You asked for it:
Nietzsche was born on this day, October 15th, In 1844. (He lived 56 years and died of stroke, likely exacerbated by, if not caused by, mercury poisoning.)
His most famous quote, “God is dead,” is misunderstood by most. His point was not that Man had become neglected by God due to God having died; his point was --still is-- that Man has neglected his (Our) responsibility to bring the life and livingness of godliness back to life in our society.
I agree.
(And if you don’t, I would find debating that with you to be a bore.)
That implores me to share the following magnificent, mind-expanding, interview regarding atheism vs theism.
First, briefly, please know that I, myself, have spent a great deal of time --years and years-- formulating my personal viewpoint of the subject matter of atheism vs theism. Don’t worry; I will not preach. I dislike proselytizing very much.
I have found my own basic position on it. But is it ever hard to put to words.
Well, it turns out that Jordan Peterson recently put it to words better than I have ever been able to. What he states nails my personal viewpoint so well that it stopped my breath.
Below is a link to the video in which he does so.
It is a video that need not be watched; it is equally powerful when merely listened to --but his final answer, at the end of this interview, is made much more touching by viewing the sincerity of his tears at that point.
(I don’t like how his interviewer volunteers so much of his own view. You might want to fast-forward through the parts where the interviewer is speaking, but the video is very very well worth watching --or listening to-- beginning to end.)
The interviewer posits that one cannot be happy until one comes to the understanding that life, itself, is tragic. I STRONGLY advise disagreeing with that viewpoint. That’s pure bullshit.
That fact that a similar viewpoint can and should be applied to comedy being better appreciated from recognizing tragedy, does not make the correlation regarding happiness true.
For the record, I say the fact that life on Earth is more tragedy than comedy is a relatively temporary condition that the baby born to Mother Earth, Man Kind Earth, is slowing growing out of.
I do agree that it is true that one cannot know what one can withstand until one has confronted and experienced the tragic aspects of life, but that does not define happiness.
That brings me back to Nietzche. I happen to agree with Nietzsche, for the most part. I agree that there was really only ever one true Christian. And that we do have a responsibility to bring God back to life --whether your god(s) is(are) Christian or otherwise. Man Kind Earth lives more happily, and more kindly, when he has a relationship with deity.
I DO tend to agree that Man Kind Earth will mature into an existence where at last superstition has been dispensed with, but that will only come once transcendence, itself, has become fully understood and “domesticated” by Man.
I believe that Man Kind Earth is finding his own rationality, coming to understand that he was born irrational, and will learn to be his own creator of rationality. Self-divinity, if you will.
Furthermore, like Nietzsche, I DISAGREE with the premise expounded in this video discussion that Man Kind Earth is not basically good.
Bullshit.
Man is basically good.
Basically.
There are people who are not basically good. But they are the minority --maybe up to one in five. There are people who are basically truly evil, but they are rare --maybe 2, maybe 3 out of a hundred. The problem is the one-in-five tend to be unable to think for themselves such that the rare evil ones can get them to do their bidding. The worse, but much more confrontable problem, if only people could muster the ability to confront, is that the few of those truly evil few who are actually smart are an extremely rare fraction of mankind. Man is basically good. That has been, is now, and will continue to prevail. Assuredly.
It IS true that the foundational understanding of Man’s basic goodness is “dead.” That’s really what Nietzsche said. But this foundational aspect of understanding cannot die a full death --it’s immortal. Nonetheless, it is up to us to breathe it life, continuously --each and every one of us, from within, to within, each and every one of us.
NOT because of fear of God.
Because of love of deity.
I prefer the argument that it’s because of love of Love.
Love,
Forrest
.
Perhaps my favorite Nietzsche quote:
“The strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of ‘truth’ it could endure. Or, to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, falsified.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
in Beyond Good and Evil
published in 1886,
before he wrote Genealogy of Morals
Although he was likely going off the deep end by this late period of his life’s work, he did first nail this concept of how in humankind there exists a scale of ability to confront and assimilate ACTUALITY. And Nietzsche thereby indicated that what most think of as truth is actually relative; further, that most people are incapable of differentiating “truth” from actuality.
This was after his Übermensch concept in his 1883 book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
The Übermensch being that person who truly freely thinks for himself --and is thereby truly cause of his own morality.
Nietzsche came to that concept before he wrote Genealogy of Morals, in which he concludes all men of today are slaves; and, that therefore what is required of Man at this stage of his evolution is a critique of the value of “truth”, itself. That is what lead him to his most famous quote.
Once again, this foundation:
“The strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of ‘truth’ it could endure. Or, to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, falsified.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
.
Here’s that magnificent, breath-stopping, mind-expanding interview with Jordan Peterson:
