In his book, The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche famously states that God is dead. Passages 108 (New battles), 125 (The madman), 153 (Homo poeta) and 343 (How to understand our cheerfulness) all deal with a particular aspect of this assertion. Passage 108 states that God is dead but that it may be a long time before we acknowledge this. Passage 125 reiterates that God is dead and then goes on to say that we have killed him. Passage 153 shows homo poeta taking culpable responsibility for the death of God. Passage 343 deals with the aftermath of the death of God and questions what will change. Through critical analysis and examination of these four passages, while extending upon in-class discussion, a more complete understanding of this quote is possible.
Passage 108, ‘New battles’, states ‘God is dead; but given the way people are, there may still for millennia be caves in which they show his shadow.’ In this passage, Nietzsche is saying that God is no longer a transcendent thing; that the definition of God has changed within the minds of man into a physical God. Thus, God has become present within the Universe. Although this does not explain how God has died, this is an important argument that lays the foundation for the argument given by the ‘madman’ in passage 125. Despite God’s death, however, Nietzsche says God’s followers, will continue to preach gods existence, perhaps for a very long time.
The concept of God becoming immanent, rather than transcendent, was discussed in some detail in class. In his article ‘Immanence and Transcendence’, Philip Leon defines an immanent God as ‘within… the Universe’ and defines a transcendent God as ‘supra machinam… Whatever happens, it is the same; it has no beginning and no end; it...
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...free thought to a degree that has never before been available to us. This will bring about a new age of enlightenment, so to speak. He concludes by saying ‘the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an open sea.’
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Leon, Philip. "Immanence and Transcendence ." Philosophy. 8. no. 29 (1993).
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We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.
However, Nietzsche’s idea of the powerful forcing their will on common people resonates with me. It is something we see in our modern society, wealthy people seem to have a higher influence over the average American. Examples of powerful people controlling others are found in politics, economy, media, and religion. Common people are lead to think in certain ways that the powerful need them to. Nietzsche said that people will only be equal as long as they are equal in force and talent, people who have a higher social group are more influential in decisions because average people look to them for information. The thing I do not agree with Nietzsche on his view as Christianity as a weakness because religion is a main cause of people’s decision
The first reason for this would be because Nietzsche believes that Socrates and philosophy have killed art, and he also believes we do not need the truth because we have art and music. In “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” Nietzsche says that science is part of the “columbarium of concepts” (Pg. 150), this meaning simply that concepts kill, and since Nietzsche believes the truth is a concept, and then in turn he is saying the truth kills.
Fridreich Nietzsche writes in The Gay Science "God is dead....And we have killed him," (99, Existentialist Philosophy) referr...
While investigating the details of this peculiar relationship, I was struck by the historical and philosophical depth of several discoveries, the fundamental question being this: Why was Nietzsche's perception of both Wagner's music and his character upset simply because Wagner declared his return to God? I envisioned that this question would provide a rather simple essay, one aimed at declaring the cause of the quarrel as a basic Christian vs. Atheist dispute among oversensitive philosophical minds - but this paper has turned out to be a wealth of thought, knowledge, and chance that I can't possibly express in five to eight pages.
Nietzsche’s dramatis personae “…is different than the actor of this drama” (Science 241). The preparatory human being is one who sees the world as Nietzsche does, and so his characterization is Nietzsche, and people who he sees stick out from the rest of society. The preparatory human being is one that is fit for the transition that Nietzsche sees the world around him going through. This is the destruction of the belief in God. Nietzsche proposes that the belief has receded and questions how people will be able to cope with this (Science 181). Mentioned, also, by Nietzsche in The Gay Science is his view that monotheism stifles and directs the individual towards a normative sense of mora...
There are two possible understandings of an experience underwritten by God; either that God was constant and static but our capacity to understand him was limited; or that God was dynamic and exhibited agency and so we could never have a static set of criteria to evaluate truth against. It seems most likely that Nietzsche considered God to be the former arguing that “[m...
September 10, 2009. Cambridge Critical Guide to Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, Simon May, ed., 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1473095>. Nietzsche, Friedrich.
...’s lack of a direct response to this apparent contradiction ensures that this matter will continue to be hotly debated well into the future. For this seemingly simple contradiction of positing truths when one has denied all absolute truths, Nietzsche gives a very complex and personal answer.
In 1887, two years before succumbing to utter madness, existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche writes his ethical polemic, On the Genealogy of Morals, in search of a man with the strength to evolve beyond humanity: But from time to time do ye grant me. one glimpse, grant me but one glimpse only, of something perfect, fully realized, happy, mighty, triumphant, of something that still gives cause for fear! A glimpse of a man that justifies the existence of man. for the sake of which one may hold fast to the belief in man! Nietzsche, 18.
This confirms Nietzsche's negative view of religion / Christianism. Nietzsche said that religion shouldn't How can religion not be an 'end-in-itself' for religious believers? A counter-argument to this would be to say that religion as an instrument is not a religion.
Madigan, P. The Modern Project to Rigor: Descartes to Nietzsche. Landham: UP of America, 1986.
Madigan, P. The Modern Project to Rigor: Descartes to Nietzsche. Landham: UP of America, 1986.
Man must come out of his puny self, which is a jar, and become a well, which is a form of awakened consciousness, in order to reach the dimension of the sea which is his real self, his freedom. (41).
...y bury us in history when we want to focus on the future; they bombard us with distraction when we try to concentrate.” He starts to tell us that we often try to fight the mind by arguing against our thoughts and feelings, or by finding ways to avoid. You don’t want to get caught in and ongoing battle against your own mind. Sometime you will win the battle and sometimes you will lose putting yourself in that position that you didn’t want to be in.