Catholics & Catholicism

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic, Raptor514 ("Raptor514" alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche PETER KREEFT Just as we have pillars of Christian faith, the saints, so are there individuals who have become pillars of unbelief. Peter Kreeft discusses six modern thinkers who’ve had an enormous impact on our everyday life. They have also done great harm to the Christian mind. Their names: Machiavelli, the inventor of "the new morality"; Kant, the subjectivizer of Truth; Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "Anti-Christ"; Freud, the founder of the "sexual revolution"; Marx, the false Moses for the masses; and Sartre, the apostle of absurdity. The articles in this series constitute background to help us understand the main personalities, and those ideas they advocated, which have led us to the secular society. Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche called himself "the Anti-Christ," and wrote a book by that title. He argued for atheism as follows: "I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods." He scorned reason as well as faith, often deliberately contradicted himself, said that "a sneer is infinitely more noble that a syllogism" and appealed to passion, rhetoric and even deliberate hatred rather than reason. Nietzsche loved to say bizarre and confrontational things to get people in a snit. He saw love as "the greatest danger" and morality as mankind’s worst weakness. He died insane, in an asylum, of syphilis — signing his last letters "the Crucified One." He was adored by the Nazis as their semi-official philosopher. Nietzsche absolutely **despised** nationalists of all stripes and German nationalists in particular. Had he lived to see the Nazis it is a certainty that he would have had nothing but pure venom for them. Also, it is not known that he had syphilis, though he did spend his last years in an asylum.  One day on the street, he saw a horse being mercilessly whipped by a carriage driver.  He ran up to the horse crying, held the horse’s head, and then collapsed.  He never recovered sanity after that. Something was wrong with him, but no one knows what.  The syphilis theory is possible, but it was embraced by Christians immediately with no actual evidence or diagnosis. When Nietzsche died, church bells pealed in celebration across Europe. <snip Wow, now that I read the rest of the post I realize what a pile of crap it is.  I’m not bothering with the rest. Go to the library, read him for yourself.  Make up your own mind. I always rather liked: The madman Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves." It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 125 (1882), translated by Walter Kaufmann

I absolutely love that passage.  Pity it’s a bit large for my sig file. . . Raptor514 – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – — "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You." – Attrib: Pauline Reage. Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion? See: <http://www.Video2CD.com. 35.00 gets your video on DVD. all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read. ** atheist poster child #1 ** #442.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I always rather liked: The madman Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves." It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 125 (1882), translated by Walter Kaufmann Bloody *fantastic*! Thanks for posting it! Philippic

Completely new to me.  Yes, VERY fantastic! Rob

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I always rather liked: The madman Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves." It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 125 (1882), translated by Walter Kaufmann

Bloody *fantastic*! Thanks for posting it! Philippic

Response:

alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic, Raptor514 ("Raptor514" alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche PETER KREEFT Just as we have pillars of Christian faith, the saints, so are there individuals who have become pillars of unbelief. Peter Kreeft discusses six modern thinkers who’ve had an enormous impact on our everyday life. They have also done great harm to the Christian mind. Their names: Machiavelli, the inventor of "the new morality"; Kant, the subjectivizer of Truth; Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "Anti-Christ"; Freud, the founder of the "sexual revolution"; Marx, the false Moses for the masses; and Sartre, the apostle of absurdity. The articles in this series constitute background to help us understand the main personalities, and those ideas they advocated, which have led us to the secular society. Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche called himself "the Anti-Christ," and wrote a book by that title. He argued for atheism as follows: "I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods." He scorned reason as well as faith, often deliberately contradicted himself, said that "a sneer is infinitely more noble that a syllogism" and appealed to passion, rhetoric and even deliberate hatred rather than reason. Nietzsche loved to say bizarre and confrontational things to get people in a snit. He saw love as "the greatest danger" and morality as mankind’s worst weakness. He died insane, in an asylum, of syphilis — signing his last letters "the Crucified One." He was adored by the Nazis as their semi-official philosopher. Nietzsche absolutely **despised** nationalists of all stripes and German nationalists in particular. Had he lived to see the Nazis it is a certainty that he would have had nothing but pure venom for them. Also, it is not known that he had syphilis, though he did spend his last years in an asylum.  One day on the street, he saw a horse being mercilessly whipped by a carriage driver.  He ran up to the horse crying, held the horse’s head, and then collapsed.  He never recovered sanity after that. Something was wrong with him, but no one knows what.  The syphilis theory is possible, but it was embraced by Christians immediately with no actual evidence or diagnosis. When Nietzsche died, church bells pealed in celebration across Europe. <snip Wow, now that I read the rest of the post I realize what a pile of crap it is.  I’m not bothering with the rest. Go to the library, read him for yourself.  Make up your own mind.

