Comments

  • On Nietzsche...
    "Not because of this. You don't seem to get it. God is SUPREME - He doesn't need to ask you for permission! How can you even conceive of the absurdity that God would need to ask you for permission to create you?!"

    I get that, but that doesnt mean I am capable of accepting his creation. In the Christian view, that is why I deserve hell
  • On Nietzsche...
    Then every moral valuation is blasphemy in a certain sense if it is made by someone who stands in a true relationship with God and it would be unchristian of you to not agree with Nietzsche that all true acts of Love are beyond good and evil, wouldnt it?
  • On Nietzsche...
    So then if a man uses his own limited reason etc, the faculties thay makes us intstunctively value what is good and evil (the very thing you criticize Nietzsche for questioning), then it would not be so wrong to say that God is evil in a sense?
  • On Nietzsche...
    "I find it curious that Nietzsche out of all people did not cure you of your weakness which perpetually demands salvation as if you or anyone deserved it in the first place..."

    This view is repulsive to me. I dont think I deserve salvation, but I say that the opposite argument that "You deserve damnation because you are a wicked sinner" or "If you dont believe you will suffer in an everlasting fire" is wrong and wicked too, because God created man without man's consent. In a godless world, the hope of suicide and death at least exists if suffering becomes inendurable, but christianity eliminates this and demands a Faith I can not achieve. Therefore, it is christianity that causes one to lose Hope, to feel trapped in a person of existence that Will Only det worse if one doesnt make a leap of faith that I have tried to make. And this in combination with for example The fact that I havent asked for life is hideous to me. Deserve? It is not about what one deserves. It is about christianity saying "You are doomed to exist, and if you dont accept a 2000 year old event as being true and make a leap of faith, you Will be forever punished".
  • On Nietzsche...
    I believe Kierkegaard would say that hoping and even believing in universal salvation is tenable, but teaching it as a definite doctrine isn't
  • On Nietzsche...
    According to thé Church yes, but then you must first also accept the Curch's truth claims (That it is infallible etc.), something Kierkegaard probably didnt
  • On Nietzsche...
    Universalism isnt about what you know Will happen, it is about belief. Nothing in christianity is about what you know. It is about that you trust in the claims made by the person Jesus.
  • On Nietzsche...
    My problem with christianity is that I dont find it Good news, because the fact that God even created a world that would unfold in this way and, according to Christ's own words, a world where many will inevitably be damnned (narrow is the gate etc.), is bad news. So to me christianity seems dishonest when it calls creation good considering that eternal suffering for the multitude is inevitable. So left for me is to try to make a leap of faith for the sole reason that I fear punishment and dont want hell, but that again is dishonest and pathetic from my side.
    Also in scripture I find typical of the "multiple personality disorder-problems" or whatever one would call it. On the one hand this forgiveness and even God's weakness in Christ, on the other hand an all-powerful and ruling God, a vengeful and wrathful judge who condemns others to suffer and there by shows a total unwilligness to forgive in eternity and worse; to want suffering that is MEANINGLESS for the sufferers to exist forever. Suffering that doesnt build up, doesnt Change ways or anything. But just typical despair and physical and mental torture. Unendingly.

    A great part of why my whole critique about christianity is resting on many of the words of Paul: Because what do we find in Christ? The son of God, God incarnate who become crucified, mocked, beaten, tortured etc. Now Jesus came to show the face of God, right(He who has seen me has seen the Father)? He came to free the oppressed and poor etc. And he did all this in weakness. He was weak, powerless, suffering, poor, an outcast etc. And he was the image of God. To me that suggests Only one thing: God is all These things. He is not powerful in the way that has been suggested in Christian theology. The Only way he has power is in his weakness, love, suffering etc. This IS God and Christ. But from Paul onwards, God is this all-powerful and ruling Other, that only takes the ROLE of being an outcast, a sufferer, a weak man who gets crucified, while in reality being a ruling King, a judge with absolute power. This I find untenable. God MUST be crucified every time an evil act is committed; and thereby proving his complete powerlessness and love. He can only conquer evil by being weak. He transforms hearts because he HAS no power, because he is like a lamb, and that is his power. Eternally. Because he has no other power to destroy it. That must be the truth, not the schizophrenic contradiction I find in classical theology. It is too influenced by ancient Greek and its worship of passionlessness and a God that can neither feel passion nor suffer. But I believe God the father to be filled with passion and that he suffers. He IS in need of man. Is this out of Place and wrong? In what way lf so?
  • On Nietzsche...
    "Sure, but a vice is a failure to love. The person who is cruel, fails to love"

    But if the Only true sin is failure to love, then the Only true virtue is love and its fruits, correct? And as Nietzsche said: "All true acts of love are beyond Good and evil"
  • On Nietzsche...
    "Because we should pray and hope that all will be saved, we shouldn't wish anyone to be damned."

