Originally posted by DIESEL
I think Nietzsche for the most part is a very exhilariting read - he sort drops the equivalent of an intellectual atomic bomb on all previous philosophy - which if you break it down - other than, say Spinoza, Hobbes, Epicurus, Seneca, Socrates, Kierkegaard, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Camus; philosophy to me is all pretty much intellectual bullshyt, the intellectual equivalent of a dog chasing it's own tail, because other than the guys listed, most of the others spend their work talking about unanswerable shyt like if God exists, and why we are idiots/ not idiots for believing in it....whatever......
Here's a good explanation...... in "Either/Or" and "Stages on Life's Way" Kierkegaard built upon a riff from Kant.. and crystallized it so eloquently......it goes something like this: once you accept Kant's postulate that ultimate, rational human understanding of the universe that man inhabits is limited, then the question of the existence of God, in essence, becomes a moot point, and merely becomes a question of making the essential leap - either you believe or you don't believe - it literally becomes that simple. I myself choose to believe, not out of fear, nor out of some bullshyt idea of a "slave morality" like Nietzsche and Foucault would have you believe, but just because I feel it..... for that reason I just have to laugh my ass off at all these atheists who waste their time with these intellectual circle jerks writing treatises like Bertrand Russell did back in the day called "Why I am not a Christian" - to which I say... good for you.. who the fukk cares? I could give a flying fukk if you believe in God or not.. I'm not some bible thumper, I find those people just as full of shyt as most atheists do.
But, to me atheists are the epitome of intellectual egotism - since they can't rationally explain God and believers can't rationally prove the existence of God - therefore, he doesn't exist and we are naive, illogical, and stupid for being believers. Never does it seem to enter their thought process that there just might be things beyond human understanding.
Which comes back to my original point on most of western philosophy... so other than for a good head-scratching read.. what's the fukkin' point?
In that same vein I also always keep in the back of my mind that Nietzsche was a largely impotent, frustrated, misogynist (he had some serious issues with his mom and sister that caused him to hate woman-kind in general, but yet was the epitome of AFC w/women in his life), angry son of a long line of hard-core Lutheran ministers, sickly and physically weak intellectual genius. Don't you think that fukked-up a background would taint your view of the world? Yeah.. I think so too.
Perhaps this is why he wrote so passionately about the "ubermensch" and railed against morality and religion.. and also perhaps why he is also the most misunderstood and misquoted philosopher of all time! ... also, much like the equally bed-ridden and reclusive Proust who wrote so beautifully about the fleeting-ness of our personal relationships, friendships and the cruelty of our limited existence in time.. it's those who lack that in their own lives, that seem to be able to best appreciate it and put into words, much like those who do enjoy those blessings seem to totally take it for granted.
Also, I don't think you have to be an atheist to live the "Nietzschean/Camusian" lifestyle... I do think that Nietzsche was right in his criticism of modern Christianity as a bastardization of what Christ really intended in the bible... this is basically the crux of the phrase "God is Dead and you have killed him." In fact, that idea isn't even totally Nietzsche's.. Doestoyevsky writes about that very same concept in his "Grand Inquisitor" chapter in the awesome "Brothers Karamazov" some 20 years earlier.
In my interpretation, I don't really know if Nietzsche was as avowed an atheist as he is portrayed to be - I do think he was disgusted at what the project of Christianity had become in the 1800 years after Christ's death. But it's very cloudy as to whether or not he believed in some form of higher power - he did get into some Eastern style metaphysics with his whole concept of the "Eternal Return of the Same".. but it's still a very controversial topic, to be sure, and you will find various interpretations arguing for and against this view. I also find it interesting that he titled what was to be his final work, "Ecce Homo" ( meant as a summation of all his work up to that time -before he caught syphillis and went insane) - which to you Bible readers is what Pontius Pilate said to the crowd of Jews when he presented Christ to them for their judgment.
p.s Camus, not Nietzsche, lived the epitome of the DJ lifestyle. He was one of the few "action" philosophers.
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