Nietzsche and God-is-Dead

[Ralph]

What stormy reception???? Aren't you the fella that lived near or around Cortland? Lessee, the last conversation I remember having with you was about the respective merits of our surrounding landscapes.

Yeah that was me. My reception wasn't really bad, but a stupid little altercation with Mark over a disputed post, and I got a general feeling of indifference from a lot of members, and it wasn't fun. But like I said, it was just a stupid little mistake which I don't plan to repeat.

Well, that won't happen again. We got rules now and so far everyone has been good about restraining their enthusiasms.

Welcome to Philo too. Don't be bashful about your music creds. We are thrilled to have all kinds of experiences here.

We have another Kevin, who hangs mostly in the Pub. We are developing quite a cadre of philosophers over there. There's Brendan, the amateur theologian; Barry, the science/EvoDevo guy; Ralph the god-is-dead rep. and legal theorist; John, the recovering seminarian, who guided us thru the recent conclave; Pizza, the Torah Scholar; Frank the evangelical (I'm not sure which kind); Kevin the Constitutional scholar; Ted, the Pragmatist; me, the Theosophist/Mormon/former-unorthodox-Catholic Gnostic wannabe, and . . . and . . . am I forgetting anyone? If I did, I apologize. Com'on over and throw down some tenents. I'm sure you'll get a dialog started right off.

*****

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

[Corlyss_D]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

[Philoctetes]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

[Ralph]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

*****

Ah, another Nietzsche scholar, perhaps.

And what do you think of Nietzsche's music?

[Philoctetes]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

*****

Ah, another Nietzsche scholar, perhaps.

And what do you think of Nietzsche's music?

It was better than I thought it would be. By no means great, but it wasn't poor either. Good listening music while studying.

[Corlyss_D]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

I was thinking more Thomas J. J. Altheizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and God is Dead. I've always thought of Nietzcshe's views about god as more desperate than serious.

[jbuck919]

I was thinking more Thomas J. J. Altheizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology. I've always thought of Nietzcshe's views about god as more desperate than serious.

I would say rather that his expression was rhetorical. He would not have felt the purely philosophic need to affirm what to him was a truism.

[Philoctetes]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

I was thinking more Thomas J. J. Altheizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and God is Dead. I've always thought of Nietzcshe's views about god as more desperate than serious.

I did not say Nietzsche believed it. Merely that the theologians took off from that phrase.

[Philoctetes]

Oh, and ta.

I see there is no way to delete my account. So if you could kindly do that. I would be most happy.

So.. ta.

[jbuck919]

Oh, and ta.

I see there is no way to delete my account. So if you could kindly do that. I would be most happy.

So.. ta.

I hope it wasn't something I said.

[springrite]

Nice to see a few familiar faces coming back.

I, of course, just like Nietzsche, need no introduction.

[Werner]

Welcome back, Paul.

[Philoctetes]

Oh, and ta.

I see there is no way to delete my account. So if you could kindly do that. I would be most happy.

So.. ta.

I hope it wasn't something I said.

No, don't worry it wasn't anything you said. And I do hope they don't delete my account. I would like to stay around for awhile. But it is of course, up to them.

[Corlyss_D]

I would say rather that his expression was rhetorical. He would not have felt the purely philosophic need to affirm what to him was a truism.

Ah, well, there's where we diverge again. I didn't think he believed it.

[Philoctetes]

I would say rather that his expression was rhetorical. He would not have felt the purely philosophic need to affirm what to him was a truism.

Ah, well, there's where we diverge again. I didn't think he believed it.

Well, he did believe it, but not in its literal interpretation. It was more a metaphor than anything else. That is one thing Nietzsche did love, the confoundation of language.

[Corlyss_D]

Well, he did believe it, but not in its literal interpretation. It was more a metaphor than anything else. That is one thing Nietzsche did love, the confoundation of language.

Confoundation! I like it!