    True, but Kierkegaard did not Believe anyone would be eternally damned, it is quite obvious. That doesnt mean he knew that to be the Case, but he believed it
  • On Nietzsche...
    when you say one is cruel and one is virtous; are you saying that one is in a way better than another? I side not with Aristotle but with Dostoevsky. The only real sin is failure to love. Kindness can also be an expression of something else. Love is all it is about, not moral virtues
  • On Nietzsche...
    "Why does he wonder then? Wonder only makes sense if he doesn't understand how it will happen"

    Wonder means amazement. He obviously believes all Will be saved, why does he otherwise say so?
  • On Nietzsche...
    No he clearly says he even believes it, and his conviction of this belief is what awakens his deep wonder

    "But this is precisely the point. We have to question whether those really are the inner wants of man as such, or they're only the inner wants of SOME men."

    All, but it expresses itself differently in each individual. Have you read the catholic Thomist-Aristotelian philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre? He rated Nietzsche as one of the absolutely greatest of all philosophers because of his deep and true realization that our morals are expressions of something else than we have traditionally admitted... BTW why not ask the same about original/ancestral sin? Has it really affected ALL and not just SOME?

    Would you agree with Dostoevsky that the Only true sin is the failure to love?
  • On Nietzsche...
    Following the death of Denmark’s bishop Jacob Mynster, in 1854, Kierkegaard wrote this brief reflection:
    "What the old bishop once said to me is not true–namely, that I spoke as if the others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell then I say something like this: If the others are going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that we will all be saved and this awakens my deepest wonder."
  • On Nietzsche...
    For an honest and good Christian view and standpoint on Nietzsche, I really recommend David Bentley Hart :

    https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/05/believe-it-or-not

    Read that article, he of course Believes Nietzsche was wrong in the end. But yet necessary, and correct in many of his diagnosis etc.
  • On Nietzsche...
    I would say Nietzsche valued creative power
  • On Nietzsche...
    and to this one might add that christianity from the beginning tried to solve these problems But in the end its followers rejected suffering, rejected following Christ and became his admirers instead. I see one of the reasons to this in the Christian obsession with defining dogmas and doctrines that leads to a sense of security. Like defining predestination, election, justification etc. And a neurotic man who fears punishment suddenly says "I am justified and saved",and then lies back in his couch waiting for the rapture (Another false doctrine). That is Why I dislike Aquinas also, I believe he was one of those who most clearly caused this decline among the "great Christian teacherd" by sitting down trying to define dogmas all his life instead of following Christ in his suffering. And it culminated in Calvin and Luther who Only tried to find out exactly how one is saved and seeking to find security in it instead of living the gospel. Here christianity watered down and became nihilistic, and that is what Nietzsche observed. Of course the true enemies of Christ isnt a Nietzsche but rather a comfortable, Self-proclaimed saved man who avoids the challenges if the gospel because he is saved and elect already etc. is the true enemy of Truth (in the Christian Word, that is Christ)
  • On Nietzsche...
    Here is Nietzsche on why christianity had for so long been the superior world view:

    "What were the advantages of the Christian moral hypothesis?

    1. It granted man an absolute value, as opposed to his smallness and
    accidental occurrence in the flux of becoming and passing away.

    2. It served the advocates of God insofar as it conceded to the world,
    in spite of suffering and evil, the character of perfection-including
    "freedom": evil appeared full of meaning.

    3. It posited that man had a knowledge of absolute values and thus
    adeguate knowledge precisely regarding what is most important.

    4. It prevented man from despising himself as man, from taking sides
    against life; from despairing of knowledge: it was a means of
    preservation .

    In sum: morality was the great antidote against practical and
    theoretical nihilism. "
  • On Nietzsche...
    Nietzsche's critique against Schopenhauer's final rejection of life had some very valid points. A pessimist is in the end a brother of the hedonist in that he values life baser on suffering. Suffering bad, opposite good. But the pessimist focuses on the bad and therefore rejects life. Nietzsche knew that Schopenhauer was correct in that life was suffering, and therefore Nietzsche hated hedonists. But Nietzsche also saw that suffering was needed in order for man to reach his creative heights
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    yes. And it is time for philosophy to have some fun about it. Where is the Cervantes of philosophy?
  • On Nietzsche...
    "Yes, at least not in a Christian sense. He also said he aspires to be a Christian and greatly desires to be one, but avoided calling himself one."

