I carefully avoid believing anything at all. — Ken Edwards

Is this not an expression of what you believe about believing, that is is better to avoid believing?

To believe is used in distinction from to know. What I believe may turn out to be wrong. It expresses a tenuousness, a lack of certainty. It differs from a claim of knowledge.

It is when this distinction is not made, when one equates believing with being absolutely, indubitably certainty, that believing becomes dangerous.

My apology if there was offense based on my misunderstanding. — Jackson

I appreciate it, but no apology necessary. Disagreement is standard practice in philosophy. I learned long ago that it is a mistake to take such things personally.

No, in the Physics, formal cause is "eidos" or "morphe". You are wrong that it is ousia. — Jackson

I did not claim that ousia is the formal cause.

Ousia just means being or a thing. — Jackson

Which is what I actually said, several times. Except that the question of being qua being is of primary concern in the Metaphysics.

In the long history since those terms were used to translate 'ousia' they have gained various meanings that should not be attributed to Aristotle.
— Fooloso4

I believe you are just wrong. — Jackson

Which part? That 'essentia' and 'essentia' are Latin terms used to translate 'ousia' or that these terms have accrued other meanings?

I must be missing the point. — Jackson

Indeed, that is still the case!

Where I am from, using wiki to debate philosophy would get you laughed out of the room. — Jackson

Translation of terms is not philosophy, it is a well documented matter of fact. There are, however, philosophical consequences.

Wayfarer asked:

Could you say that Aristotle's later theory of essence and substance is foreshadowed here? — Wayfarer

Aristotle did not use the terms 'essence' and 'substance'. In the long history since those terms were used to translate 'ousia' they have gained various meanings that should not be attributed to Aristotle.

You say:

The Latin is wrong. By "essence" Aristotle means "form" or "shape." (eidos or morphê) — Jackson

Aristotle did not use the term 'essence'. It is an English translation of the Latin 'essentia'. A term coined by Cicero to translate 'ousia'. Ousia, the term used by Aristotle, does not mean eidos or morphê. They are three different terms that have some overlap but have different meanings.

It was translated into Latin as 'substantia' and thence English as 'substance' but it has a completely different meaning in philosophical than in everyday discourse. — Wayfarer

@Jackson

From the Wike page on 'ousia':

There was no equivalent grammatical formation in Latin, and it was translated as essentia or substantia. Cicero coined essentia and the philosopher Seneca and rhetorician Quintilian used it as equivalent for οὐσία, while Apuleius rendered οὐσία both as essentia or substantia. In order to designate οὐσία, early Christian theologian Tertullian favored the use of substantia over essentia, while Augustine of Hippo and Boethius took the opposite stance, preferring the use of essentia as designation for οὐσία.[4][5] Some of the most prominent Latin authors, like Hilary of Poitiers, noted that those variants were often being used with different meanings.[6] Some modern authors also suggest that the Ancient Greek term οὐσία is properly translated as essentia (essence), while substantia has a wider spectrum of meanings.

As Plato believes that the objects of reason have a greater degree of reality than those of sense, then they must have something unchangeable as their object. — Wayfarer

Well, he certainly makes an argument in favor of this, but that is not the same as believing it. The Forms are posited as hypotheticals. A hypothetical does not have a "greater degree of reality" then sensible things. In various dialogues Plato gives us reasons to doubt the adequacy of the accounts of the Forms.

I discuss some of these problems

Here

and

Here

Could you say that Aristotle's later theory of essence and substance is foreshadowed here? — Wayfarer

The term essence (essentia) was a Latin invention used to translate Aristotle's Greek ousiai, or substance. Substance oressentia is the “the what it was to be” of a thing. His answer was not that what it is is a Form.

But zetetic skepticism is not the claim that total comprehension is not possible, but simply that it is not something that anyone possesses.
— Fooloso4

I do not see the difference. — Jackson

The zetetic skeptic, unlike some other skeptics, does not deny the possibility of knowledge, claiming only that we do not know. Nor is it the suspension of judgment, but rather leaves open the possibility that we might be wrong about our judgments. It relies on what seems most likely, but remains open to revising these judgment about what seems most likely.

Although things are said to be images of Forms, the Forms are themselves images. A kind of philosophical poiesis.
— Fooloso4

Then reason depends on the imagination. Something which Plato spends his entire career denying. — Jackson

The Republic is clear about the limits of reason (dianoia). It does not grasp each thing itself in its singularity (noesis), but always as it is in relation (ratio) to something else.That is to say, it makes use of likenesses (eikasia). Plato repeatedly points to the use of images for mathematics

I think we are generally in agreement.