How can one believe in the metaphorical expression of an idea if he doesn't believe in the literalness of at least some elements of the idea?

[Philoctetes]

Well, he did believe it, but not in its literal interpretation. It was more a metaphor than anything else. That is one thing Nietzsche did love, the confoundation of language.

Confoundation! I like it!

How can one believe in the metaphorical expression of an idea if he doesn't believe in the literalness of at least some elements of the idea?

Well for him it represented an ideal. God, in this sentence could be called as representing the Judeo-Christian morality, it was not in a literal sense god, but the idea behind god. If that made any sense

[Ralph]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

*****

Ah, another Nietzsche scholar, perhaps.

And what do you think of Nietzsche's music?

It was better than I thought it would be. By no means great, but it wasn't poor either. Good listening music while studying.

*****

Did you feel empowered? All-knowing?

[Philoctetes]

Me a "god is dead" type? Nonsense. God ain't-it's that simple.

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

*****

Ah, another Nietzsche scholar, perhaps.

And what do you think of Nietzsche's music?

It was better than I thought it would be. By no means great, but it wasn't poor either. Good listening music while studying.

*****

Did you feel empowered? All-knowing?

Not really.

[Ralph]

It sounds more romantic and swashbuckling than 'atheist.'

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

*****

Ah, another Nietzsche scholar, perhaps.

And what do you think of Nietzsche's music?

It was better than I thought it would be. By no means great, but it wasn't poor either. Good listening music while studying.

*****

Did you feel empowered? All-knowing?

Not really.

*****

Too bad.

[Philoctetes]

I see. Well I thought you were referring to the theological movement that stemmed from Nietzsche's phrase, "God is dead."

*****

Ah, another Nietzsche scholar, perhaps.

And what do you think of Nietzsche's music?

It was better than I thought it would be. By no means great, but it wasn't poor either. Good listening music while studying.

*****

Did you feel empowered? All-knowing?

Not really.

*****

Too bad.

[Brendan]

In fact anyone who is acquainted with theological tradition is well aware that the God that supposedly died in the minds of these new men is a god who never lived in the first place.
Merton, Thomas – Foreword to Johnstone, William – The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing [1967, 2000 Fordham University Press pXIV]

Straw men are easy targets in any era.

[jbuck919]

In fact anyone who is acquainted with theological tradition is well aware that the God that supposedly died in the minds of these new men is a god who never lived in the first place.
Merton, Thomas – Foreword to Johnstone, William – The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing [1967, 2000 Fordham University Press pXIV]

Straw men are easy targets in any era.

Anyone who is acquainted with Thomas Merton (and I am, in spades) knows that he exercised his compulsion to write under hothouse circumstances that occasionally compromised him. Anybody who is acquainted with theological tradition is aware of no such thing.

Do I really have to say this? Nietzsche did not declare God to be dead. He used the expression as a literary figure. Nietzsche was an atheist from the word go, and represents a long philosophical line of such beings that began well before him. He was a child of the Enlightenment, with predecessors going back to Hume and Voltaire, not to mention in his more recent experience Schopenhauer.

[Philoctetes]

In fact anyone who is acquainted with theological tradition is well aware that the God that supposedly died in the minds of these new men is a god who never lived in the first place.
Merton, Thomas – Foreword to Johnstone, William – The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing [1967, 2000 Fordham University Press pXIV]

Straw men are easy targets in any era.

Anyone who is acquainted with Thomas Merton (and I am, in spades) knows that he exercised his compulsion to write under hothouse circumstances that occasionally compromised him. Anybody who is acquainted with theological tradition is aware of no such thing.

Do I really have to say this? Nietzsche did not declare God to be dead. He used the expression as a literary figure. Nietzsche was an atheist from the word go, and represents a long philosophical line of such beings that began well before him. He was a child of the Enlightenment, with predecessors going back to Hume and Voltaire, not to mention in his more recent experience Schopenhauer.