    Exactly. He was quite likely also a universalist ;)
  • Post truth
    I have never even read Heidegger, I am just certain that he was a little wannabe and prick
  • Post truth
    Heidegger seems to possess all of Nietzsche’s conceit but none of his wit or talent for self-criticism. Heidegger himself seems to be filled with pride everytime he has found a complicated and forbidding formula and then treats it as if it had been delivered by an oracle.
  • Post truth
    It is a work impossible to really understand, and it stinks imitation and careerism about it
  • On Nietzsche...
    Yes I know but I am quite sure he didnt regard himself as having true Faith, even though he did Believe christisnity to be true
  • On Nietzsche...
    Nietzsche just as Dostoevsky was an exceptional psychologist and a great diagnostic of the times. Nietzsche's famous fable in The Gay Science of the madman who mentions God’s death is not precisely a hymn of atheist triumphalism. In fact, the madman despairs of the mere atheists to whom he addresses his terrifying proclamation. In their moral lazyness and weak sensibility though, he sees that they do not despair over the death of God... This is almost prophetic, because look at our culture today and the last 90 years or so. God's death as a cultural thing has been quite true... And concerning the madman in Gay Science: The atheists that the madman talks to are we today, must of us, the indifferent once who has lost the sense of the sacred: Look at the atheists in this fable: They grasp not that humanity’s heroic and insane act of repudiation is gone and has left us with only our own resources, with which we can only helplessly try to combat the complete meaninglessness that the universe now appears to be...
  • On Nietzsche...
    As Bentley Hart, the orthodox Christian theologian said: "Above all, Nietzsche understood how immense the consequences of the rise of Christianity had been, and how immense the consequences of its decline would be as well, and had the intelligence to know he could not fall back on polite moral certitudes to which he no longer had any right. Just as the Christian revolution created a new sensibility by inverting many of the highest values of the pagan past, so the decline of Christianity, Nietzsche knew, portends another, perhaps equally catastrophic shift in moral and cultural consciousness. "
  • On Nietzsche...
    I see... Well even though I still firmly hold fast to Nietzsche's greatness, there is no doubt he went too far sometimes. But he often also said that he didnt want people to always agree with him, and I also Believe that many of the quotes you listed, tries to reveal the in many eyes hideous truth about man and his inner wants etc. Mostly an overstatement and provocative tour the force in order to establish New values so that nihilism would be overcome.
  • On Nietzsche...
    I thinked he hoped it but he admitted in the end that he didnt have what he would call faith. He was one with high demands on what it means to be christian (sell all you have etc.)... I just read an expansive work that went through all of Kierkegaard 's writings and his journals etc. And it seems quite obvious that he had such great insights in the difference between Faith and despair etc. Because he knew himself to have almost grasped Faith, but in the end, he didnt receive Regine back... And well, he never became this man of action and inwardness that he thought a Christian must be.
  • On Nietzsche...
    Okay I see. Well to start with, Nietzsche wasn't precisely the ubermensch he proclaimed just as Kierkegaard wasn't the Knight of faith he proclaimed
  • Post truth
    Being and Time is crap in comparsion to for example Nietzsche and Kierkegaard
  • On Nietzsche...
    Is this thread a sort of public reply to our discussion since you quote from basically one book, plus one quote from a work you Said you have never even read? Shall I counter-post with quotes from the bible?
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    I am talking about absolute truth. I believe Don Quixote is all men basically.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    "So, what do you care about?"

    What I meant was that people who claim to Care about truth often just care about caring about truth, or about talking about truth. Its just another interest.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    Humanity is a silly mess. Literally, who cares about truth? Philosophers just like philosophizing and it is its own reward just as a tennis player likes tennis.
  • Suicide and hedonism
    "N. misunderstood Plato's view of rationality, so he was criticising a strawman. What N. called the Dionysian element was always a part of Plato's view of rationality."

    Could you explain this more in detail?
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    I can only say right now that I disagree.
    1.It isnt rational, rather it is hinted in things such as beauty, love etc.
    2. It depends on what you mean by one. Struggle, pain and contraries is what gives birth to the things that most experience as meaningful. Except most want to eliminate all three. That is what has given rise to the meaninglessness and zombie-like existence one can observe today.
    3. What do you mean objective? What then happens to the subjective?
  • We are more than material beings!
    Even if we are not Only material beings as understood by materialists, it doesnt mean that we have a soul seperate from our body
  • Suicide and hedonism
    The Socratic method and dialectic found in Plato has a serious flaw, a sickness within it: It is mainly concerned with looking at life. It is opposed to that which Nietzsche would call the Dionysian comcept, because it seeks to negate life in the end, in that it uses reason to deflect, but never to create.
  • Suicide and hedonism
    Because now is all that is, and one of the reason of all faults is man's inability to be now and his inability to live Now is a main reason why he feels the need for redemption: Jesus on the Cross eliminates man's past, he now lives a resurrected life. Jesus also stresses the here and now. Unfortunately not enough though in words. As Wittgenstein Says in Tractatus: "If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

    I can entirely buy Wittgenstein's view here but I have never met a Christian in Real life who hold this view, though I am sure they exist. Dostoevsky was one.

    I am against Plato's view here about rationality for the same reason Nietzsche praises Dionysos over Apollo