Who Is God?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

It not about OOlon Coluphid who wrote:

Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some
More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?

It's about the simple definition , i thing God , is : "Simple person you are dependent of , you love ."

Not like frood or sass. It's the society of people you love , who are your family and whose social life is important for you.
So no towel stuff.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

I cannot speak for the Big Kahuna. being essentially a Flatlander locked to the surface of a sphere within the whole.

However, a few things are plenty godlike enough for us tiny beings - the Earth and the Sun are obvious ones. However, the attributes of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, entirely fit those of a non-anthropomorphic deity. It is the creator of everything we can see with the naked eye and all powerful, capable of smiting us at any time. Within the event horizon Sag A* is another realm, beyond time and space as we know them, one from which there is no return.

If there is an existent larger consciousness with endless unconditional love that is not purely generated by brain chemicals, then we are talking about new physics or new ideas about the nature of consciousness.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

I dont want to talk about a cannibal code , within all works that pretends to do people a god. The only good thing present in humans are your direct relatives and your family and no other existence can pretend to be beneficient for me. All values are done since god is then dead , after Nietzsche.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

:evil: If you don't believe that perhaps you should become bread for your foes for yourself as the bible tells you.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

You should better try to understand Nietzsches Will to Power in german "Der Wille zur Macht". I qoute now the german edition in the following text:

Der radikale Nihilismus ist die Überzeugung
einer absoluten Unhaltbarkeit des Daseins, wenn es sich
um die höchsten Werthe, die man anerkennt, handelt;
hinzugerechnet die Einsicht, dass wir nicht das geringste
Recht haben, ein Jenseits oder ein An-sich der Dinge
anzusetzen, das „göttlich", das leibhafte Moral sei.
Diese Einsicht ist eine Folge der grossgezogenen
„Wahrhaftigkeit": somit selbst eine Folge des Glaubens
an die Moral.

This nihilism that he developed spoke a clean argumentative language. He wanted to be the propagator of a nihilistic movement.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

For Nietzsche a god implied moral , but moral was a false and insidious measurement to pervert the ab initio values of a human beeing . He wrote in german , in his will to power the following lines about moral:

i) sie verlieh dem Menschen einen absoluten Werth,
im Gegensatz zu seiner Kleinheit und Zufälligkeit
im Strom des Werdens und Vergehens;
2) sie diente den Advokaten Gottes, insofern sie der
Welt trotz Leid und Übel den Charakter der Vollkommenheit
Hess, — eingerechnet jene „Freiheit"
— das Übel erschien voller Sinn;
3) sie setzte ein Wissen um absolute Werthe beim
Menschen an und gab ihm somit gerade für das
Wichtigste adäquate Erkenntniss;
4) sie verhütete, dass der Mensch sich als Mensch
verachtete, dass er gegen das Leben Partei nahm,
dass er am Erkennen verzweifelte: sie war ein
Erhaltungsmittel.

In summa: Moral war das grosse Gegenmittel
gegen den praktischen und theoretischen Nihilismus.

He claimed that all definitions of god are leading to a false moral definition, that wants to pervert the natural strenght with which all humans are endowed.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

NIetzsche describes that all religions and all political streaming provide all humans with a lie. The lie of a false moral , that makes them weaker easier to desceive and brings to them their doom. In his work the will to power he states in german:

Die obersten Werthe, in deren Dienst der Mensch
leben sollte, namentlich wenn sie sehr schwer und kostspielig
über ihn verfügten, — diese socialen Werthe
hat man zum Zweck ihrer Ton-Verstärkur, ^, wie als
ob sie Commando's Gottes wären, als „Realität", als
„wahre" Welt, als Hoffnung und zukünftige Welt über
dem Menschen aufgebaut. Jetzt, wo die mesquine Herkunft
dieser Werthe klar wird, scheint uns das All damit
entwerthet, „sinnlos" geworden, — aber das ist nur ein
Zwischen zustand.
8.
Die nihilistische Consequenz (der Glaube an die
Werthlosigkeit) als Folge der moralischen Werthschätzung:
— das Egoistische ist uns verleidet (selbst nach
der Einsicht in die Unmöglichkeit des Unegoistischen); —
das Nothwendigc ist uns verleidet (selbst nach
Einsicht in die Unmöglichkeit eines liberum arbitrium und
einer „intelligiblen Freiheit"). Wir sehen, dass wir die
Sphäre, wohin wir unsere Werthe gelegt haben, nicht
erreichen — damit hat die andere Sphäre, in der wir
leben, noch keineswegs an Werth gewonnen: im
Gegentheil, wir sind müde, weil wir den Hauptantrieb
verloren haben. „Umsonst bisher!"

So nihilism is his alternative. Which he then tries to develop a real philosophical standpoint for his own in this works.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

And he states in his work, the will to power:

Der Nihilismus als psychologischer Zustand
wird eintreten müssen, erstens, wenn wir einen „Sinn"
in allem Geschehen gesucht haben, der nicht darin ist:
sodass der Sucher endlich den Muth verliert. Nihilismus
ist dann das Bewusstwerdcn der langen Vergeudung
von Kraft, die Qual des „Umsonst", die Unsicherheit,
der Mangel an Gelegenheit, sich irgendwie zu erholen,
irgendworüber noch zu beruhigen — die Scham vor sich
selbst, als habe man sich allzulange betrogen . . .

Which one of his most powerfull statements.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

So for nietzsche all those positivists for god , just propagate self-deceit, in oder to cannibalize the few altruists in favour of the corrupt or ignorant majority of people. Due to the fact , that all these new age beliefs just end up in a false moral and the exploitation of the normal person .
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

SimpleGuy:
I qoute now the german edition in the following text:
Why? While it is always better to read an author in the original language provided one has sufficient comprehension of the language, I think it safe to say that most here do not read German well enough to pick up differences between the original and a competent translation.