Plato was a sceptic. — Jackson

It is important to distinguish Socratic skepticism from other types, both ancient and modern. It is zetetic - it proceeds by way of inquiry based on the knowledge that one does not know.

An aporia is because you believe a total compression is possible — Jackson

An aporia is an impasse. If, as in the Republic, there is a movement from hypothesis to knowledge, an aporia represents the failure of that movement. But zetetic skepticism is not the claim that total comprehension is not possible, but simply that it is not something that anyone possesses. The problem this raises, as described in the Phaedo, is "misologic" (89d-e). With the failure of logos Socrates turns to mythos. In terms of the image of the divided line in the Republic, it is recognition of the importance of eikasia, that is, the use of the imagination and image making.

Although things are said to be images of Forms, the Forms are themselves images. A kind of philosophical poiesis. What it seems must be if there is to be knowledge of things such as Justice, Beauty, and the Good.

The fact that Plato situates the dialogue at the time when Socrates was young suggests that the whole of the Socratic dialogues that take place after this early meeting were informed by the problem of the Forms raised in Parmenides. This is not to be understood historically but rather as a literary device. These are not problems that only occured to Plato at around the time Parmenides was written but rather that the problem of the Forms informed his writing of the dialogues from the beginning.

That the Forms are hypothesis should be understood in light of what is said about hypothesis in the Republic. They are "stepping-stones and springboards" (511b). They are intended to free us from what has been hypothesized. In the Phaedo Socrates calls the hypothesis of Forms “safe and ignorant” (105c).

Given all the problems with the Forms we might ask why Plato did not just abandon them. Plato gives us the answer in Parmenides: One who does not “allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same" will “destroy the power of dialectic entirely” (135b8–c2). Something like the Forms underlies (hypo - under thesis - to place or set) thought and speech.

The problem is, despite the mythology of transcendence in the Republic, we cannot achieve transcendence through dialectic. This is why the dialogues frequently end in aporia. What is at issue is not simply the problem of Forms but the problematic nature of philosophy. It raises insoluble problems.

Nietzsche's political philosophy is an inversion of Plato's. Both are concerned with the politics of the soul, and in that sense works of psychology. For both Plato and Nietzsche the question of who is to rule is of central importance. For both Plato and Nietzsche the question of slavery in addressed in light of the problem of self-mastery.

Plato's concern was the education of the just soul . Nietzsch(e's is the education of the individual. Plato's concern was the creation of harmony out of conflicting desires. Nietzsche's concern was the creation of the individual who maintains strife, internal enmity rather than harmony.

For Plato although it appears as though the harmony of the soul and the harmony of the city gives us a picture of justice, the fact is that the just city is full of injustice. Nietzsche's soul in internal strife seems to lead to a troubling picture of the city full in internal strife, but strife cannot be eliminated nor is it desirable to do so; for it can only be accomplished through totalitarian suppression which is not harmony but a false image of harmony. But this is not to say that all claims are equal. Like Plato, Nietzsche hold to a hierarchical ranking. For both, the philosopher is "commander and law-giver". (BGE 211) And this is to be understood with regard to the politics of the soul.

A few quotes from Wittgenstein:

Sometimes a sentence can only be understood if it is read at the right tempo. My sentences are all supposed to be read slowly.

I really want my copious punctuation marks to slow down the speed of reading. Because I should like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)

In philosophy the race goes to the one who can run slowest—the one who crosses the finish line last.

When I was teaching I had to address this challenge on occasion. When I taught courses in Chinese and Japanese philosophy the challenge was usually limited to the authors being dead.

not disagreeing. — Jackson

Understood.

But just because others treat me as type 'white male' does not mean I must treat myself that way. — Jackson

Bringing this back to your OP, the assumption addressed in the article is that we can only see things according to our 'type'. It strikes me as stereotyping in an attempt to overcome stereotyping.

But I do not experience the world as a type. — Jackson

I agree. My brother and I may experience the same event differently.

I think experience is mostly how I see the world, not just how I am treated as a type. — Jackson

And yet, how I am treated will influence how I see the world.

there is a distinction to be made between things that happen and my experience of the world. — Jackson

I would make the distinction between what is experienced, in the sense of what happens to someone, and how it is experienced, in the sense of how one responds or is affected you what happens. Both the what and the how are part of experience.

