Nietzsche S Gods

The place (or absence) of God in Nietzsche’s thought remains central and controversial. Nietzsche’s proclamation of 'the death of God' is one of the most famous (and parodied) slogans in modern philosophy, seeming to encapsulate the nineteenth-century loss of religious faith in the affirmation that God has "turned out to be our oldest lie" and yet the nature of Nietzsche’s own ‘theology’ is far from clear. This volume engages with Nietzsche’s arguments about God, theology, and religion. The volume extends the discussion to an engagement of Nietzsche with alternative models of God, with ancient Greek religions, and with discussions of diversity (race, class, gender, sex) in dis/conjunction with religion. The chapters examine Nietzsche’s genealogy of religion and his claims about the place of God and theology in the history of Western thought ("that faith of the Christians, which was also Plato’s faith"), as well as his engagements with alternative conceptions of God. The volume also examines the historical and contemporary reception of Nietzsche’s arguments about God by religious and non-religious thinkers, asking to what extent Nietzsche’s philosophy of God speaks to the challenges of today's globalized philosophy and religion.

Examines Nietzsche's complex attitudes toward religion and his understanding of how particular religions and deities affect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual lives of their various proselytes and adherents.

"I have slain all gods—for the sake of morality!" — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Although often regarded as an atheist who did not take religion seriously, Nietzsche in fact thought deeply about the gods and how they functioned in the human psyche. The son of a Lutheran pastor who dropped theology in college after only one semester, Nietzsche was a profound religious thinker who devoted much of his writing to reevaluating the concept of god that prevailed in nineteenth-century Germany. As this volume demonstrates, Nietzsche sharply discerned between the positive and negative aspects of various gods, including the Christian God, the Jewish God (Yahweh), the Greek gods (especially Apollo and Dionysus), and the Buddha. The essays further touch upon Nietzsche's relationship to prominent religious thinkers of his time, as well as his influence on later religious thinkers, such as Martin Buber and Paul Tillich. Wide-ranging and diverse, Nietzsche and the Gods will be indispensable to our continuing understanding of Nietzsche's thought and to the broader study of philosophy and religion.

The place (or absence) of God in Nietzsche’s thought remains central and controversial. Nietzsche’s proclamation of 'the death of God' is one of the most famous (and parodied) slogans in modern philosophy, seeming to encapsulate the nineteenth-century loss of religious faith in the affirmation that God has "turned out to be our oldest lie" and yet the nature of Nietzsche’s own ‘theology’ is far from clear. This volume engages with Nietzsche’s arguments about God, theology, and religion. The volume extends the discussion to an engagement of Nietzsche with alternative models of God, with ancient Greek religions, and with discussions of diversity (race, class, gender, sex) in dis/conjunction with religion. The chapters examine Nietzsche’s genealogy of religion and his claims about the place of God and theology in the history of Western thought ("that faith of the Christians, which was also Plato’s faith"), as well as his engagements with alternative conceptions of God. The volume also examines the historical and contemporary reception of Nietzsche’s arguments about God by religious and non-religious thinkers, asking to what extent Nietzsche’s philosophy of God speaks to the challenges of today's globalized philosophy and religion.

Combining biography and a careful analysis of Nietzsche's writings from 1844-1900, this book explores Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, Judaism, and antisemitism. The first part of the book is concerned with psychological aspects and biographical elements. Part Two focuses on the ethical and political aspects of Nietzsche's views as presented in his mature writings: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Toward the Genealogy of Morals, and the Antichrist.

In Nietzsche's Coming God, the author demonstrates that the "destructive" and "nihilistic" side of Nietzsche's thought was in fact only a hammer that Nietzsche used in order to destroy the "millenarian lies" of Judeo-Christianity, a necessary - albeit transitory - stage that preceded his ultimate creation: the Superman, an incarnation of the god in the making... the coming god. Contrary to popular belief, Nietzsche was both a free spirit and a deeply spiritual thinker who welcomed the death of the false god - the god who curses and denies life - not as an end in itself, but as a prelude to the rebirth of the divine. Indeed, although Nietzsche was an avowed atheist, he was also "the most pious of the godless," as he described himself in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche dreamt of, and augured, a new mode of divinity and a new hope for mankind which, having rejected both religious obscurantist dogma as well as Cartesian rationalist dogma, would be the search for eternal self-perfection and self-overcoming. The death of the god of monotheism thus paved the way for a new, pantheistic and pagan vision of the divine, heralding a "god to come" beyond good and evil, a god who affirms and blesses life. Nietzsche's coming god is none other than Dionysus reborn, or the redemption of the divine. Abir Taha holds a postgraduate degree in Philosophy from the Sorbonne, and is a career diplomat for the government of Lebanon, having previously served as the Consul at the Lebanese embassy in Paris. A thinker and a poet as well, she has spent years conducting in-depth research and analysis into Nietzsche's thought, which has led her to assert the importance of the spiritual dimension of his philosophy, derived from the Vedic tradition of India as well as ancient Greek philosophy. Unlike other Nietzsche scholars, who treat him as a purely secular philosopher, Taha believes that this spirituality lies at the very heart of his thought. In English she has previously published Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism: The Cult of the Superman (2005) and The Epic of Arya: In Search of the Sacred Light (2009).

In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche observes that Greek tragedy gathered people together as a community in the sight of their gods, and argues that modernity can be rescued from 'nihilism' only through the revival of such a festival. This is commonly thought to be a view which did not survive the termination of Nietzsche's early Wagnerianism, but Julian Young argues, on the basis of an examination of all of Nietzsche's published works, that his religious communitarianism in fact persists through all his writings. What follows, it is argued, is that the mature Nietzsche is neither an 'atheist', an 'individualist', nor an 'immoralist': he is a German philosopher belonging to a German tradition of conservative communitarianism - though to claim him as a proto-Nazi is radically mistaken. This important reassessment will be of interest to all Nietzsche scholars and to a wide range of readers in German philosophy.

A compact introduction to Nietzsche’s writings about God, language, truth, and myth, this collection will engage and appeal to both veteran and novice readers. Fritzsche’s insightful introduction presents valuable historical, biographical, and cultural guidelines for exploring Nietzsche’s ideas and influence, without ignoring his literary acumen. The samples of Nietzsche’s writing were carefully chosen to represent Nietzsche’s enduring relevance for contemporary life. With “the death of God” as his starting point, Fritzsche selected and translated documents from the full range of Nietzsche’s explosive writings to expose readers to key ideas he developed. His bold concepts ignited reactions in his time and continue to energize and shape worldviews. Selections include Nietzsche’s thoughts on such topics as how humans have fallen into a subordinate relationship with systems of morality of their own making, and the importance of recognizing new possibilities; how different cultures and languages enable unique interpretations—that is, there is no common or real world; and how the “slave mentality” of the West inclines people to see each other as victims instead of masters of their own lives. All of the documents feature notations about publication history and context for the readings that follow; gloss notes explain literary allusions, historical references, and unfamiliar terms; appendixes include a chronology of Nietzsche’s life, questions for consideration, and a bibliography of selected works by and about Nietzsche.