Nietzsche and Christianity meet Hegel

I think you project your own mind’s unclarity on Nietzsche’s writings.

Caesar was an epileptic. Nietzsche writes about him;

“The means by which Julius Caesar defended himself against sickliness and headaches: tremendous marches, the most frugal way of life, uninterrupted sojourn in the open air, continuous exertion—these are, in general, the universal rules of preservation and protection against the extreme vulnerability of that subtle machine, working under the highest pressure, which we call genius.”
[Twilight, Skirmishes, section 31, entire.]

And is this not a kind of escape from the morasses? The sensitive hermit flees into robustness… Oh, and Jesus was the soul of Caesar, of course.

By the way, I have found out why the most spiritual human beings are the strongest (as Nietzsche contends in AC 57):

“We consider [man] the strongest animal because he is the most cunning [listig]: his spirituality is a consequence of this.”
[AC 14.]

That of public morality of course.
I’m the only one who actually interprets the text at hand. You take a couple of elements from the text, throw them in a stew allready saturated with elements of your own fabrication which you advertize as having their origin in Nietzsche, and you serve the soup as the gospel of Nietzsche by Sauwelios.

Yes, but what public morality - didn’t I already address this question?

"[W]e can no longer stand it if a priest as much as uses the word “truth.” If we have even the smallest claim to integrity, we must know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope, not merely is wrong in every sentence he speaks, but lies—that he is no longer at liberty to lie from “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest too knows as well as anybody else that there is no longer any “God,” any “sinner,” any “Redeemer"—that “free will” and “moral world order” are lies [does “everybody else” really know this? Does everybody else have at least a modicum of intellectual integrity?]: seriousness, the profound self-overcoming of the spirit, no longer permits anybody not to know about this… All the concepts of the church have been recognized for what they are, the most malignant counterfeits that exist, the aim of which is to devalue nature and natural values; the priest himself has been recognized for what he is, the most dangerous kind of parasite, the real poison-spider of life [by whom?]… We know, today our conscience knows—, what these uncanny inventions of the priests and the church are really worth, what ends they served in reducing mankind to such a state of self-violation that its sight can arouse nausea: the concepts “beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “immortality of the soul,” and “soul” itself are instruments of torture, systems of cruelties by virtue of which the priest became master, remained master…”
[AC 38.]

Who is this “we” that Nietzsche is talking about?

“Everybody knows this: and yet everything continues as before. Where has the last feeling of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen, an otherwise quite unembarrassed type of man, anti-Christians through and through in their deeds, still call themselves Christians today and attend communion?..”
[ibid.]

Why should these anti-Christians still call themselves Christians? Is it not for the sake of power? But in a democracy, the power is to the people; therefore, these anti-Christians still call themselves Christians because public morality demands that of them!

Nietzsche is essentially calling people to honesty:

“Granting that as a theory this [the will to power] is a novelty–as a reality it is the fundamental fact of all history: let us be so far honest towards ourselves!”
[BGE 259.]

What would happen if a statesman told the truth - if he said in public that he was only into politics for the sake of power? - Fact is that public morality was in Nietzsche’s time, and still is now, Christian, all too Christian.

The Antichristian is a Revaluation of All Values. In the last section, Nietzsche even suggests that one should no longer reckon time from the beginning of Christianity, but from its end - that the year 0 should be reckoned the year -1888. When Nietzsche says, in the first proposition of his Decree Against Christianity, that “[e]very type of anti-nature is depraved”, that is a revaluation of the Christian idea that every type of nature is depraved. In Christianity, the least depraved man is the priest; against those who teach nature, one doesn’t use arguments, but the penitentiary (or the stake); every non-participation in divine service is an assassination attempt on public morality; one should be more severe toward Protestants than toward Catholics, more severe toward liberal Protestant than toward the orthodox, because they approach knowledge, not because they are Christian; the philosopher is the criminal of criminals because he has attained knowledge, nihilistic knowledge; the “blessed” places in which Christianity has hatched its eggs should be maintained or restored, and revered as holy places; the sermon on unchastity, being a public instigation to naturalness, is something contemptuous; sexual love is despised as “dirty”; one should prefer, one should be honoured to eat with a priest at one’s table; etc. etc.

Now how hard is this to appreciate!