I always rather liked: The madman Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves." It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 125 (1882), translated by Walter Kaufmann — "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You." – Attrib: Pauline Reage. Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion? See: <http://www.Video2CD.com. 35.00 gets your video on DVD. all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read. ** atheist poster child #1 ** #442.

Response:

The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche     PETER KREEFT Just as we have pillars of Christian faith, the saints, so are there individuals who have become pillars of unbelief.

This might come as a shock, but unlike theists, atheists do not need on other people, "role models", "pillars", "saints", or any others we want to be like. We think of things ourselves.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche PETER KREEFT Just as we have pillars of Christian faith, the saints, so are there individuals who have become pillars of unbelief. Peter Kreeft discusses six modern thinkers who’ve had an enormous impact on our everyday life. They have also done great harm to the Christian mind. Their names: Machiavelli, the inventor of "the new morality"; Kant, the subjectivizer of Truth; Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "Anti-Christ"; Freud, the founder of the "sexual revolution"; Marx, the false Moses for the masses; and Sartre, the apostle of absurdity. The articles in this series constitute background to help us understand the main personalities, and those ideas they advocated, which have led us to the secular society. Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche called himself "the Anti-Christ," and wrote a book by that title. He argued for atheism as follows: "I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods." He scorned reason as well as faith, often deliberately contradicted himself, said that "a sneer is infinitely more noble that a syllogism" and appealed to passion, rhetoric and even deliberate hatred rather than reason.

syllogism in logic, a valid deductive argument having two premises and a conclusion. The traditional type is the categorical syllogism in which both premises and the conclusion are simple declarative statements that are constructed using only three simple terms between them, each term appearing twice (as a subject and as a predicate): "All men are mortal; no gods are mortal; therefore no men are gods." The argument in such syllogisms is valid by virtue of the fact that it would not be possible to assert the premises and to deny the conclusion without contradicting oneself. He saw love as "the greatest danger" and morality as mankind’s worst weakness. He died insane, in an asylum, of syphilis — signing his last letters "the Crucified One." He was adored by the Nazis as their semi-official philosopher.

Well maybe he thought he was in love when he got infected, so who can blame him, except an RCC flack like yourself? Yet he is admired as profound and wise by many of the greatest minds of our century. How can this be?

We won’t find out by reading your catholic cut-and-paste mindless drivl. There are three schools of thought about Nietzsche. Most popular among academics is the school of the "gentle Nietzscheans," who claim that Nietzsche was, in effect, a sheep in wolf’s clothing; that his attacks should not be taken literally and that he was really an ally, not an enemy, of the Western institutions and values which he denounced. These scholars resemble theologians who interpret sayings of Jesus like: "no one can come to the Father but through me" as meaning "all religions are equally valid," and "he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery" as meaning "let your divorces be creative and reasonable."

And we should care about theologians in aa? Second, there are the "awful, awful" Nietzscheans. They at least pay Nietzsche the compliment of taking him seriously. They are typified by the footnote in an old Catholic textbook on modern philosophy, which said only that Nietzsche existed, was an atheist and died insane — a fate which may well await anyone who looks too long into his books.

And you are already insane. A third school of thought sees Nietzsche as a wolf indeed and not a sheep, but as a very important thinker because he shows to modern Western civilization its own dark heart and future. It’s easy to scapegoat and point fingers at "blacksheep" like Nietzsche and Hitler, but is there not a "Hitler in ourselves" (to quote Max Picard’s title)? Did not Nietzsche let the cat out of the bag? The demonic cat that was hidden in the respectable bag of secular humanism? Once "God is dead," so is man, morality, love, freedom, hope, democracy, the soul and ultimately, sanity. No one shows this more vividly than Nietzsche. He may have been responsible (quite unintentionally) for many conversions.

I doubt that seriously. Anyone with the time and patience to read Nietzsche, most of whose works did not sell, until after the Nazis adopted him posthumously, is already either a religious fanatic or worse. Nietzsche’s main themes can be summarized by the titles of his main books. Each is, in a different way, an attack on faith. The center of Nietzsche’s philosophy is always the same: He is as centered on Christ as Augustine was, only he centered on Christ as his enemy.

Surely the RCC thinks everything is related to Christ, including Nietsche’s writings. The writer here is an admitted RCC flack. Nietzsche’s first book, "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music," single-handedly revolutionized the accepted view of the ancient Greeks as all "sweetness and light," reason and order. For Nietzsche, the tragic poets were the great Greeks, and the philosophers, starting with Socrates, were the small ones, pale and passionless. All the Western world had followed Socrates and his rationalism and moralism, and had denied the other, darker side of man, the tragic side.

The tragic side comes from paying too much attention to art and not enough to growing food. Nietzsche instead exalted tragedy, chaos, disorder and irrationality, symbolized by the god Dionysus, god of growth and drunken orgies. He claimed that Socrates had turned the world instead to the worship of Apollo, god of the sun, light, order and reason. But the fate of Nietzsche’s god Dionysus was soon to overtake Nietzsche himself; as Dionysus was literally torn apart by the Titans, supernatural monsters of the underworld, Nietzsche’s mind was to be cracked asunder by his own inner Titans.

I thought drunken orgies stunted your growth. As for Nietzche’s mind failing, I thought it was a brain deterioration due to a syphilist infection in the nervous system. Maybe he got it during a drunken orgy?. "The Use and Abuse of History" continued the Dionysian-vs.-Apollonian theme. The "abuse of history" is (according to Nietzsche) theory, science, objective truth. The right use of history is to enhance "life." Life and truth, fire and light, Dionysus and Apollo, will and intellect, are set in opposition. We see Nietzsche being torn apart here, for these are the two parts of the self.

Dionysus and Apollo. Two warlords of the self. As a matter of fact I was just reading  The Nw History and the Old, by Gertrude Himmelfarb, wherein the last 3 pages of her book are about Nietzche. She writes (about Nietzsche): " ‘Only strong personalities’, Neitzsche tells us, ‘can endure history; the weak are extiguished by it.’ To understand and profit by the past, one must fully live in the present. … " (Again quoting Nietsche): " ‘We must know the right time to forget, and the right time to remember…’ … For Nietzsche the past has a real and independent existence, however difficult it may be for the historian to discover it; and the past is is a vital part of the present, however rare the historian who can recognize its presence. Far from being dead, the past is very much alive, sometimes all too much alive. The test of the good historian si to know when to remember and when to forget, when to embrace the past and when to disengage form it." (End quote fom Himmelfarb, so sue me). – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Ecce Homo" was pseudo-autobiographical shameless egotism. Though he was only a stretcher-bearer in the war, Nietzsche calls himself a "swaggering old artillery man" adored by all the ladies. In fact, he was a lonely old man who could not stand the sight of blood, an emotional dwarf prancing like Napoleon. What’s most terrifying is that he willingly embraces his falsehood and fantasy. It is consistent with his philosophy or preferring "whatever is life-enhancing" to truth. "Why not live a lie? He asks. Truly terrifying! "The Genealogy of Morals" claimed that morality was an invention of the weak (especially the Jews, and then the Christians) to weaken the strong. The sheep convinced the wolf to act like a sheep. This is unnatural, argues Nietzsche, and seeing morality’s unnatural origin in resentment at inferiority will free us from its power over us.

BAaah, humbug! HMMM. BZZZZ. "Beyond Good and Evil" is Nietzsche’s alternative morality, or "new morality." "Master morality" is totally different from "slave morality," he says. Whatever a master commands becomes good from the mere fact that the master commands it. The weak sheep have a morality of obedience and conformity. Masters have a natural right to do whatever they please, for since there is no God, everything is permissible.

Even extramarital sex? "The Twilight of the Idols" explores the consequences of "the death of God." (Of course God never really lives, but faith in Him did. Now that is dead, says Nietzsche.) With God dies all objective truths (for there is no mind over ours) and objective values, laws and morality (for there is no will over ours). Soul, free will, immortality, reason, order, love — all these are "idols," little gods that are dying now that the Big God has died.

So the Devil can no longer give work to idol hands. What will replace God? The same being who will replace man; the Superman. Nietzsche’s masterpiece, "Thus Spake Zarathustra," celebrates this new god.

Where was rap music when we needed it? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Nietzsche call "Zarathustra" the new Bible, and told the world to "throw away all other books; you have my "Zarathustra." It is intoxicating rhetoric, and it has captivated adolescents for generations. It

… read more »

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche PETER KREEFT Just as we have pillars of Christian faith, the saints, so are there individuals who have become pillars of unbelief. Peter Kreeft discusses six modern thinkers who’ve had an enormous impact on our everyday life. They have also done great harm to the Christian mind. Their names: Machiavelli, the inventor of "the new morality"; Kant, the subjectivizer of Truth; Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "Anti-Christ"; Freud, the founder of the "sexual revolution"; Marx, the false Moses for the masses; and Sartre, the apostle of absurdity. The articles in this series constitute background to help us understand the main personalities, and those ideas they advocated, which have led us to the secular society. Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche called himself "the Anti-Christ," and wrote a book by that title. He argued for atheism as follows: "I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods." He scorned reason as well as faith, often deliberately contradicted himself, said that "a sneer is infinitely more noble that a syllogism" and appealed to passion, rhetoric and even deliberate hatred rather than reason.

Nietzsche loved to say bizarre and confrontational things to get people in a snit. He saw love as "the greatest danger" and morality as mankind’s worst weakness. He died insane, in an asylum, of syphilis — signing his last letters "the Crucified One." He was adored by the Nazis as their semi-official philosopher.

Nietzsche absolutely **despised** nationalists of all stripes and German nationalists in particular. Had he lived to see the Nazis it is a certainty that he would have had nothing but pure venom for them. Also, it is not known that he had syphilis, though he did spend his last years in an asylum.  One day on the street, he saw a horse being mercilessly whipped by a carriage driver.  He ran up to the horse crying, held the horse’s head, and then collapsed.  He never recovered sanity after that. Something was wrong with him, but no one knows what.  The syphilis theory is possible, but it was embraced by Christians immediately with no actual evidence or diagnosis. When Nietzsche died, church bells pealed in celebration across Europe. <snip Wow, now that I read the rest of the post I realize what a pile of crap it is.  I’m not bothering with the rest. Go to the library, read him for yourself.  Make up your own mind. Raptor514

Response:

The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche Yet he is admired as profound and wise by many of the greatest minds of our century. How can this be?

I’ll tell you why. Because he wrote such lines of pure sense as the following, concerning what he rather amusingly called the ‘death of God’: "Rather than cope with the unbearable loneliness of their condition men will continue to seek their shattered God, and for His sake they will love the very serpents that dwell among his ruins". Pretty damn ‘profound and wise’, if you ask me! I mean, to have not only predicted the behaviour of you morons, but to have also described it in *a single sentence*…! Philippic

Response:

The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche     PETER KREEFT Just as we have pillars of Christian faith, the saints, so are there individuals who have become pillars of unbelief. Peter Kreeft discusses six modern thinkers who’ve had an enormous impact on our everyday life. They have also done great harm to the Christian mind. Their names: Machiavelli, the inventor of "the new morality"; Kant, the subjectivizer of Truth; Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "Anti-Christ"; Freud, the founder of the "sexual revolution"; Marx, the false Moses for the masses; and Sartre, the apostle of absurdity. The articles in this series constitute background to help us understand the main personalities, and those ideas they advocated, which have led us to the secular society. Friedrich Nietzsche   Friedrich Nietzsche called himself "the Anti-Christ," and wrote a book by that title. He argued for atheism as follows: "I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods." He scorned reason as well as faith, often deliberately contradicted himself, said that "a sneer is infinitely more noble that a syllogism" and appealed to passion, rhetoric and even deliberate hatred rather than reason. He saw love as "the greatest danger" and morality as mankind’s worst weakness. He died insane, in an asylum, of syphilis — signing his last letters "the Crucified One." He was adored by the Nazis as their semi-official philosopher. Yet he is admired as profound and wise by many of the greatest minds of our century. How can this be? There are three schools of thought about Nietzsche. Most popular among academics is the school of the "gentle Nietzscheans," who claim that Nietzsche was, in effect, a sheep in wolf’s clothing; that his attacks should not be taken literally and that he was really an ally, not an enemy, of the Western institutions and values which he denounced. These scholars resemble theologians who interpret sayings of Jesus like: "no one can come to the Father but through me" as meaning "all religions are equally valid," and "he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery" as meaning "let your divorces be creative and reasonable." Second, there are the "awful, awful" Nietzscheans. They at least pay Nietzsche the compliment of taking him seriously. They are typified by the footnote in an old Catholic textbook on modern philosophy, which said only that Nietzsche existed, was an atheist and died insane — a fate which may well await anyone who looks too long into his books. A third school of thought sees Nietzsche as a wolf indeed and not a sheep, but as a very important thinker because he shows to modern Western civilization its own dark heart and future. It’s easy to scapegoat and point fingers at "blacksheep" like Nietzsche and Hitler, but is there not a "Hitler in ourselves" (to quote Max Picard’s title)? Did not Nietzsche let the cat out of the bag? The demonic cat that was hidden in the respectable bag of secular humanism? Once "God is dead," so is man, morality, love, freedom, hope, democracy, the soul and ultimately, sanity. No one shows this more vividly than Nietzsche. He may have been responsible (quite unintentionally) for many conversions. Nietzsche’s main themes can be summarized by the titles of his main books. Each is, in a different way, an attack on faith. The center of Nietzsche’s philosophy is always the same: He is as centered on Christ as Augustine was, only he centered on Christ as his enemy. Nietzsche’s first book, "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music," single-handedly revolutionized the accepted view of the ancient Greeks as all "sweetness and light," reason and order. For Nietzsche, the tragic poets were the great Greeks, and the philosophers, starting with Socrates, were the small ones, pale and passionless. All the Western world had followed Socrates and his rationalism and moralism, and had denied the other, darker side of man, the tragic side. Nietzsche instead exalted tragedy, chaos, disorder and irrationality, symbolized by the god Dionysus, god of growth and drunken orgies. He claimed that Socrates had turned the world instead to the worship of Apollo, god of the sun, light, order and reason. But the fate of Nietzsche’s god Dionysus was soon to overtake Nietzsche himself; as Dionysus was literally torn apart by the Titans, supernatural monsters of the underworld, Nietzsche’s mind was to be cracked asunder by his own inner Titans. "The Use and Abuse of History" continued the Dionysian-vs.