Tag Archives: Friedrich Nietzsche

Is Atheist Morality an Oxymoron? Philosopher Joel Marks Gives Up on Right and Wrong

I find philosopher Joel Marks’s recent flat-out rejection of morality disarming in its honesty. Here’s Joel Marks: The long and the short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must … Continue reading

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Would Friedrich Nietzsche have admired Ayn Rand?

Nietzsche scholar Brian Leiter has a rather strong opinion about this: This typically idiotic remark in a recent NY Times book review caught my attention: “Rand’s inclusion of businessmen in the ranks of the Übermenschen helps to explain her appeal to free-marketeers … Continue reading

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Nietzsche’s checkmate: does atheism lead to totalitarianism?

A.C. Grayling, an atheist author that I tend to otherwise love, calls the idea that atheism gave birth to communism and fascism a theist “canard.” But, as an agnostic who has been doing a good deal of Nietzsche reading lately, I’m not … Continue reading

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What the camel told Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s “On the Three Metamorphoses” in a nutshell)

I love the burden of today. My lion’s “No” makes way; my sacred “Yes” is child’s play. Zarathustra had his say.

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Quote for the Week

Friedrich Nietzsche (from The Twilight of the Idols ): What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?

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Whence Nietzsche in Contemporary Atheist Reflection?

Philosopher John Gray sees it only in Michel Onfray: Among contemporary anti-religious polemicists, only the French writer Michel Onfray has taken Nietzsche as his point of departure. In some ways, Onfray’s In Defence of Atheism [titled in its U.S. edition as … Continue reading

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To Be an Atheist: “Thou Shalt” Becomes “I Will”

Here’s an example of one of the things that it necessarily means to be an atheist, and, therefore, why it shouldn’t be taken lightly: The “Thou shalt” of religion becomes the “I will” of individual choice and action. This particular … Continue reading

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The Ubermensch v. The Last Man: Nietzsche Contemplates the “Death of God”

From The Gay Science, aphorism 343: The meaning of our cheerfulness.— The greatest recent event—that “God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable—is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe. For the few … Continue reading

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Ideas Have Consequences—and So Does the Misreading of Ideas: Ricky Gervais on Hitler Reading Nietzsche

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Family Circus Meets Friedrich Nietzsche

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.     Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.   It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! A truly brilliant website where … Continue reading

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Quote of the Day

Oh thou proud European of the nineteenth century, art thou not mad? Thy knowledge does not complete Nature, it only kills thine own nature. —Friedrich Nietzsche (Thoughts out of Season II: The Use and Abuse of History)

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Apollo v. Dionysus: The First Paragraph of Friedrich Nietzche’s “The Birth of Tragedy”

Friedrich Nietzsche (first paragraph of The Birth of Tragedy):   We shall have gained much for the science of aesthetics, once we perceive not merely by logical inference, but with the immediate certainty of vision, that the continuous development of … Continue reading

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