who lived hundreds of thousands of years before the people who first developed civilization had more of an influence on its development than any ideology ever could have
>>672981
No he doesn't have anything against "Christianity" in it's parts, what he's against is it's establishment as the "only" way. TSZ defends the bible at times
>>673021
TSZ? I can't remember recall him defending christianity in Beyond good and evil. i can only remember him criticising the philosophies advocated by traditional christianity. i have most of his books of my shelf but I'm not sure what one i should read next.
nihilism = the clumsy attempt to hide degeneracy behind some silly ideas that history proved wrong
>>673067
If anyone one reading this takes away one thing they learned, ONE THING, it should be that Nietzsche wasn't a nihilist. He hated Nihilism, hate hate hated it, hated as much as a philosopher could hate anything. He didn't seek to destroy moral values, but recreate them.
The only thing that seemed to piss him off more was Antisemitism.
>>672638
>somehow 'surmounted' by Jews, not by God with a divine purpose, but as a collective tribe to influence herd morality
And he would have been correct. Why do so many philosophers struggle with the idea that God isn't the root of everything?
>>673012
Allow me to bring Spergler here, at risk of another 400 post /lit/ monarchists vs liberals thread. Disclaimer: I'm not the Christian you're replying to and I think the idea that all religious thought converges in God is naive Christian exceptionalism.
What you describe are material causes for civilization to occur, surely they were instrumental to civilization in a logistical sense because it couldn't have been achieved without them.
What I think he's arguing, and "finding Yahweh" aside I agree with, is that religion gives the members of that civilization a sense of purpose, which is also a logistical tool for civilization. I don't think anyone prior to Nietzsche thought of achievement for the sake of an intrinsic Will to Power, at least to their conscious thought. There was always a morality involved whether in the growth and health that Nietzsche sees in the ancient aristocratic Greek soul or in the 'slave morality'. A world of chaos and no ultimate, objective, logically definable meaning would have seemed like an aberration to most people, and that sort of nihilism is all but conductive to building tools of war and growth, to conquering enemies, to making societal structure and establishing value systems that justified structures (or structures that justified value systems, whichever way you may want to interpret it). Nihilism and the decadence into hedonism (seen, most notoriously, in late Rome) in the sense of simply satisfying the senses would seem to lead to losing interest in all these pursuits which civilizations undertake.
I think Nietzsche is brilliant in that he breaks with trying to rationally justify beauty, growth, music, aggression, etc. and the all too human obsession with whatever the metaphysical, unprovable universal truth is (which that Christian thread with a million posts keeps trying to do through sophistry and semantics, as theology does all the time) and instead wants to see humans be humans, aggressors, builders and predators.
>>673115
Because the idea of reality not having a beginning really shakes things up and makes it hard to say "you should do what makes me happy because X".
>>672599
he's not as memetastic as Stirner
>>673145
Top Tier post
have some art for your trouble, sir.
>>672734
>implying I'm that naive
>>673098
To friend Overbeck and wife.
Although you have so far demonstrated little faith in my ability to pay, I yet hope to demonstrate that I am somebody who pays his debts --- for example, to you. I am just having all anti-Semites shot.
Dionysus
>>672599
It's really frustrating to me how all the Nietzsche critique I've found in the modern day ranges from embarrassed silence to hesitant defensiveness to discrediting Nietzsche because of his neuroticism. I wish someone built upon him or even constructively refuted his ideas, but I've yet to see a good response in that sense.
>>672734
>implying he didn't see paganism as a way to empower the modern European man
Please cite source, I've read plenty of Nietzsche and never seen anything by him embracing paganism beyond his use of symbolism, Dionysus, etc. which is just that, symbolism and poetry (which he was brilliant at).
>implying he didn't think nihilism, cynics, and skepticism wasn't dumb as fuck
Cynics definitely, skepticism not at all. In The Antichrist he says: "Zarathustra is a skeptic... convictions are prisons"
>>672670
>No, it means he saw the ending of paradigms in general
No, certainly not.
>>672734
I guarantee I've read five times the amount of Nietzsche you have. Spamming "le tipper" memes at any sight of disdain for Christianity makes you closer to a fedora than anything we do.
>>672981
Can you cite where you believe Nietzsche says there is no freedom?
>>673058
Thus Spake Zarathustra. It's written in a quasi-biblical style and borrows much from the bible. Sometimes it agrees with the bible, sometimes it disagrees, sometimes it's entirely different. The major point being that, the "truths" we learned from Christianity are contingent, and we could just as easily have another "holy book" with different parables and messages.
>>673098
This.
>>673145
Yeah, this is pretty good. N definitely wants to "reset" our society and reconsider why we do things.
>>673399
>I wish someone built upon him or even constructively refuted his ideas, but I've yet to see a good response in that sense.
Heidegger is the best you're gonna get here.
>>673189
I prefer the letter where he apologizes for being God
>>673158
Stirner is a fucking fantastic philosopher. I just wish we could rewrite him leaving out egoism. The false understanding of Stirner as a naive egoist is where all the problems come from.
>>673399
Read MacIntyre's After Virtue.
>>671908
If you cast light on God's shadow, how does the shadow exist?
>>675307
There's a fuckload of caves with people chained up in them.
CHRISTIANITY
BTFO
>>673067
basically this except minus degeneracy
>have a dream about Nietzsche
>we're hiking in the Austrian mountains
>we're helping each other climb obstacles
>Nietzsche is explaining the nuances of several passages to me
>tfw have a few pages of notebooks containing my dream interpretation of Nietzsche
My favorite were his comments about the passage on guilt and witches. He said "Look closely at the wording. You participate in your own guilt. Only you make it complete. Understand this."
Thanks N
>>675278
The egoism is rather central to his writing.
>>672907
>tfw cant make out if anon is 12 or schizophrenic
>>676363
S's egoism doesn't mean, "hur hur be a selfish asshole :-)"
>>676185
If your dream were more accurate he'd be wheezing and having to take a rest every 5 minutes.
>>676394
Just christian :^)
>>677326
He used to go hiking frequently
Do you guys think Nietzsche would've had endearing mannerisms and ticks like Communist Hobo Man?
>>677370
>Allah (Swt) caused Rüm to collapse because of decadence.
Mashalla ta Akhki. 3fg6 wa ge77
You should really read Al-Ghazali tho.
>>677298
That's very true. He acknowledges that altruism, cooperation, and other social behaviours are absolutely vital to the pursuit of self interest, and would have flat out rejected the idea egoism as a moral imperative as the likes of Ayn Rand would have proposed as yet another spook. I agree with you in that he's an absolutely fantastic philosopher.
>>675294
I read Wikipedia synopsis, certainly not like reading a book at all but I wanted to see if it would spark my interest and make it worth the read, and, assuming it's accurate, I can't consider " Nietzsche neglects the role of society in the formation and understanding of tradition and morality" a critique. Nietzsche doesn't seek to make a universal Enlightenment morality, or a morality that serves as terms of mediation for every single member of society, he sees this religious morality as "useful" (I can't be bothered to find the exact quote, but I'm 99% sure this is in an aphorism in Beyond Good and Evil) for ruling people but wants the ability to create morals out of what the Wiki article calls "moral solipsism" for what he calls "free spirits" and ultimately the "Overman". To argue as to the role of morals in society misses the point of Nietzsche, who was hardly a moral sociologist.
But then again this isn't the book, it's an article written by God knows who. What kind of interesting insight does it have that merits a good revision or rebuttal of Nietzsche?
>>677520
Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. He doesn't even understand "selfishness" as most people use it. The selfish/selfless dichotomy that we all use in everyday conversation is bunk, which is why I don't like associating "egoism" with Stirner
>>677326
Nietzsche was an avid hiker and climber, senpai.
>>678042
Sorry there friend, when I posted Stirner was memetastic I was simply alluding to his contemporary usage. I agree with many of his ideas, and acknowledge that people's desires go beyond simple violence.
>there are people who think Nietzsche was a nihilist
>there are people who are still Christians after reading Nietzsche
How fucking dumb can you be?
>>678671
Really, really fucking dumb.
>>678042
I would say that the egoism is central to his writing simply because his position is that of psychological egoism, and the basic idea is that you can either be conscious of your egoism and voluntarily pursue things as your interest suits you, or you can do so involuntarily and claim that you're serving a "higher" power.
The problems come in from the fact that egoism has nasty connotations these days, and coupled with his rather amoralist position leaves people thinking that Stirner's work advocates fucking people over for your benefit.
Been there, done that and took pictures.
tl;dr God wins in the end.
Constantine already gave an extensive critique of Nietzsche in her FAQ that is so far unaswered
>>680627
If it's anything like any other critique he's offered, it's half-baked, rooted in not knowing what he's talking about, and any attempt to rebut it would fall on deaf ears because he's a bloody fanatic.
Nietzsche had a hilariously bad understanding of Christianity.
Well, that's what you would expect from a commie, I guess.
>>680639
Well, this is a discussion board, if you're gonna make a claim you might as well expand on it. If anything the mimicking of Biblical passages in Zarathustra would tell me he's pretty well acquainted with it.
>>681197
He also could read Latin,Greek, and Hebrew. So he was familiar with the original text.
>>672611
Christian here, you should actually Nietzsche. He is very interesting yet he said neither of this things. Yes, he dislikes Christianity but he also admits the loss of religion has ruined the west.
>>680627
I have no idea what Constantine's FAQ is, and I can't find anything in the Orthodox threads. Could you please link me?
>>680639
M E M E S
E
M
E
S
>>673145
>Civilization is a practice undertaken in a self-aware materiality
lol
why truth? why not untruth?
why civilization? why not death?
>>681260
I don't understand what you're asking me with these dichotomies. Spare me a sentence?
>>681280
Go read the opening section of Beyond Good and Evil.
>>681359
I'd respond with a sentence from that passage
>"And behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life"
It's a valuation, human and only necessary as far as human valuation of creation goes. Truth and civilization are both, beyond obvious material benefits, great tools to turn away from the chaos of nature, of not knowing the future and never being certain of your environment. In wanting not only safety (for some) but also growth, power, and beauty (which are all plausible and very possible ambitions for a human) a subjective but unconscious valuation is necessary that being alive and protecting your own life and prosperity.
In short, civilization and life are both arbitrary but in the opinion of most (healthy) humans, necessary valuations
On a semi-related note I've always struggled with Nietzsche's opposition of the Will to Life for the Will to Power, when both as valuations of natural behavior seem to me as different faces of the same coin of natural behavior.
If I missed your question, please tell me.
>>681244
http://pastebin.com/bN1ujq2x
The rationalists of any rationalism hate this situation, since they cling, out of despair before their sterility, to their fantasies of objectivity, reality (more or less floating around, but we cannot see it!), truth, universality, even though, for millenia, they have been failing to show us a knowledge that is not personal.
Let's begin with the formalization of the various reasonings : the formal languages are just a superior level of abstraction of the abstractions of the natural languages, with some implicit fantasy of being more communicable than the natural ones.
we have dozens of and dozens of formal languages and the particular goals of the people formalizing languages is really the formalization of ''reasonings'' which means the inferences [=going from one sentence to another one].
we have plenty of method of reasonings, the most famous is the deductive reasoning, a bit less formalized is the inductive reasoning. the other reasoning are not trendy enough to be stated here. Since the deduction is trendy, the deduction has been formalized by various people, each people formalizing what they think is ''deduction''.
so far, thanks to science, we have:
-no perfect consensus on anything, not even in pure math [which logic to choose, what field is more important]
-the research is geared towards what scientist like and avoids what scientist dislike [say if you want to do research on perpetual movement, you cannot]
-science is hardly communicable [most people do not care, the few people who care cannot into science, and then the few who remain always fight on what model is right and what model is wrong]
-scientist and general population rely on faith towards other scientists who claim that such or such part of such or such model is ''verified'' in their laboratory
-then scientists say ''if we can claim that it hold a few times in our laboratory, then it hold everywhere, every time]
-there is no consensus on how to rank models/theories
which means that there is no consensus on what is true [in positing that science gives what is true]
-plenty of scientists say that predictions matter, but scientists cannot say why why predictions matter.