Yes, but I don't think that is what "experience" means. — Jackson

I don't follow. How is being on the receiving end of such discrimination not an experience of discrimination?

We do not have black man and white man experiences. We have human experiences. — Harry Hindu

That is not always the case. You are conflating an ideal with reality. The fact of the matter is that prejudice has not been eliminated. A white man in the US will not experience this discrimination when buying a house or applying for a loan or applying for a job or being stopped for a motor vehicle check.

If the reasons are different, then what is it that is shared by the extremes to say that they are close to each other? — Harry Hindu

The banning of books is a topical example. "Cancelling" is another. Restrictions on speech.

A large part of the current problem is not extremism versus free speech but rather free speech extremists. Reasonable limits on speech is not a denial of free speech. (I see @Michael) posted on limits before I posted this).

If there is to be free speech then it should not be allowed to be thwarted by being shouted out. The contemporary version of this includes one or a small number of individuals flooding a topic.

As to Socrates: the issue was not free speech. He recognized a responsibility for what one said and he took that responsibility seriously, all the way to his death. His responsibilities were divided and in tension - both to the city and to the search for truth. Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and others came up with ways to deal with this tension, but it has never been eliminated.

If someone dehumanizes you because of your differences, then it is the differences that we should be ignoring, not focusing on. — Harry Hindu

It is not that the difference should be ignored but rather that such differences should not be regarded as exclusionary factors for what it means to be human.

There must be a reason to focus on one or the other. — Harry Hindu

It has been said that extreme views on opposite ends of the spectrum come close to each other. Rather than a straight line with two poles they are more like the Greek letter Omega:Ω. Both extremes come close together in excluding what is regarded as 'other', even though they do so for very different reasons.

When we see each other simply as fellow humans, instead of focusing on our differences of race and sex ... — Harry Hindu

When we see each other through the lens of a well-intentioned but disingenuous ideological lens there is a danger of dehumanizing them. Our differences is what makes us individuals. Problems arise with how one regards and treats others in ways that are harmful on the basis of race or sex.

As to the OP, I think it is misguided and all too easily drifts to the absurd. If "lived experience" or "personal experience" is the determining criteria, then all representation must be limited to autobiography.

Nietzsche famously proclaimed that “only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified.” — praxis

He said an aesthetics of production is needed because people only talk about the aesthetics of reception. — Jackson

Given his training as a philologist it seems likely than Nietzsche make the connection with the etymological meaning of aesthetic, to perceive, although no passage comes to mind in support of this. Perception is an act of will. That is, not simply what is passively given or received, but what is made, a creative act.

Certainty is a special class of knowledge in any event. — Hanover

All too often certainty can be a special class of delusion.

And you comment is non-responsive to mine. — Hanover

It is. Only you don't see it because you assume the existence of the very thing in question.

I don't know their level of certitude regarding moral issues and neither do you — Hanover

Do you think that anti-abortion advocates doubt their own convictions?

I do think there is wisdom to be found but do not think it matches up with what you find.
— Fooloso4

You have no idea what I derive from the Bible, Hamlet, or Winnie the Pooh. — Hanover

I do know how you define God. And I do know that there are several examples in the Bible that do not conform to your definition. So:

Where it does you call it wisdom, where it doesn't you reject it. — Fooloso4

The problem is that epistemological uncertainty has no bearing on ontological reality. — Hanover

Without epistemological certainty there can be no certainty of ontological reality. Moral realism remains an assertion.

Whether we know what is right doesn't affect what is right — Hanover

If we do not know what is right we do not know if anything is right beyond whatever it is we assert to be right.

quote="Hanover;686309"]Why would someone advocate otherwise, as if to insist someone behave in a certain way when we ourselves aren't certain of what is the right way to behave?[/quote]

This happens all the time. Although those who want to make abortion a criminal offense may be certain that they are right, it certainly is not certain that they are.

This has no bearing on moral relativism or absolutism, but is just pragmatics. — Hanover

Of course it does. Those who are convinced of their own moral certainty are now the majority of the Supreme Court and a large and powerful enough faction of the Legislator to determine what significant portions of our lives will be.

By using a biblical analogy to make your point, do you not invoke the wisdom of the Bible? — Hanover

The point is, what is regarded as the wisdom of the Bible does not conform to what you want it to. Where it does you call it wisdom, where it doesn't you reject it. I do think there is wisdom to be found but do not think it matches up with what you find.







.

