Friedrich NIETZSCHE If it is in “purple” then it is a quote…
GOD IS DEAD. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What festivals, what sacred games of atonement 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? Nietzsche, The Gay Science , Section 125
GOD IS DEAD. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Nietzsche’s philosophy is that we must reject actions, values and meaning that people subscribe to the name of ‘God’.
Nihilist Believer I say God is dead. I say God is alive. Prove that God is alive. I cannot. Prove that God is dead. I cannot. If you cannot provide proof of God’s death, then you cannot use his absence as a justification for your actions. But if I cannot use his absence as a justification for my actions, then by the same logic you cannot use his existence as a justification for your actions.
JUST BECAUSE WE DELCARE SOMETHING TO EXIST DOES NOT PROVE ITS EXISTENCE. We have invented “lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content” . However, just because humans have invented these “conditions of life” , this does not prove their existence and we need to be aware that the world we have created “might include error” . Nietzsche’s theory therefore cautions against any decisions or actions that are based on belief.
Nietzsche ejects all actions done in the name of God (i.e. faith or belief). The death of god “unchained the earth from the sun” and means that it is now time to “move beyond good and evil” .
What is the result of this? MORALITY IS A CONSTRUCT. IT DOES NOT INHERENTLY EXIST. WE HAVE CREATED IT. THEREFORE YOU CANNOT USE BELIEF IN GOD AS A JUSTIFICATION FOR YOUR ACTIONS . YOU MUST OWN YOUR OWN (IM)MORALITY. YOU MUST OWN YOUR OWN ACTIONS. YOU MUST OWN YOUR OWN SIN. THERE IS NO EXTERNAL FORCE. THERE IS ONLY YOU .
“GOD IS DEAD” • Nietzsche believed that we must face up to our true desires. • Nietzsche disliked Christianity because he believed it kept people from their true desires – from realising and using their ENVY . • He believed that Christianity was merely a means of providing an extrinsic justification for those things that we are too weak to claim for ourselves. It makes a virtue of weakness ( “slave morality” ).
Nietzsche denounced Christianity as hypocritical – it made a sin of what people wanted but were too weak to fight for, and a virtue of what people didn’t want but had anyway. Suffering Devotion Weakness Goodness Sexlessness Purity Submission Obedience Inability to achieve revenge Forgiveness
OUR NOTIONS OF MORALITY AND TRUTH, AS FAR AS THEY ARE BASED ON RELIGION AND BELIEF, ARE THEREFORE FALSE. What was needed instead was A GAY SCIENCE a science of the SELF which views “truth as experiment”
Historically, we have not been interested in actual ‘TRUTH’. What made something ‘TRUE’ was how many people believe it and how long they have believed in it. Truth was not about proof, evidence or experiment, but rather a case of following the herd.
“STRENGTH OF KNOWLEDGE” = LENGTH OF TIME SOMETHING HAS BEEN BELIEVED ( “ AGE ” OF INCORPORATION) X THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IT ( “ DEGREE ” OF INCORPORATION)
BELIEF BASED ON RELIGION V “TRUTH AS EXPERIMENT”
“TRUTH AS EXPERIMENT ” • Truths are created by society and, as a result, tend to reflect collective norms. • However, truth must be allowed to change in accordance with our observations and understandings of the world. • Truth is not a fixed concept. It needs to be based on our perceptions, and therefore can change if we gain new ways of seeing the world or discover new evidence.
LINK THIS TO ‘ENCOUNTERING CONFLICT’ FEAR IGNORANCE GREED Fear of an other Inability/unwillingness Envy and desire to recognise new views SWIFT reactions Perpetual pursuit of or need for change POWER EMOTIONAL responses Locked into a sense of Relinquishing ETHICS RIGHTEOUSNESS Marginalisation of and MORALS in pursuit minorities Feels SECURITY from not of that power being challenged ??? ??? ??? DOES IT CONNECT HERE? DOES IT CONNECT HERE? DOES IT CONNECT HERE?
