/lit/ - Literature

[Kolmogorov No.10254373]

Illiterate pol/his/ brainlet checking in with a question

So when Nietszche claimed 'God is dead" he was suggesting Enlightenment traditions of science and reason had somehow rendered religiously-inspired moral notions obsolete, yes?

But when he wrote about the master/slave morality, he claimed (I think) that Judeo-Christian values had corrupted natural law principles and flipped them upside down (to sanctify weakness and vilify strength), which has contributed to the present state of spiritual decay and degeneracy

My question - how can Nietzsche have it both ways, i.e. claiming that reason has subjected religious values while also arguing that religious values have undermined the natural order?

On the one hand he seems to argue Christian values have been irreparably devalued, while on the other they triumphed over all competing world views

Am I missing something?

[Anonymous No.10254407]

>>10254373
Think about it more as if he is making a sociological statement. God is dead for us. We have killed him. The concept of God is no longer what it is in our civilisation, and to us as individuals, and we can't have the same recourse to it as we used to. This is a profound development.

As for the second point, consider the distinction between Grecian and Christian morality. One mistake of moral philosophers of the time, in Nietzsche's view, was to consider the distinction of egoism and altruism as intrinsic to the moral distinction between good and evil - innately, as abstract moral concepts. What he points out with the differentiation of master and slave morality is that the Homeric era didn't possess this dichotomy. Goodness wasn't necessarily altruistic, and evil wasn't necessarily egoistic. It was more related to nobility and baseness. Christianity has clouded Western civilisation's moral horizon and contributed to the moral vacuum brought about by modernity. It was inevitable, given the soil which Christian morality was planted upon (very strict notions of absolute God absolute morality, reliance on the next world as compensation for present sufferings and as supreme object of desire, the strong distinction between virtue and happiness etc.)

[Anonymous No.10254409]

>Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?

The reason why we hear and see and smell the dead body of God decomposing is because even though we killed him we still have to deal with him. The enlightenment didn't undo a thousand years of Christian influence; it's simply that such an influence no longer works to give us meaning the way it did in the past.

[Anonymous No.10254414]

>>10254373

>he was suggesting Enlightenment traditions of science and reason had somehow rendered religiously-inspired moral notions obsolete, yes?

This is very wrong. Nietszche's madman lamented the death of God, and was describing the void that would be created without some sort of belief system/belief in a moral absolute.

He didn't suggest that science and reason rendered religious morals obsolete, he was stating that we can't replace it.

[Anonymous No.10254426]

>>10254414
No, he was stating we must become more than ourselves to create new, more powerful ideals than God. His very goal was to replace it.

[Anonymous No.10254449]

>>10254373
youre missing everything

You got your cause and effect at all the wrong places and christian morality is still going strong

[Anonymous No.10254645]

>>10254373
Jewish moral standards, which emphasized the corruption of powerful people and the need to be redeemed by priestly figures/an afterlife/a heavenly father, superseded Greek moral standards, which were generally Aristotelian/vitality-based. This was done through Pauline Christianity because it allowed intellectuals and religious leaders to subordinate powerful people and gave oppressed minorities feelings of moral superiority.

Later, the Enlightenment project evicted God from our moral and intellectual life (by, for example, reducing mysterious phenomena, including the workings of the body, to natural mechanisms).

Nietzsche predicted some would cling to old notions of God while others would attempt to seek surrogate Gods in, for example, nationalism, but these retrenchments would not satisfy self-reflective people.

>>10254407
This is a good summary. This anon actually understands Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.10254785]

>>10254373
>So when Nietszche claimed 'God is dead" he was suggesting Enlightenment traditions of science and reason had somehow rendered religiously-inspired moral notions obsolete, yes?
Not so much obsolete as replaced. It is a violent world, not one of mere usefulness.

Funny thing that. In Finnish, democracy has two translations. One, the official, is Nation's Rule, which is obviously wrong. The other, the accurate one, is violence. The words used are ancient. They weren't wrong either, powerful democracies spend nearly all of their existence in a war. The US has been in a state of peace for less than 8 years in its entire lifespan!

[Anonymous No.10254800]

>>10254407
>Goodness wasn't necessarily altruistic, and evil wasn't necessarily egoistic.
Did he even read the Bible?