What I can say is that the institutional religious records written by the rabbis do not reflect stonings occurring, with that era beginning in the first century CE. — Hanover

Right. This supports the claim of moral relativism, that even under the pretext of what is unchanging and absolute the beliefs and values of human beings are not invariant. Now you may think that this is progress, that we are moving toward the realization of moral objectivity, but I think that it is instead a matter of trying to figure out what is best in the absence of knowledge of what is best. In the absence of such knowledge perhaps what is best is to accept that certain moral problems do not yield clear solutions, that the recognition of uncertainty leads to toleration of differences.

our wisest ancestors used it as the vehicle to describe good from evil — Hanover

What I am suggesting is that our wise ancestors did not make such a clear distinction. The tree of knowledge is of both good and evil. One tree, so to speak, that bears fruit that is both good and evil, just as experience shows. (Koholeth) eschews the pollyannic view and squarely faces the fact that the wicked may prosper and the righteous get what the wicked deserve.

.

You sound like you’re not certain what to make of Nietzsche, or at least his notion of the eternal return. — Joshs

I would go further and say that anyone who is certain does not understand it.

Do you think that Nietzsche introduced revolutionary ideas — Joshs

Becoming without teleology. Perspectivism.

This will give me a better sense of where you are approaching his work from. — Joshs

My approach is to read him carefully, treating the text as a whole, under the assumption that it was carefully written as a whole. This means, that his style is integral. I take him to be a skeptic and ironist and so we need to put things together in order to make sense of the whole, that what he seems to be saying should not simply be taken at face value and that he can be deliberately misleading.

There is no historical evidence of the stonings taking place and extremely few death penalties being carrier out in the rabbinical era beginning in the 1st century CE. — Hanover

Do you mean no historical evidence taking place or no historical evidence of them taking place in the rabbinical era?

[Edit]

Through personal experience, introspection, and a need for there to be an anchor for meaning and purpose. — Hanover

In other words, your definition of God is subjective and based on the presupposition that there must be a meaning and purpose that is not subjective.

I'm saying that I'm not committing to your strawmen — Hanover

To be clear, are you claiming that the quotes from Isaiah and Job are false? And that they are false because they do not conform to your definition of God as good? A definition that "we" or "one" should accept because that is what a reasonable person should do?

[Added: Does this mean that those of us who do not accept what a reasonable person does is not reasonable, at least to the extent they do not accept your definition of God?

The problem is, at least from what you have provided, is that it does not solve the riddle of "The Vision and The Enigma". It does not respond to the question:

Must not whatever CAN happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?

To deny it does not give us the reason why Nietzsche denies it, if in fact he does.

Perhaps a first step in solving the riddle is to identify it. What are we to make of this "crooked truth", this truth that is not true, that is, not straight? Zarathustra begins with a model of an eternal past and an eternal future running in opposite directions. The two roads come together in the moment but no one has yet gone to the end of them. He then asks if one could follow the road further and further would they still be antithetical. The spirit of gravity answers: all truth is crooked, time is a circle.
If no one has “yet” followed further and further for an eternity and more then no one knows that the roads form a circle. The first problem with this is the “yet”. There can be no yet if all has occurred before, or if it can be then it is not true that whatever will happen has happened. The second problem is that if time is a circle does it only move in one direction?

When he hears the dog howl he asks whether he had ever heard a dog howl like this and answered that he had in his youth. But when he sees the shepherd he says he had never seen this before. If it is true that everything that happens has already happened then it would be false to say that he had never seen this before. After biting the head of the snake off, the transfigured being who was no longer a shepherd and no longer a man, laughed as no man on earth had ever laughed.

Zarathustra poses the problems this parable, this enigma: who is it that must come some day? Who is the shepherd? He does not ask about the snake. Is it the snake that bites its own tail, completing the circle? Having bit off its head is the circle broken? Is the laugh that no man has ever laughed something new? Has the one who must someday come come before or is it something that has yet to happen?

The eternal return is a riddle. One key to reading that riddle the problem of creation. If all is eternal return then there can be no creation, but above all Zarathustra wants to create are creators.

The greatest weight.--
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; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? — Gay Science Aphorism 341

There are two ways to read the Bible: (1) from a traditional view of a believer or (2) from the view of biblical scholarship. — Hanover

These are not mutually exclusive, many but not all scholars are believers.

Your last sentence quoted above is simply not correct and it conflates the views of #1 and #2. — Hanover

Are you claiming that stoning was never taken literally? If it conflates your dubious distinction it does so for good reason. The rabbis who interpret the Law, both then and now, were both believers and biblical scholars.