[and predictions are always flawed by their proper essence: to stem from an inductive process over initial abstractions[concepts] which are generalized through space and time]
they say that this question is for ''philosophers'' [which they despise, because philosophy does not give ''computers, cars, more pleasures, less pains''.
why do scientists get up in the morning ? nobody knows
why must we finance their activities ? nobody knows
yet scientists do not hesitate to ask for money again and again.
to be more precise, there is nothing beyond the ''striving of the scientist for more and more fine predictions''.
-you ask a scientist why predictions matter, he will not answer you.
-you ask a scientist why finer predictions matter, he will say as the cliché: because it has better applications than the applications than we have today.
-you ask why having (better) applications than we have today matters, he either does not reply, or replies ''because easing the life of the humans matters''.
-and when you ask why ''easing the life of the humans matters'', there is no answer again.
the conclusion is that:
-science/technology has always been easing in our life, and conflating this explicit purpose with ''giving us knowledge in accessing truths about the objective reality'' and other realist-rationalist fantasies to legitimate the development of this field [pure hedonism having always bad press] have clearly failed.
the populace who dwells now in liberal-libertarian doctrines still has faith in a progress in science, but even the academics begin to stop caring about this -- they still take their monthly salary though.
at best, the rationalist falls back, from his faith in the concept of objectivity, on the faith in the concept of ''inter-subjectivity'' which is roughly the faith in the concept of ''objective criterion to rank personal choices, once that a person wishes to solve some problem''
-even without applications, pure predictions are nothing but a concept and having faith in it shows how much the humanity clings to the abstraction of certainty in a desperate attempt to refuse the contingency of events [and it is a choice, in the first place, to think in such terms of contingency/necessity of life/events].
=> thanks scientists for making humanity better hedonists.
>>681430
Yeah you mistook the premise of the post for its point of contention.
To quote back the same quote, the maintenance of life sets in movement its own particular logics - creation as a byword valuation of the self-same explanation by criticism marks Nietzsche's philosophy as something idealist.
best not reply coz im obviously rite fgt
>>681508
>creation as a byword valuation of the self-same explanation by criticism marks Nietzsche's philosophy as something idealist.
I'm not sure why this responds to my original post but I agree with you in that it is idealist in understanding, just not in attitude. This is why at the same time he criticized Plato and Kant and Schopenhauer. I think Platonic idealism seeks to search for a reality 'beyond the cave' of the mind and while Nietzsche wouldn't have cared for a moment about some contention or conjecture of a metaphysical objective existence, he also didn't care for the Platonic treatment of the shadows and perception as "unreal," but rather what is at a practical and discoverable level the most real else we'd fall into the Buddhist or Schopenhauerian nihilism. Still, I find it hard to say "Nietzsche said this" in the metaphysical stuff because he changes his mind along his career (along with many, many other things).
>>682222
You wouldn't even guess the kind of egalitarian interpretations of Nietzsche I've seen, about a week ago I stumbled upon some essay on how Nietzsche promotes "positive gender relationships" by some feminist.
>>682320
Accusations of Nietzsche's misogyny are base on the premise that criticizing women is sexism.
His love of Lou Salome is one of the most intense and tragic I've read. Anywhere.
Who was the superior Nietzsche translator: Kaufmann or Hollingdale?
>>682384
I'm not saying he's a woman hater, but he's no gender egalitarian, if we recall the "carry a whip" metaphor in Zarathustra.
What's recommended academic reading for the will to power?
The only thing I've read of Nietzsche is Beyond Good and Evil, part of The Birth of Tragedy, and a Penguin collection of his writings.
>>681443
Ok, I tried to formulate a response, Costance makes some very good arguments but I think in some parts he warps Nietzsche's words in a very theologian kind of way, probably without malice but with the adherence to language limitations Nietzsche warned against (and probably reading a translated version without translator's notes or something). It was unbearably long to write down, and I don't want to write something of this length in a while again, at least for an imageboard discussion. I hope it doesn't sound to apologetic, I don't think Nietzsche is always fully consistent as he changes his mind on a lot of nuances and I don't think he's infallible.
It's on a pastebin too because it's a wall of text and I don't wanna burden this enjoyable thread with one of those again
http://pastebin.com/GNw8uDEU
>>672611
>moral nihilism
Holy shit, end this meme.
Nietzsche is all the shit that you want but no nihilistic. Practically all his work is the search of new horizons and objectives after death of the Christian God.
>>683427
M8 you're responding to a rant by a transsexual who "converted" to Eastern Orthodoxy who did so out of a love of Warhammer 40k.
His criticisms are invalid because he has never read Nietzsche.
>>684005
Oh, reeaally? I just found out this board existed a week ago, I have no idea who Costance is and I genuinely thought with what the size of his text wall he had actually read Nietzsche and knew what he was talking about. The part where he lauds how Christianity was spread by the sword and somehow claims this vindicates Christ as the übermensch (because he totally intended this by his pacifism) seemed a bit flimsy and un-Christian to me, I guess Warhammer explains that.
>>684033
Constantine is our resident worthless shitposter.
