Midway through my first reading of Nietzsche, I read the passage in which he depicts humanity's downfall into nihilism, belief in nothing. He calls this the "great danger to mankind" (pg 19). At this time i decided to take a short break in reading the somewhat dense text and do a little research on Nietzsche. During my research I came across one of his more famous quotes "God is Dead". This is not to be taken literally, but rather to comment on that God to him is longer serving as the means of a moral foundation. To me I interpreted that he believed that God was not necessary anymore to humanity. At this realization my mind went into a little bit of a whirlwind of connections. I thought about how Socrates believed that morals would bring us to that Ultimate Truth. One connection in particular from Voltaire came to mind. In one of his poems Voltaire says "If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him". He argues that it is not by faith, but rather reason that he believes in God, because it is necessary. The thought of a Divine force being necessary really took me back. It our day in age we see how religion has become more a choice. Maybe Nietzsche is right; maybe we are heading slowly toward nihilism.
Another interesting connection I made from Nietzsche was to the Tao. In the reading Nietzsche discusses how he came to the conclusion at a young age that "God is the Father of evil". This makes perfect sense. According to Tao, if one recognizes good, evil is created. This happens in the story of creation. On the first day God creates the light and darkness, and after he does this, he sees that it is good. Evidently this is recognition of good and thus creates what is evil.
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2 comments:
great GREAT connections!
I am thinking that what is good is dark AND light, the existence of both! I heard a writer last week talking about a play he wrote called "Bedlam" and someone asked him if he had to get in touch with his "dark side" to write it, and wasn't that a bad thing? He said something I keep thinking about: that what is important in life is to know that you have both in you--dark and light--and neither one will kill you.
I agree...very good connections Chris!!
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