Here is Kaufman’s translation of the passage:
Radical nihilism is the conviction of an absolute untenability of existence when it comes to the highest values one recognizes;
plus the realization that we lack the least right to posit a beyond or an in-itself of things that might be "divine" or morality incarnate.

This realization is a consequence of the cultivation of "truthfulness" -thus itself a consequence of the faith in morality. (Will to Power, I Nihilism, 3)
SimpleGuy:
He wanted to be the propagator of a nihilistic movement.
This is simply wrong. From his early writings, as is evident from “On the Use and Abuse of History”, the second of his Untimely Meditations it is clear that Nietzsche saw and fought against the dangers of nihilism. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, one of his late works, nihilism is the second of the third metamorphosis of the spirit - “the sacred no”. It is a necessary step in the overcoming of Christian values but must itself be overcome by the third metamorphosis, a new “sacred yes”. His revaluation of values is not a rejection of values but instead the recognition of the need for new values.

The next three quote in translation:
What were the advantages of the Christian moral hypothesis?
1. It granted man an absolute value, as opposed to his smallness and accidental occurrence in the flux of becoming and passing
away.

2. It served the advocates of God insofar as it conceded to the world, in spite of suffering and evil, the character of perfection-including "freedom": evil appeared full of meaning.

3. It posited that man had a knowledge of absolute values and thus adequate knowledge precisely regarding what is most important.

4. It prevented man from despising himself as man, from taking sides against life; from despairing of knowledge: it was a means of preservation.

In sum: morality was the great antidote against practical and theoretical nihilism. (5)

The supreme values in whose service man should live, especially when they were very hard on him and exacted a high price-these social values were erected over man to strengthen their voice, as if they were commands of God, as "reality," as the "true" world, as a hope and future world. Now that the shabby origin of these values is becoming clear, the universe seems to have lost value, seems "meaningless"-but that is only a transitional stage. (7)

The nihilistic consequence (the belief in valuelessness) as a consequence of moral valuation: everything egoistic has come to disgust us (even though we realize the impossibility of the unegoistic); what is necessary has come to disgust us (even thongh we realize the impossibility of any liberum arbitrium' or "intelligible freedom"). We see that we cannot reach the sphere in which we have placed onr values; but this does not by any means confer any value on that other sphere in which we live: on the contrary, we are weary because we have lost the main stimulus. "In vain so far!" (8)
SimpleGuy:
So nihilism is his alternative. Which he then tries to develop a real philosophical standpoint for his own in this works.
He calls nihilism, at the end of the last quote, a “transitional stage”, which is in line with the three metamorphoses of the spirit. The question is: what values will replace those Christian values that are no longer useful but have become harmful? Nihilism is not his “real philosophical standpoint”. Nihilism leads to what he calls the “last man”. The last man is the opposite of the ‘ubermensch’, the 'overman'.

The next quote:
Nihilism as a psychological state will have to be reached, first, when we have sought a "meaning" in all events that is not there: so the seeker eventually becomes discouraged. Nihilism, then, is the recognition of the long waste of strength, the agony of the "in vain," insecurity, the lack of any opportunity to recover
and to regain composure--being ashamed in front of oneself, as if one had deceived oneself all too long … (12 A)
What was not quoted. Echoing Zarathustra he says:
It is my good fortune that after whole millennia of error and confusion I have rediscovered the way that leads to a Yes and a
No.

I teach the No to all that makes weak-that exhausts.
I teach the Yes to all that strengthens, that stores up strength, that justifies the feeling of strength. (54)
Far from the pessimism and exhaustion of the nihilist Nietzsche teaches a new Yes.

Far from the rejection of gods he says:
“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console our selves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has so far possessed, has bled to death under our knife, who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What purifications, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history so far!” (The Gay Science)
A “higher history” for which nihilism is the transitional stage, the rejection of past to make way for the creation of the future. The phoenix rising from its own ashes:
You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes! (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “The Way of the Creator”.
Belindi
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Belindi »

Thanks Fooloso4.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

I think you simply tend to misinterpretate nietzsche where the case seems to be quite clear better read his Götzendämmerung to realize that the nihiilsm cannot be a transitional state from the simple fact that any tendency to any other state has nothing to do with the dynamics of nihilism. The übermensch that you quote is for me the verification of his tendency for buddhism as well as some kind of kung fu. Nietzsche was the man with the Schellenfüße (the slapping feet). So his bear and his lion and eagle (all kung fu styles) were with him. The übermensch that you talk about is the person who overcomes his own weakness , for example in long distance running and martial arts.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

By the way if you don't believe my interpretation of the cited text. How about the following webpage in english:

https://www.thoughtco.com/nietzsche-and-nihilism-250454

In the following text gives you a hint:
We could also categorize Nietzsche as a nihilist in the descriptive sense that he saw that many people in society around him were effectively nihilists themselves. Many, if not most, probably wouldn't admit to it, but Nietzsche saw that the old values and old morality simply didn't have the same power that they once did. It is here that he announced the "death of God," arguing that the traditional source of ultimate and transcendental value, God, no longer mattered in modern culture and was effectively dead to us.


As you see this is not only my characterization of nietzsches nihilism.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

There is a depart of this view but not in his works will to power.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

The cited text claims :

Once again, though, he parts company with nihilists in that he did not argue that everything deserves to be destroyed. He was not simply interested in tearing down traditional beliefs based on traditional values; instead, he also wanted to help build new values. He pointed in the direction of a "superman" who might be able to construct his own set of values independent of what anyone else thought.

This capability to construct your own values as well as the capbility to overcome one's own weakness , was his picture of the superman.
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