I am going to have to disagree that Nietzsche was an atheist. And as I posted earlier, his use of the word god merely a representation of an ideal.

Also, Voltaire was not exactly an atheist either.

But Hume was, an Schopenhauer is a questionable case. We do know that he was not a follower of a Christian god though.

[Brendan]

Perhaps Merton meant it in the theological tradition:

If it happens that in seeing God one understands what is seen, that means it is not God himself who is seen but one of those knowable things that owe their being to him. For in himself he transcends all intelligence and all essence. He exists in a superessential mode and is known beyond all understanding only in so far as he is utterly unknown and does not exist at all. And it is that perfect unknowing, taken in the best sense of the word, that constitutes the true knowing of him who transcends all knowing.
Dionysius the Areopagite Letter 1, To Gaius (PG 3,1065) quoted from Clément, Olivier The Roots of Christian Mysticism [1982, 1993 p30]

Nietzsche never seemd to get a good handle on Christian apophasis, if The Anti-Christ is anything to go by. Declaring the death of a God who is infinitely unknowable and unfathomable, only imperfectly understood allegorically and through personal inner experience, seems a tad useless and silly to me - who has experienced some shadow of the mystical experience alive and well in humanity. The theological tradition Merton referred to is aware of such matters and has been for a very long time - and has worked through or around them.

[Philoctetes]

But Nietzsche was not talking about the death of a literal god. He was talking about an ideal; not an actual god.

And The Antichirst is not a good place to go looking for Nietzche's thoughts.

[Brendan]

I was also referring to allegory, and an ideal Nietzsche never seemed to grasp. Since Nietzsche wrote The Anti-Christ, perhaps I should ask the donkey instead as a better source of his thoughts?

[jbuck919]

I am going to have to disagree that Nietzsche was an atheist. And as I posted earlier, his use of the word god merely a representation of an ideal.

Also, Voltaire was not exactly an atheist either.

But Hume was, an Schopenhauer is a questionable case. We do know that he was not a follower of a Christian god though.

You have to be kidding. Atheism has been the philosophical norm for the last 300 years at least. Everyone you mention in your post was a profound atheist. It is an insult to Nietzschse to think of him as anything else.

"Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis." (The great mathematician LaPlace explaining to Napoleon why his cosmology did not mention God.)

[Philoctetes]

Actually, most scholars classifly Voltaire as a deist.

And as for Nietzche, from his letters and his writings, I come very close to classifying him as a Jewish agnostic.

And it seems..... well. For now I shall just wait.

And while there are some atheist philosophers. They are actually quite rare, unless you delve into post-modernism.

[Philoctetes]

For the Voltaire answer. You can pretty much read any old source on him to find that he was a deist.

As to Nietzsche, you will have to read his letters, and some books by Georges Bataille.

Ta.

[Michel]

Lots of nonsense going on here.

By "God is Dead", Nietzsche implies it as the point where we cease to believe in him as an idea; for God only lives if the idea does also.

"The Christian conception of God... is one of the most corrupt conceptions of God arrived at on earth..."

He wanted the idea to die, but this would only be possible, however, with a whole new system of morality, seperate from our present judeo-christian foundation.

Foucault once followed up this and proclaimed "man" to be dead!

[Brendan]

If Nietzsche's idea of God was bogus, his declaring it to be dead is useless.

If he invented his own idea about God and killed it, so what?

As Merton said, a God that never existed in the way Nietzche imagined in the first place cannot be killed by such a declaration. His understanding, particularly his lack of apophatic insight and the infinite incomprehensibility of the divine, makes him sound real profound but is entirely straw man in the end, IMHO.

[Corlyss_D]

Lots of nonsense going on here.

Foucault once followed up this and proclaimed "man" to be dead!

Indeed. Puckishness abounds.

[Michel]

Brendan, what on earth are you on about? He didn't really proclaim God was dead, even as an idea. The god is dead phrase referrred to a desired state of affairs that he wanted - the death of our belief of some baseless, unsubstantiated myth.