Probably just Feminister 2.0
>Is this interpretation still tenable?:
The Latin malus ["bad"] (beside which I place [mélas, Greek for "black"]) might designate the common man as dark, especially black-haired ("hic niger est"), as the pre-Aryan settler of the Italian soil, notably distinguished from the new blond conqueror race by his color. At any rate, the Gaelic presented me with an exactly analogous case: fin, as in the name Fingal, the characteristic term for nobility, eventually the good, noble, pure, originally the fair-haired [Blondkopf] as opposed to the dark, black-haired native population. The Celts, by the way, were definitely a fair-haired race [eine blonde Rasse]; and it is a mistake to try to relate the area of dark-haired people found on ethnographic maps of Germany to Celtic bloodlines, as Virchow does. These are the last vestiges of the pre-Aryan population of Germany. (The subject races are seen to prevail once more, throughout almost all of Europe; in color, shortness of skull, perhaps also in intellectual and social instincts. Who knows whether modern democracy, the even more fashionable anarchism, and especially that preference for the commune, the most primitive of all social forms, which is now shared by all European socialists -- whether all these do not represent a throwback, and whether, even physiologically, the Aryan [master] race of conquerors is not doomed?)
>>671908
>Why people keep playing Star Wars: The Old Republic when Elder Scrolls Online is so much beautiful and better written?
It's all about narrative. People feel an immense appeal to being part of something meaningful instead of wanting to just 'choose a direction and go' with their lives.
Also, the inherent unfairness of an exploitation-based society makes people want to comfort themselves in knowing that their suffering has some meaning in a metaphysical sense.
[spoiler]They are wrong.[/spoiler]
>>686145
I'll post a better translation actually:
>In the Latin word malus (to which I juxtapose melas [dark, black] ) the common man could be characterized as the dark-skinned and especially the dark-haired man ("hic niger est" ["he is black/dangerous" -Horace] ), as the pre-Aryan occupant of Italian soil who could most easily be distinguished from the blond race which had become dominant, namely the Aryan conquering race, by its colour; at any rate, I have found exactly the same with Gaelic peoples, - fin (for example in Fin-gal), the word designating the aristocracy and finally the good, noble, pure, was originally a blond person in contrast to the dark-skinned, dark-haired native inhabitants. By the way, the Celts were a completely blond race it is wrong to connect those traces of an essentially dark-haired population, which can be seen on carefully prepared ethnological maps in Germany, with any Celtic descent and mixing of blood in such a connection, as Virchow does: it is more a case of the pre-Aryan population of Germany emerging at these points. (The same holds good for virtually the whole of Europe: to all intents and purposes the subject race has ended up by regaining the upper hand in skin colour, shortness of forehead and perhaps even in intellectual and social instincts: who can give any guarantee that modern democracy, the even more modern anarchism, and indeed that predilection for the 'commune', the most primitive form of social structure which is common to all Europe's socialists, are not in essence a huge throw-back - and that the conquering master race, that of the Aryans, is not physiologically being defeated as well? ... ("hic niger est") I think I can interpret the Latin 'bonus' ['good'] as " the 'warrior' ": providing I am correct in tracing back to an older 'duonus' (compare 'bellum' ['war'] = 'duellum' ['war'] = 'duenum', which seems to me to contain that 'duonus'). Therefore 'bonus' as man of war, of division (duo), as warrior.
>>686384
So is more likely about the hair colour or neither, working in the sun? Are the 'aryans' the indo-europeans? Is the whole thing unfalsifiable because the ruling caste was a swallowed minority?
>>682320
>You wouldn't even guess the kind of egalitarian interpretations of Nietzsche I've seen, about a week ago I stumbled upon some essay on how Nietzsche promotes "positive gender relationships" by some feminist.
It's easy to argue basically any individualist philosophy that isn't some variety of authoritarianism or traditionalism as possessing a note of progressiveness to it. Nietzsche was influential among anarchists during his day (though he himself disliked anarchism), and Emma Goldman was a big fan.
But that aside, how one interprets Nietzsche's works is secondary to the man himself, as he distinctly was not a communist.
>>672734
What was Nietzsche's take on nihilism?
>>673488
>Heidegger is the best you're gonna get here.
>Nietzsche is not actually the overcoming of nihilism, he's just the completion of it, ya gotta know Being first :^)
>will to power and overman are metaphysical/otherworldly
>the true Nietzsche is not found in the published works ;)
>the Being, not becoming!
Heidegger is exactly the kind of obtuse German barrier to European enlightenment Nietzsche described past figures as being (right down to personal inclinations towards romantic nationalism nazi volk shit). He makes Foucault look like an honest disciple in comparison.
>>686805
You're right. I just don't get how they quote him, if he's in a grave somewhere he's spinning like a dynamo. He may have been an individualist but egalitarianism disgusted him to the core.
>>686195
This. Zarathustra is a work "for all and for none," to expect everyone in the present to read him and bear with his 'truths' be they truths or not, is a tough expectation. The 'philosopher with a hammer' is a tough candy to swallow.
>>686145
Genuinely interested in the answer to this. Nietzsche was a philologist so I'd credit his conjecture, but his "schlecht vs böse" stuff isn't generally accepted today.
The best I can find, searching in Spanish for "malo" is that it could be related to Greek "melas", "black, dark" which originally meant "stained, dirty" or to Greek "malakos" "soft, languid, weak" meaning "sick". But it isn't a scholarly source or anything, so take me with a grain of salt.
>>686828
This unsuccessful thread spinoff has a quote from a manuscript compiled on "The Will to Power" which was published posthumously, that deals with that
>>684919
>>682428
Anybody self professed Nietzsche scholars care to comment?
>>686932
There's "The Will to Power" but you'd probably be way better off just reading Thus Spake Zarathustra, it's Nietzsche's self admitted peak and the most wholesome work on his philosophy. I didn't read it in English, but I've read The Antichrist in Penguin translation and it seemed very well done, so I guess Penguin.
>>680627
>caring what an attentionwhore christkek tripfag has to say about philosophy
>>686888
>He may have been an individualist
Is this not merely Kaufmann's spin on Nietzsche in order to get him accepted in the anglosphere? Mainstream ideology on all sides of contemporary culture seems to make concessions as long as it's to 'the individual'. Hemight care about some individuals but does he not recognise cases where a well-bred herd can be more noble and worthy than many individuals? The overman could be interpreted as closer to a new demarcation within the species instead of the emergence of one individual-spark.