If you want to stand in the position of a believer, you are correct in asserting that Moses received the law from Mount Sinai ... — Hanover

There are many believers who doubt the historical veracity of this.

If you take the position of #2 (a modern biblical scholar) — Hanover

You shifted from biblical scholarship to modern biblical scholarship. The inclusion of the perspective of time is significant.

that assumes a sudden handing down of law as opposed to hundreds of years of the Bible being written, it being edited, and it being combined by an editor into a single scroll. — Hanover

At some point it was said that certain infractions were punishable by death by stoning. Are you claiming that it was not understood literally then? At some point it was written down, are you claiming that it was not understood literally then? Eventually, however, there was no longer compliance. Such things were no longer regarded as morally acceptable. It is just this change that I am pointing to.

What you are describing in your post is a modern fundamentalism ... — Hanover

Again, what I am describing is changes in beliefs and values.

As to your comment that biblical interpretations by adherents have varied through history and that fact is obvious, I agree. — Hanover

How do you reconcile such changes with your claim that there is an objective morality?

I never suggested the question of who God was best answered by referinng to the Bible. — Hanover

So what would you suggest is the best way to answer the question?

I think we could spend weeks on Job alone, considering that does present a very complicated discussion of theodicy. — Hanover

That is certainly true. Are you suggesting that we should not take your claim that:

At least we can define God as the good and deny unholy acts are decreed by him, but only falsely in his name. — Hanover

seriously? Or are you saying that you are not prepared to back up your claim? When you say "we" who are you referring to?

I follow Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche — Joshs

It should be kept in mind that reading Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche is reading Deleuze not Nietzsche.

You submit a strawman that certainly no significant group adheres to, which is that the Hebrew Bible is to be read literally and in isolation. — Hanover

The only strawman here is the one you made. It is not a matter of reading the myths literally. How do you understand the following:

Forming light, and preparing darkness, Making peace, and preparing evil, I [am] Jehovah, doing all these things.' — Isaiah 45:7

Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” — Job 2:10

The term translated as evil is ra'. It means bad, trouble, adversity, calamity.

If they did, adherents would be stoning little girls. — Hanover

I raised this problem before, but you ignored it. By what light do we read such passages from Deuteronomy? I think it obvious that we read them in light of beliefs and values which are not fixed and eternal, but relative to time and place. Those who wrote and those who first heard the Law did not think that it was not to be taken literally.

At least we can define God as the good ... — Hanover

The God of the Hebrew Bible cannot be defined as good without ignoring all the bad things attributed to him. The stories may be myth but as you say:

By the same token, that it is fiction doesn’t mean it can't contain truths. — Hanover

So what is the truth about God as depicted in the stories of wrath and destruction? Do you think the depictions are false because they do not conform to God as you define him? One might just as well say that God as you define him is a fiction. It seems far more simplistic and lacking in sophistication.

And neither is there any repetition of the past. — Joshs

In the section "The Vision and the Enigma" in Zarathustra:

“Observe,” continued I, “This Moment! From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane BACKWARDS: behind us lieth an eternity.

Must not whatever CAN run its course of all things, have already run along that lane? Must not whatever CAN happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?

And if everything have already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of This Moment? Must not this gateway also—have already existed?

And are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This Moment draweth all coming things after it? CONSEQUENTLY—itself also?

For whatever CAN run its course of all things, also in this long lane OUTWARD—MUST it once more run!—

And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things—must we not all have already existed?

—And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that long weird lane—must we not eternally return?”—

This fits in well with the motif of going up and down, ascent and descent, higher and lower. Rather than the movement from this world to the eternal heavenly afterword, the circular movement may be seen from one perspective as moving up but from another as moving down. There is no final resting point.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING.

I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers. — Zarathustra Prologue

Rather, the eternal return was first of all a lived experience, which was revealed to Nietzsche in Sils-Maria, high in the Swiss Alps, in August of 1881, and experienced as an impulse, an intensity, a high tonality of the soul—and indeed as the highest possible tonality of the soul. — Joshs

I don't know what this means. Certainly not an experience like seeing the Grand Canyon which is there to be experienced. Perhaps like deja vu, which may be nothing more than the mind playing tricks on itself. Or Paul's vision on the road to Damascus, which was for him a profound experience but questionable with regard to whether it corresponds to anything other than what his mind has produced, a product of his imagination.

All experience is a lived experience. There is something ambiguous about such an experience. No doubt there is something that is experienced, but the experience of actually being on the moon is not the same as having an experience that one has been on the moon even though you have never been there.