“Definition of Protestantism: the partial paralysis of Christianity—and of reason…”
[AC 10.]

Nietzsche encourages the complete paralysis of Christianity, whereas Christianity encourages the complete paralysis of reason.

Jakob rolls five on six sided dye…

Penalty to morale, failed save throw…

Nine hit points lost…

Finally you provide an argument. I am happy to admit defeat.
If I understand you correctly, Nietzsche means that one should be more severe to a liberal protestant (like Spinoza) than towards catholics, because he is more aware of the fact that he is lying when he calls nature God.
If this is what he means, I have misunderstood him, and in that case I think he is wrong. You have proven to me I am not a Nietzschean.
Here’s how I see it:
The man of knowlegde understands that God, if he exists, can not be different from nature, and understands that faith is not unnatural, because increasing knowledge is increasing trust in the natural course of existence and increasing delight therein. The catholic thinks God is supernatural, and that he, being natural, is ungodly. Pretending to have faith in something he does not trust at all because he sees the world around him as directly opposed a doctrine of virgins giving birth and people ressurrecting from death, he is a hypocrit. The catholic is more of a hypocrit than the protestant, the protestant more than the liberal protestant. Hence all the idolatry of images in catholicism - Powerful means are needed to convince oneself of truths one instinctively knows to be lies. The protestant has no need for images, because he is less of a hypocrit.

Calling nature God is completely anti-Christian - and anti-Judaist, for that matter. Judeo-Christianity calls anti-nature God (the “beyond”, the nothing). I would never call Spinoza a Protestant.

I agree with everything you say here, save for the last sentence. The Catholic is less of a hypocrit etc., because he is less knowledgable about nature - less scientific. It is less hypocritic to unwittingly proclaim falsehoods than to do so wittingly. Hypocricy is feigned ignorance, not actual ignorance. The Catholic is more naive, more innocent; Adam before the Fall is the perfect Christian, because he has no knowledge of nature.

You have a point. Where I differ wih you is that I do believe in ‘God’ - or rather, don’t believe in nihilistic science.
I am a Blakean rather than a Nietzschean. But just call me a Milikowskian. I believe in Genius as the origin of everything. Genius is by definition inexplicabe, untraceable to reason, to logic. Reason, logic and science are all products of genius.

Genius stands between necessity and power - ah, between will and power! Does it not?
But I venture that Genius is even more fundamental than will.

You sound more Freudian or Jungian as a result.

If will is the Id then is genius the Ego or the Super Ego? Sounds like the latter, but I don’t get this “necessity”…

Well then do you consider the influence of democracy in the form of Christianity destructive to Pax Romana? Is that a “decent”?

You mean that Caeser crippled the Republic and adopted the rise of Christian power?

A Christian Empire is doomed to failure. Nietzsche would no doubt agree…

Jesus is very political and is inherently about the will to power as well, its just that his is based upon equality and not individualism.

Will is Id? I think you made an unwarranted assumption somewhere.

First you would have to ‘get’ the will to power. That would first mean not to equate it with a completely different concept and then call me a follower of the father of that concept.

Pardon? What is this tendency to utter latin words completely out of context?

Of course not you son of silly person, Jesus was Caesar.

I’m sure you will agree with me that you are wrong.

Perhaps the word “if” is confusing for you.

I asked you to explain your meaning of necessity, I guess you cannot.

So you don’t think Pax Romana has anything to do with the Caesars?

wtf?

I can see that all you can offer is sarcasm and empty claims at this point. I guess the dicussion is over.

:confused:

Nietzsche was a man troubled with a too big brain for his heart. His heart was pure and nice, and his brain was savage monster of energy. His heart was forced to eat all the brain caught for it. Rabbits, Dogs, Camels, Elephants, his sister, his mother, his God, his creation and ultimately even his sanity. Oh my god nietzschnietzschnietzsche. You are so cool.

Jesus Christ was probably Julius Caesar:

http://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte/jwc_e/contents.html

:sunglasses:

Nietzsche was thinking too much. People can stop growing if thinking too much at an early age (21-). His height 171 cm. Reason why he was thinking too much was not that he was beaten (if one is hit in the head he starts thinking a lot) but being “polish among Germans”.

When people still read.

Much of what led up to self-valuing logic can be learned in there. It’s the best body of philosophy of the 20th century Id say.

Rough and bloody waters.