>For liberalism, politics is a means to the peaceful coexistence of individual agents; for Nietzsche, by contrast, it is a means to the production of human greatness. Nietzsche challenges what we might call the ontological assumptions that inform the positing of the liberal subject, chiefly that its identity is largely imaginary because it is posited only at the expense of neglecting the cultural and historical formation of the subject. The liberal formulation of the subject assumes individual identity and liberty to be a given, in which the individual exists independently of the mediations of culture and history and outside the medium of ethical contest and spiritual labour. Nietzsche is committed to the enhancement of man and this enhancement does not consist in improving the conditions of existence for the majority of human beings, but in the generation of a few, striking and superlatively vital 'highest exemplars' of the species. Nietzsche looks forward to new philosophers who will be strong and original enough to revalue and reverse so-called 'eternal values' and, in teaching human beings that the future depends on their will, 'will prepare the way for great risk-taking and joint experi-ments in discipline and breeding', and in this way, 'put an end to that terrible reign of nonsense and coincidence that until now has been known as "history".
>>686987
He certainly is more individualist than not. He has a song at the beginning of The Gay Science that suggests this strongly. He doesn't want disciples, that to him is a dishonor. Think on that.
>>686995
I want to read material regarding Nietzsche's actual idea of the will to power
>>680627
>Constantine
>invoking a serious attitude in me
It's a laughable nothing. It hasn't even read Nietzsche, it has only read critiques
>>687014
I don't really know any. What's wrong with reading Nietzsche directly?
>>682428
tl;dr:
>will to power was an unpublished compilation, leave that until you've read all of his main work first
>good secondary sources like Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Wikipedia (kek), Kaufmann, University editions etc are helpful for showing you what to look for when you read the man himself.
>Human all too human, Daybreak, Gay Science are the first books of his maturity; Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, Zarathustra are considered the peak period, and are best read in that order; Antichrist, Twilight, Ecce Homo are some classic late works. By this point you could find the rest yourself. I think the peak periods are most accessible because they are stylistically so good.
>>687004
It's hard to ascribe Nietzsche to individualism or collectivism because they're both moral all-encompassing stances and Nietzsche doesn't ascribe to any of those, but you're right. When I said "individualist" I just lacked a better word to say "he was the opposite of a collectivist," because when Nietzsche talked of human greatness he didn't talk of a "great civilization" or "the greater good of mankind" in the traditional sense but of "the Overman" that would redeem humanity, as a single "individual".
>>686995
>Penguin is shit. Read Kaufmann's translations they're generally good.
Good to know, I've read everything other than The Antichrist in Spanish, which is my native language, because I thought it would be better equipped than English with all the picky distinction, plus the Spanish author that translates it is some sort of well educated German professor.
>How much do you know about philosophy already?
About who's?
>>686812
This, his attempts to say "Dostoevsky understood people better than Nietzsche" had me in stitches
>>687063
Oh, uh, why? I suppose Foucault has a bit on it
I realise so many questions could be easily answered if there was a Nietzsche google doc page featuring his entire works, with tags etc. Completely searchable. I was willing to do most of it myself but there was no demand on here.
>>687014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power#Appearance_of_the_concept_in_Nietzsche.27s_work
Basically in the peak period referred to here >>687042
>>686888
Thanks for directing me to that thread. I can see how Nietzsche successfully undermines nihilism from a universal perspective by acknowledging that our value system is built upon very personal foundations, but I don't understand how this is meant to rid the human individual of feelings of nihilism. I am not the clouds or the sun; I'm still very much in search of a remedy for my own brand of decadence. You say Nietzsche provides us with a new value system, but what are these values? Without unity, aim or being what values are there for us?
>>687053
N is pretty similar to Hegel, he wants to emphasize the importance of the individual but also recognize the gravity of societies influence on the individual. There's a tension there. N sort of believes you have to really hold society in reverence before you can leave it and come to terms.
As for Penguin, I can't read Spanish, so idk how good the quality is. In general though they pick poor translations of philosophical texts which is why they aren't recommended for philosophy
>>687088
>You say Nietzsche provides us with a new value system, but what are these values?
Hard to narrow it down since he mostly clears the air for such things rather than proscribes. But common themes seem to be recognition of the natural facts of 'will to power' and 'eternal recurrence', a conscious and informed 'Yes to life', will to health or just generally virtue ethics, patricism or aristocratic values (classical taste over romantic for example), even taking advantage of the few jewels produced by decadent philosophies (e.g. the standards of cleanliness and self-overcoming which were the coproduct of the ascetic ideal known as 'priest') the list goes on.
>>687088
It's pretty open-ended. Ultimately N can't dictate to you in every way how you should live.
I've heard it said that eternal recurrence is the measuring stick for the kinds of people N wants to make. If you would worship the demon, N thinks you're doing it right. So he means live with no regrets, try new things, live dangerously, and so on
>>687117
>eternal recurrence
N seems fully convinced that this cyclical existence should be cause for great celebration, but I really can't see where he's coming from here. This Ouroboros effect seems utterly hellish to me. What if one's life is comprised of much misery and only a few, minor, joys? Where is the glory in living such a life as this over and over again?
>>687184
>What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'
The above quote actually seems pertinent, but HOW do you bring yourself to the point where you can honestly give this answer?
>>687149
I don't think he proposes a "should," he is very moving and whatnot in his aphorisms but I don't think I misrepresent Nietzsche when I say he didn't think of cowardice as something that needs to be overcome but rather something that the strong are able to overcome by their strength and inner inspiration, that his philosophy can only teach you 'what you already know'
>>687184
It is in love of fate, in not valuing life as an escape from suffering and misery but as an edification of what greatness can come of humanity. I'd say the reevaluation of suffering as not something bad or a mistake is the big wall that separates Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
>>687216
N reminds me of the dog in that cartoon who exclaims 'this is fine!' despite being surrounded by fire. Having the courage to be is all very well and good if you're of sound mind and body, but to honestly believe that suffering can be seen as no bad thing is slightly mad.