Have you read Deleuze? Do you think he is a good interpreter of Nietzsche? — Joshs

I think we have had this conversation before. I have not read enough of his work to say; but if I did, do you think we would agree in our interpretation of his interpretation?

The quote above continues:

Change of values—that is a change of creators. Whoever must be a creator always annihilates.
First, peoples were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Verily, the individual himself is still the
most recent creation.

Philosophy the new "religion". — dimosthenis9

I don't think he regarded philosophy as the new religion or "religion", but rather, religion is what creators create. To what extent they believe their own mythologies is a deep and interesting question. The eternal return, for example

Let’s bring this down to earth a bit. — Joshs

An intentional or unintentional pun?

Do you think Nietzsche can be called an atheist? — Joshs

Yes.

And what is left of the notion of religion if the ‘Good’ is incoherent or irrational? — Joshs

When religion is free of transcendence the creators of religion need not be bound to it.

Don’t you think Nietzsche’s concept of the drives in relation to knowledge is crucial here? — Joshs

Yes.

Only man placed values in things to preserve himself—he alone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore he calls himself "man," which means: the esteemer.
To esteem is to create: hear this, you creators! Esteeming itself is of all esteemed things the most estimable treasure. Through esteeming alone is there value: and without esteeming, the nut of existence would be hollow — Zarathustra, On the Thousand and One Goals

We should pause to consider Nietzsche's idea of a god who philosophizes. This is part of his dialectic with Plato. He says:

I am complete skeptic when it comes to Plato — Twilight of the Idols,

Both are skeptics in the original sense of the term, and only a skeptic understands a skeptic. Skepticism in this sense is zetetic.

If Plato had been able to speak freely he might have said: "The gods are dead". The situation then was very much like it was for Nietzsche. The gods could no longer be taken as a viable option, but religion in some form was necessary for the masses. In the mythology of the Republic in place of the gods stands the Good, transcendent, eternal, and unchanging. The philosopher is transformed from one who seeks knowledge to one who possesses divine knowledge.

Nietzsche inverts this. Instead of the mythical philosopher who possesses divide knowledge, a god, Dionysus, is a true philosopher, that is, one who desires but does not possess wisdom. One who possesses what Socrates calls in the Apology "human wisdom", the knowledge that one does not know. In place of the fixed world of being is the changing world of becoming. But here too as in the Republic the philosophers are commanders and lawgivers (see above The Philosophers)

For instance, it is valuable as a tool for rules to control and pacify others. — Joshs

Yes, but this is not simply for the benefit of the ruler. A significant benefit of Christianity was a matter of self-control. But what was then a benefit is no longer so, and this as a result of its success.

But the real philosophers are commanders and lawgivers: they say "That is how it should be!" They determine first the "Where to?" and the "What for?" of human beings, and, as they do this, they have at their disposal the preliminary work of all philosophical labourers, all those who have overpowered the past - they reach with their creative hands to grasp the future. In that process, everything which is and has been becomes a means for them, an instrument, a hammer. Their "knowing" is creating; their creating is establishing laws; their will to truth is - will to power. - Are there such philosophers nowadays? Have there ever been such philosophers? Is it not necessary that there be such philosophers? . . . . — BGE 211

But this is not simply for his own benefit. The philosopher is a benefactor.

...in what sense is becoming and self-overcoming religion? — Joshs

They should be viewed in light of what they are opposed to. They are by themselves no more religion than being and obedience are.

He did not simply encourage people to have something to believe in. — Joshs

People do not need to be encouraged to have something to believe in. They desire to believe in something.

What he encouraged was recognizing that the ‘something’ one believes in is always transforming itself into something new, so it is the endless movement , the eternal return of the same movement , that he sees as fundamental , not the enslavement to something one believes in. — Joshs

In part this answers your question regarding what becoming and self-overcoming have to do with a Dionysian religion. Historical awareness leads to nihilism. What he calls in " The Use and Abuse of History for Life" "deadly truths". These are no truths that a majority of people can live by. It leaves them rudderless. Religious inventions are not for the philosopher, they are creations of the philosopher for the benefit of the people.

The eternal return of the same plays out in one way through the three metamorphoses of the spirit. From acceptance, I shall, to denial, the sacred no, to a new sacred yes, I will. The sacred yes is not enslavement, it is an assertion of the will to power. It is the end and the beginning of the turning of the wheel. The affirmation is not denied the moment it is affirmed. The stages of becoming follow one after the other, they do not happen all at once.