-Apollonian theme. The "abuse of history" is (according to Nietzsche) theory, science, objective truth. The right use of history is to enhance "life." Life and truth, fire and light, Dionysus and Apollo, will and intellect, are set in opposition. We see Nietzsche being torn apart here, for these are the two parts of the self. "Ecce Homo" was pseudo-autobiographical shameless egotism. Though he was only a stretcher-bearer in the war, Nietzsche calls himself a "swaggering old artillery man" adored by all the ladies. In fact, he was a lonely old man who could not stand the sight of blood, an emotional dwarf prancing like Napoleon. What’s most terrifying is that he willingly embraces his falsehood and fantasy. It is consistent with his philosophy or preferring "whatever is life-enhancing" to truth. "Why not live a lie? He asks. "The Genealogy of Morals" claimed that morality was an invention of the weak (especially the Jews, and then the Christians) to weaken the strong. The sheep convinced the wolf to act like a sheep. This is unnatural, argues Nietzsche, and seeing morality’s unnatural origin in resentment at inferiority will free us from its power over us. "Beyond Good and Evil" is Nietzsche’s alternative morality, or "new morality." "Master morality" is totally different from "slave morality," he says. Whatever a master commands becomes good from the mere fact that the master commands it. The weak sheep have a morality of obedience and conformity. Masters have a natural right to do whatever they please, for since there is no God, everything is permissible. "The Twilight of the Idols" explores the consequences of "the death of God." (Of course God never really lives, but faith in Him did. Now that is dead, says Nietzsche.) With God dies all objective truths (for there is no mind over ours) and objective values, laws and morality (for there is no will over ours). Soul, free will, immortality, reason, order, love — all these are "idols," little gods that are dying now that the Big God has died. What will replace God? The same being who will replace man; the Superman. Nietzsche’s masterpiece, "Thus Spake Zarathustra," celebrates this new god. Nietzsche call "Zarathustra" the new Bible, and told the world to "throw away all other books; you have my "Zarathustra." It is intoxicating rhetoric, and it has captivated adolescents for generations. It was written in only a few days, in a frenzy, perhaps of literally demon-inspired "automatic writing." No book ever written contains more Jungian archetypes, like a fireworks display of images from the unconscious. Its essential message is the condemnation of present-day man as a weakling and the announcement of the next species, the Superman, who lives by "master morality" instead of "slave morality." God is dead, long live the new god! But in "The Eternal Return" Nietzsche discovers that all gods die, even the Superman. He believed that all history necessarily moved in a cycle, endlessly repeating all past events — "There is nothing new under the Sun." Nietzsche deduced this disappearing conclusion from the two premises of (1) a finite amount of matter and (2) an infinite amount of time (since there is no creator and no creation); thus every possible combination of elementary particles, every possible world, occur an infinite number of times, given infinite time. All, even the Superman, will return again to dust, and evolve worms, apes, man and Superman again and again. Instead of despairing, as Ecclesiastes did, at this hopeless new history, Nietzsche seized the opportunity to celebrate history’s irrationality and the triumph of "life" over logic. The supreme virtue was the will’s courage to affirm this meaningless life, beyond reason, for no reason. But in Nietzsche’s last work, "The Will to Power," the lack of an end or goal appears as demonic, and mirrors the demonic character of the modern mind. Without a God, a heaven, truth, or an absolute Goodness to aim at, the meaning of life becomes simply "the will to power." Power becomes its own end, not a means. Life is like a bubble, empty within and without; but its meaning is self-affirmation, egotism, blowing up your bubble, expanding the meaningless self into the meaningless void. "Just will," is Nietzsche’s advice. It does not matter what you will or why. We are now in a position to see why Nietzsche is such a crucially important thinker, not despite but because of his insanity. No one in history, except possibly the Marquis de Sade, has ever so clearly, candidly and consistently formulated the complete alternative to Christianity. Pre-Christian (i.e., pagan) societies and philosophies were like virgins. Post-Christian (i.e., modern) societies and philosophies are like divorcees. Nietzsche is no pagan pre-Christian, but the essential, modern post-Christian and anti-Christian. He rightly saw Christ as his chief enemy and rival. The spirit of Anti-Christ has never received such complete formulation. Nietzsche was not only the favorite philosopher of Nazi Germany, he is the favorite philosopher of hell. We can thank Satan’s own foolishness in "blowing his cover" in this man. Like Nazism, Nietzsche may scare the hell out of us and help save our civilization or even our souls by turning us away in terror before it’s too late. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Kreeft, Peter. "The Pillars of Unbelief — Nietzsche" The … read more »

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