All aphorisms and dialogues aside, we are ultimately highly complex biological machines and sometimes our wiring misfires and becomes a source of great pain, anxiety or despondency. an ache which no philosopher can heal or reinterpret in a truly positive light.
Pharmacology is where it is at. We're largely in the dark ages at the moment but, trust me on this, once we start producing competent mood regulators all philosophies and systems of ethics will seem like pantomime.
>>687324
But that is the virtue of Nietzsche, he looks "from the top down" at suffering within the greater scheme of human greatness and creation.
And I find it hard not to agree, suffering is a driver of human greatness, viewed biologically our imperfect driver conditioned by the necessity for thriving in the wild and not so useful in that it's now easily satiable. But even the unpleasant senses and suffering point us to what Nietzsche calls Will to Power, and that is the converging point of his philosophy: that suffering isn't just "fine" in that we should just stop trying to wrestle with our own suffering and die but in that we should defy that suffering with survival, with creative force and the ultimate redeeming overman, "that lightning, that madness".
His account is almost neurotic it's startlingly mad but also startlingly candid.
I am afraid that your account of pharmacology can become true, that we'll be at some point some creatures out of "Brave New World" who just live happily and free from suffering, the "last men" described by Zarathustra.
>>671908
Christfag and nihilist; they rhyme.
>>672734
>Nietzsche thought scepticism was dumb as fuck
Nietzsche gushes over scepticism in Antichrist. But yeah, it does suck that Nietzsche got claimed by reddit fedora-tippers
>>671908
Btw, while i'm in a Nietzsche thread; did anyone else find chapter 60 of Antichrist to be kinda weird or was it just me?
>>687117
>#YOLO interpretation of the eternal recurrence
With
regard to my Zarathustra, for example, I do not acknowledge anyone as an
expert on it if he has not, at some time, been both profoundly wounded
and profoundly delighted by it, for only then may he enjoy the privilege
of sharing, with due reverence, the halcyon element from which the book
was born and its sunny brightness, spaciousness, breadth and certainty.
>>687377
Suffering only has a use if it leads you towards realizing your will to power. Much like a body builder must experience pain to maintain his physique, a mother must undergo the pain of labor to give birth or Disney's Hercules must fling himself into the whirlpool in order to become a god (lol). But suffering has an end result in all of these instances. For some people, suffering has no real cause. For some, suffering is constant and senseless; caused by nothing more than an incredibly slight variation in their neurology. Far from being a creative force, suffering of this sort is nothing more than a jailer and a stark reminder that our existence is ultimately circumstantial and prone to great, and sometimes incurable, injuries. The overman is ultimately just as prone to sustaining these life altering injuries as anyone else. The overman is neither immortal nor invincible.
The brave new world is the best possible scenario for our species as a whole. Only, Huxley wasn't without fault; he got the basic gist right. The work of the gammas and betas, for example, might just as easily be delegated to AI while humanity as whole reaches alpha plus status and branches out into the stars to satiate the one ache that no drug can consistently cure - the ache of curiosity.
>>687448
>The Arabs. Disgusting goatherds and camel-fuckers. The only reason anyone is concerned with them today is because they happened to spawn on the planet's oil reserves. They shined at the precise moment when Europe was at its lowest — the Middle Ages — but even a candle can shine in the darkness of the night, when the sun is over the horizon. Nietzsche, and several other great thinkers, said some good things about them, but none of those people ever actually MET any of them (much less went to the Middle East to experience first-hand their so-called "culture", which is what we all experience, to a thankfully small extent, when we pass through their wretched stinking ghettos in our great cities today), so their ignorance and naivete can be excused.
>-t. leading Nietzsche scholar
What did he thought of hegel?
>>687464
You're looking at Nietzsche's response to suffering with a utilitarian mind, Nietzsche didn't philosophize for everyone and didn't believe in equality or reducing suffering "as a whole," in Nietzschean philosophy (not unlike Schopenhauerian and even Buddhist) suffering is an individual condition, it exists for everyone but it's experienced by the individual and it is the individual who fights against it. He philosophized for those who could effect greatness, that is the Overman.
And the Nietzschean Overman isn't about invulnerability, it's about embodying the Will to Power. He is the sense himself, the purpose in suffering. And he isn't eternal, the only eternal for Nietzsche is the eternal return: that the Overman has and will exist, that this is what distinguishes him from ideology, that he is a result of the human condition Schopenhauer and Buddha woe about but an antithetical solution.
What I think Huxley wanted to convey, and Nietzsche would have agreed with, was how static and unmoving a nicely engineered society without suffering would be, the constant numbing of senses and easy gratification couldn't lead change and innovation, that without suffering and inequality and suffering conquering land, ocean, or the stars didn't feel like the biological imperative that has driven life so far
Nietzche is to philosophy what dick jokes are to comedy.
>>687578
>without suffering and inequality and suffering conquering land, ocean, or the stars didn't feel like the biological imperative that has driven life so far
I disagree and think N had a limited understanding of what suffering can do to you neurologically. Constant suffering will simply cause you to atrophy while suffering with an end result will produce results, as I said. However, the practice of pharmacology is a little more complex than simply numbing the senses. There is no reason not to think that - eventually - a combination of gene editing and medication will allow all of us to reach a happy, motivated, clear and exacting state of mind. A state of mind conducive towards affecting the best types of change for the greatest number.
Huxley was caught up in the masochist mindset of those who remain, at least culturally, Christian. There is an undercurrent in his work which suggests that the experience of individual pain is somehow more valid or has more 'meaning' than happiness which has been produced synthetically. The only way this could possibly be true is if these emotions had a transcendental origin - and so we're back to the question of God and His need for us to suffer being more important than our search for happiness. I don't believe this is the case and I don't think Huxley did a great job at providing insight into what exactly was so proper about this state of affairs over the utopia he presents. A utopia, I might add, that is essentially a poorly crafted straw-man. The need for the social hierarchy of gammas, betas and alphas would prove unnecessary in the future with the advent of better machines. There is nothing to suggest that a world (or a galaxy) full of alpha pluses will somehow give way to chaos via unchecked ambition; ambition at the expense of others has its roots in suffering and, as stated, we're operating in an environment where suffering can be cured. Our innate curiosity, free from anguish, will keep us moving more than ever.
