I am a curious person who always wants to explore the mysteries of the world. I love physics and chemistry as they both have the amazing power to satisfy my desire to know more about the world. I also love philosophy deeply as it always enlightens me and gives me an extra eye to see the world in a new view.
I am fond of the Plato’s wandering lake, Aristotle’s library, Aquinas’s cathedral, Spinoza‘s glass as well as Lao Tzu’s water, Chuang Tzu’s butterfly, Confucius’s class and Wang Yang-Ming’s flower. In my opinion, a philosopher’s value lies on the shock and es on the rational enlightenment to our tradition concept rather than it is true or not. With these shocks, we see the world in another perception and build a new world based on it.
Perhaps the theory that brings me the fiercest shock is Nietzsche’s “God is dead”. He rejected the accepted moral values and the “slave morality” of Christianity, arguing that “God is dead” and therefore people were free to create their own values (Webster’s New World Encyclopedia).
As for Nietzsche's claim, for a long time, I cannot accept. It is really a crazy theory. How can the world be without the rules and spiritual dominance? Frankly speaking, I am an earnest adherent of Aquinas and Hegel whose theories aim at building an orderly and methodic world. Contrarily Nietzsche’s idea is totally a destructive one which refuses the rational structure.
But as time goes by, I have some deeper understanding of this German and his idea also promotes my own thinking. I quite appreciate Nietzsche’s explanation of the two words, Dionysian and Apollonian, which reflect the nature of us human being. “God is dead” means the dead of Apollonian dominance and the return of the genuine humanity. If his theory ends up here, it seems that his theory is easier to understand. But subsequently he calls for the naissance of the so-called “Ubermensch”, the superman he claims has the endless passion, creativity and power to save the people from the tribulation. I just doubt that if the superman came into being, will the human being still be free? How can we prevent this powerful superman becoming the next God? I do not think the human political icon can give people more freedom than any superstitious one. Definitely we need some spirit idol, but after all we ourselves should determine our own life rather than any will of others. Perhaps Nietzsche’s mind is not so easy for me to understand. But in my opinion, the most valuable part of Nietzsche’s theory is his calling for the return of Dionysian character, which marks the return of human’s self-determination. Perhaps Nietzsche’s claim of the death of the God is quite crazy, but with a beautiful mind he really wants the development of us human being.
If god is dead, all the God’s children are absolutely free then. I believe everyone is an independent entity with distinctive spirit. Living in the world of no bond, we are the controller of our own fates. I am sure that there is a stream of wild power in human and it will transform into the genius aptitude with some proper lead. With these aptitudes, we made miracles. Jumping from all the religious statements, now we have enough courage and confidence to speak out: “We human beings are really great!”
If god is dead, willing or not we have to step into a state of nihility. Without God’s care, we are the orphans in spirit. An orphan’s life may easily lead to two contrary results: one is to live pessimistically and sink into the aimless future; the other is to face and conquer the nihility boldly and be the master of my own fate. Although sinking into people’s marsh is of less pain, I choose the latter one and to be a real man. Although the USP is hard to conquer, I believe I am strong enough to handle it.
Thanks to philosophy. It lets me live twice in one life.
Thanks to Nietzsche. He lets me know the power of each life.
I will be forever a thinker of unknown world and a pilgrim to my promised land.
5 comments:
I think GOD will never die!That's why he is GOD!!
Sorry, this is a philosophical approach which has little to do with religious belief indeed. And the God here is not a specific one. I think if God really exist, it will not perish just because his creation doubt his existence. and as a God, he should have the abilities to tolerate people's thinking which is far beyond the theology.
However, I do not have the purpose to hurt someone with religious belief. If, vey sorry.
One is apt to ask, as Nietzsche might have:
If there were a "god," why would "he" be so weak as to create a world with creatures so hopelessly fallible? And why would he, for example, sit idly by as his minions fought and killed each other over the words that he had so guardedly transmitted. (only to those old world, Bronze Age prophets? Why not to anyone in the Information Age?)
Would a "god" let the world he had created fall into ruin?
Thank you for your inspiring post!
By God is dead, Nietzsche means that the BELIEF in God is dead as a result of the growth of rationality and scientific empiricism. If one can only believe in God through a leap of faith, what does this mean for culture? Especially one where the very foundation is Christian morality? For Nietzsche, you can't have it both ways, and any attempt to scientifically calculate good and evil is seen as a last-ditch effort to save these "transcendental signifieds": i.e., justice, equality, natural rights, and so on. They don't exist in nature. I think that Nietzsche saw himself as a cultural physician - his remedy is not to turn ourselves (of Europe or European descent) over to cold rationality, but instead to free ourselves of convoluted and "poisonous" cultural constructs such as sin, guilt, and duty. The free individual - the "ubermensch" - would not do something out of empty necessity - for an "idol" (i.e., a thing or a concept that has been invested with meaning by others) but would feel free to make his/her own meaning, to struggle to claim their own meaning for life without acquiescing to various ideologies. They could even be a quiet, hermit type - they don't have to command others as much as they have to command themselves, to choose what they do without saying "it'd be a good thing to do," "I do it because any rational person would," or "I do it because that's what good Christians do." Instead: "I defend my own right to think what I believe to be true, not because I ought to."
I also think that the reason the ubermensch was invented in Nietzsche's philosophy is to be an Earthly replacement for God, but one who is tangible and corporeal. He accepts that maybe not everyone will be up to the strenuous task of being their own master and setting their own standards of value. But at least we can WORK toward the ubermensch as our ideal. We can improve, and we can choose to support the ubermensch as something to believe in, as something "over" "man" (the Judeo-Christian idea of man). We can make human beings who are not wretched, petty, and bitter, and make the most of life.
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