LINK THIS TO LIFE OF GALILEO THE CHURCH GALILEO WHAT IS THEIR ‘TRUTH’? WHAT DOES GALILEO BELIEVE THE REAL BASIS OF TRUTH SHOULD HOW DO THEY JUSTIFY THIS BE? ‘TRUTH’? WHY DOES EXPERIMENTATION AS WHY ARE THE BASES OF THEIR THE BASIS FOR TRUTH CAUSE BELIEF SO FLAWED (ACCORDING SUCH CONFLICT WITH THE TO NIETZSCHE’S PHILOSOPHY)? CHURCH? WHAT WOULD NIETZSCHE SAY WHAT WOULD NIETZSCHE SAY ABOUT THE CHURCH IN THIS ABOUT GALILEO AND HIS PLAY? ACTIONS IN THIS PLAY?
In his work The Gay Science, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that “we have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live.” He concluded that we have invented “lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content” and that without these “articles of faith nobody now could endure life”. However, Nietzsche claimed that just because these “conditions of life” have been invented by humans does not prove their existence and that we need to be aware that the categories that we rely on “might include error” . Nietzsche concluded that, throughout history, the “strength of knowledge” has not depended on its degree of truth but rather on its “age and the degree to which it has been incorporated” into the fabric of human thought systems and societal norms. Therefore, at the core of Nietzsche’s examination was a warning bout making decisions and taking action based on a belief that what you hold to be true is true. In this sense, Nietzsche examined the role of religion in our lives and concluded that the idea of religion functioned by creating a “form of optimism” for us that the world was created by an “omnipotent and all benevolent God” .
Moreover, in The Gay Science, Nietzsche declared that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Nietzsche’s statement was not simply about God being dead, and he recognised that if you cannot prove God’s existence then you cannot prove God’s death. Nietzsche’s declaration, at its core, objects to the illusion of a tangible and provable system that a belief in God offers. His statement rejects a set of actions, values and meanings that people subscribe to in the name of ‘God’. Nietzsche proclaimed that we need to discard the acceptance of “suffrage” in “this” life for some promise of eternal life in the “after” life. Nietzsche’s statement is a rejection of the belief in transcendental existence that is at the core of religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam or any other belief system. His decree rejects the eternal law of God and religion in the modern era. Nietzsche begs the modern person to find a system of values and meaning within themselves, for people to re-evaluate all values and all systems. He suggested that “the death of God” “unchained the earth from the sun” and that it was time to move beyond contractions of “good and evil” . In the absence of God, Nietzsche calls for “a Gay Science” – a science of the self, which views “truth as experiment” .
PARALLELS Nietzsche Life of Galileo The virtues of religion are just Galileo: “Virtue is not hypocrisies invented to bound up with misery, my convince people to endure friend. If your people were their own suffering. There is prosperous and happy, no “virtue” in denying human desires: rather, this is a “slave they could develop the morality” that promote virtues of prosperity and weakness and compliance happiness. But today the and deprives us of what we virtues of exhausted truly value. We must “move beyond good and evil” and people derive from such dichotomous notions of exhausted fields, and I morality that built on un- reject those virtues .” p66 provable beliefs and blind faith.
PARALLELS Nietzsche Life of Galileo Galileo: “ Today mankind can “God is dead…And we write in its diary: Got rid of have killed him.” Heaven.” p24 Sagredo: “So were is God?” God is a construct used Galileo: “Within ourselves, or to justify morality, nowhere.” p28 subdue desires and Barbarini: “If God didn’t exist then we would have to invent maintain power: a him.” p61 construct invented by The Pope: “they have placed their faith in a brass ball they society. call a compass, not in God…God anyhow is no longer necessary to them…” p92
PARALLELS Nietzsche Life of Galileo Throughout history, the Galileo: “…to believe in the authority of Aristotle is one “strength of knowledge” has thing, tangible facts are not depended on its degree another…I ask you to go by the of truth but rather on its “age evidence of your eyes… and the degree to which it has been incorporated” into Truth is born of the times, not of the fabric of human through authority… systems and societal norms. Such people [tradesmen] showed me a lot of new Unshackled from belief and approaches. They don’t read blind adherence to authority, much, but rely on the evidence we need “a Gay Science ” : a of their five sense, without all science of the self, which that much fear as to where such views “truth as experiment” . evidence is going to lead them…” pp41-43
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