>>687707
tl;dr huxley is one of the 'english psychologists' who think they've caught up with nietzsche
>>687184
Then you're not Nietzsche's role model, you're a disgusting nothing.
>>687779
Considering Nietzsche was sickly, physically frail and deeply antisocial for much of his life; considering he died after slowly being driven mad by an STD - I'll go ahead and say that Nietzsche wasn't exactly a role model either. I think he spent a great deal of his time in anguish and, as even he admits, would personally 'gnash his teeth' at the thought of repeating life over again.
>disgusting nothing
I see mommy didn't buy you your nine inch nails concert tickets so you thought you'd come and be all edgy online instead.
>>687707
>N had a limited understanding of what suffering can do to you neurologically
But I don't think this is something of a matter of dispute, suffering is suffering and it exists in varying quantities across the world and while even the poor have their Shabbat we have existed for something like 5000 years in civilizations with suffering without some sort of overall decline (in fact, we stand in the backs of the suffering of billions of humans before us). And remember, Nietzsche isn't a utilitarian, he contends suffering has purpose for those who survive and create from it and cares little about those who can't.
You have to also question how ending suffering can keep you motivated, clear and exacted. The most direct chemical way in the present of ending suffering entirely is the opiate, and it does so by numbing the senses. I think suffering is as intrinsic to being human as consciousness.
>. There is an undercurrent in his work which suggests that the experience of individual pain is somehow more valid or has more 'meaning' than happiness which has been produced synthetically.
But they do, unless you're arguing within nihilism, in which case nothing has value at all, but Nietzsche already rejects nihilism and if you value "conquering the stars" or "ending suffering" I can only assume you're not a nihilist either. These have value because they are drivers of creation, of making something. For Nietzschean philosophy, suffering and happiness are means to creative force and to the will to power, motivators, not ends.
>ambition at the expense of others has its roots in suffering and...
But you frame ambition within the Christian and utilitarian moral, which is understandable because of the connotation of words in our language. Ambition is also conquering nature, the world and the stars, and overcoming your own limitations. Curiosity hasn't been the chief driving force of creation, ambition has.
Sorry for wall of text
>>687184
"Should be" no. Nietzsche doesn't think you're stupid if you don't find joy in suffering. That is Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche. He explicitly moves past that view
>>687826
Aw, baby is getting all triggered and can't form a proper argument so you resort to insults. Why would I produce sources for a purely speculative, opinion based, conversation I am having on a Mongolian throat singing board?
>>687810
>considering he died after slowly being driven mad by an STD
Can you seriously do even the slightest bit of research before attempting to slander someone? Nietzsche was tough as fuck despite his sickness, and probably more robust than your average classics professor in their 40s today. He died of a neurological illness, like his father.
And I bet you attempt to discuss the philosophy even more cluelessly ITT...
>>687831
>But I don't think this is something of a matter of dispute, suffering is suffering and it exists in varying quantities across the world and while even the poor have their Shabbat we have existed for something like 5000 years in civilizations with suffering without some sort of overall decline (in fact, we stand in the backs of the suffering of billions of humans before us). And remember, Nietzsche isn't a utilitarian, he contends suffering has purpose for those who survive and create from it and cares little about those who can't.
I don't dispute this is what N is saying; I just don't find his model attractive or compelling.
the opiate, and it does so by numbing the senses
I am operating under the assumption that pharmacology will have moved beyond crude opiates onto more complex, and competent, drugs which manage our emotional state more effectively. It's a burgeoning field with new discoveries being made every day so I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption.
>But they do
Pain in this context only has more meaning than artificial pleasure if pain can be said to be spiritual in origin. I think suffering is entirely the result of neural firings so I don't hold one emotion to be more 'genuine' than another simply because it wasn't induced via drugs.
But you frame ambition within the Christian and utilitarian moral
I don't. I am saying Huxley does because he paints ambition as being innately harmful; he thinks it will inevitably lead to suffering. Within his book, the controller explains that they trialed an environment where all the alpha pluses turned on each other due to their heightened intelligence causing them to all have the same ambitions towards leadership, and that this society destroyed themselves as a result. I am saying that Huxley has misinterpreted how ambition would play out in a society comprised of only the super intelligent - particularly in the case where the society had access to mood regulating medication.
>>687855
>slander someone?
You are taking this so personally, it's almost precious. I am not slandering anyone, least of all Nietzsche. It's a matter of historical record that he suffered with untreated syphilis; a condition that will cause insanity after a certain period of time. The jury is out as to whether or not this is what induced his madness, but it was certainly a contributing factor - and many doctors have said it was likely the ultimate cause.
I understand that he was tough as nails. You slandered me, and I responded by simply relating to you what Nietzsche had to say about the quality of his own life - in his own words.
>>687925
>You
That was my first post ITT. And you are wrong about all that.
>>687984
>Köhler argues that Nietzsche's syphilis, which is "...usually considered to be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in Cologne or Leipzig, is equally likely, it is now held, to have been contracted in a male brothel in Genoa."
Syphilis was common at the time, and the man was known to use prostitutes on at least a couple of occasions. The only other theories surrounding his madness are conjecture at best. There was no definitive evidence of dementia upon examination, just postulation by one specialist, and clinical depression combined with psychosis seems like something someone just threw out there as a possibility. Late stage syphilis does cause insanity.
How am I wrong about 'all that' again?
>>688024
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18575181
>>687899
>I just don't find his model attractive.
I can't make you find aesthetic value in its model, in that we'll just have to disagree.
>I am operating...
Ok, I can't really argue beyond much speculation either, by and large my only background in neurology is a handful of physiology classes and that as far as I know suffering is a very tough and hard to pinpoint mechanism.
>Pain in this context only has more meaning than artificial pleasure if pain can be said to be spiritual in origin....
Why would a spiritual origin be the only way of making a valuation toward a feeling? Valuations are subjective, and that's that. Arguing within the vacuum of value in the material world that is part of nihilism, what is the value of conquering the stars, of a bunch of organic pebbles on the surface of a small planet moving to other planets? That's nihilism, valuing nothing or perhaps nothingness.
> how ambition would play...
This is why I find ending suffering and ending innovation and creativity (what an alpha plus in the Brave New World might do) inseparable ideas. If you are constantly complacent and satiated with yourself (free of suffering, as Schopenhauer might say it) then where is the curiosity that needs satiation? Where is the 'itching' as you call it, if this itching is a manifestation of suffering and unfulfilled wanting?
Again I am no neurologist and besides knowing what neurotransmitters and hormones may drive aggressive behavior I can't (and perhaps not even present neurology can) point toward what drives the will, but the anxiety (and epilepsy) that modern psychiatry treats with gabapentin and topiramate does cause observed cognitive impairment, libido and motivation , as many of the stronger (yes, imperfect) drugs that treat pain, and this general trend might if anything suggest a (still very speculative) relationship. If anything I'm hyped that at least neurology is in such baby steps we might both be proven wrong in our assumptions within the century.
>>688024
Theres absolutely zero confirmation that N visited a prostitute
>>688148
But your mother remembers being visited by Nietzsche
>>688171
[ ] Not told
[ ] Told
[x] Thus Told Zarathustra
>there are people who think Nietzsche was a nihilist
>>688246
Wasn't he a Nihilist in the sense that indeed he didn't see an objective meaning to be found for the universe and humans?
![1200[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/XWqSuGh.jpg "1200[1].jpg")
>>688315
I think it's much more complex than "is" or "isn't" a nihilist. Implicit to Nietzsche is that knowledge and value are something that the conscious mind does, that they are real is real because it's in the mind and to say nothing has value is as much of an ontological failure as saying that it does in the 'objective' sense outside of the self because value is a quality of perspective. Therefore, the very question of whether there is an objective meaning for the universe and humans is wrong, and values whether or not objective exist as constructs within the human mind.
And valuing, whether or not you want to assign some sort of "metavalue" to it, is a physiological necessity because not making a valuation is, well, essentially like being dead. To be alive is to value life, and to commit suicide is to value death (in other words, to make any choice, even to make no choice, is to value). I think the most brilliant way he puts this is when he describes nihilism with "man would rather will nothingness than not will"
>>688024
I've heard that brain cancer was another possibility.
>>671908
Will to power or GTFO
>>687501
He claimed Islam "said yes to life" as opposed to the nihilistic Christianity. It was ridiculous: Islam is just as nihilistic as Christianity if not more based on Nietzsche's own standards. Most of his criticisms of the nihilistic nature of Christianity apply to Islam as well (devaluing true life with the concept of a "beyond" etc.). It was a very odd chapter.
>>692625
I agree partly, a key distinction being that Islam has some ethical differences from Christianity, most notably that Islam commands followers to wage war and conquer for Allah in this world which is very distinct from Christianity's "my kingdom is not of this world" deal.
Still, it does share the mystical and otherwordly features of Christianity, whether or not they're useful for the whole risking your life in battle across the continent to spread the word.
>>692625
>>692733
As Alex Kirkeegaard pointed out Nietzche and other thinkers that praised Islam were looking to the history books at their 'golden age' which is also the time in history when western civilization was at it's absolute worst culturally.
Nietzsche had virtually no contact with the religion in it's more modern form, Avvicena would have been accused of heresy and killed if he lived in a modern Islamic state.
>>692733
I really don't think the fact that Islam encourages holy war is a good enough reason to claim that it says yes to life or that it isn't nihilistic. Of course there are differences between the two religions but none of the differences warrant the praise that Nietzsche thrusts upon it.
>>688171
Birth of Tragedy= The day you were born
>>683792
That's true. He saw nihilism as an inevitable stage that humanity would go through but hopefully would overcome.
>>673145
The summary /his/ needs.
>>687501
This guy is right. I can't fucking stand any of the Arabs I've met. They're so raw and unruly, but not in a good way. It's like their culture and religion is based on being bloodthirsty warriors in the defense of petty nihilism.
>>672907
But the Western Empire fell while it was Christian? And what about the Byzantines, does this point towards Islam being the one true faith? And what about the Russian Tsardom being overthrown, why did God prefer the Communists?
>>672907
i'll never understand the mental gymnastics christfags go trough to try and prove that their imaginary father figure is real
>>693857
You could try. I pretend I'm one of them whenever I'm bored.
After some time... I've learned that their beliefs actually make a lot of sense. Whenever I focus my thoughts on God... my life gets better. I've found love and peace. God must exist. All these good things would be impossible without His presence.
>>672907
The rise of Christianity correlates with the fall of Rome. If anything, Christianity made the problem worse.
>>694299
It's kin of ironic when you read anti-Christian Roman sources say they are causing people to lose faith in their government and traditional religion. It's the exact same arguements Christians make against secularism.
>>671908
God is great when it is only treated as an idea. then you could confirm it as living up to all minimum requirements of God by going off topic and diving into the philosophy on the nature of ideas.
>>672719
>But of course, the only reason civilization was allowed to flourish in the first place was because of their belief in God. The waking masses have not understood this but that is why up until now all nations have been predominantly religious.
view. not fact.
A counter view. As our history has been lost to us maybe so has our intuition with our nature degraded our understanding into the religious mess it is today? Science is great! It actively separates the ego (conscious observer) and it's influence on the experiment. something we've failed to do in this place and making God a product of our own bias.
>>694308
People never really change that much!
>>692625
Would perhaps his access to materials on Islam itself have been limited?
