A new Pious World Order

Hi,
I have read somewhere that if there are two views exactly opposite each other then both of them are usually wrong. Truth lies some where in between i.e in the gray area. There is somewhere in the bible which says that “God lies in the details”. Human inteligence cannot go too deep cause the more deeper it goes the more specific it becomes loosing its generality and so it cannot be applied on other issues, on the other hand the more higher you go and try to integrate things you will reach the entity of God.
This world is an exam, absoluteness cannot be achieved in this world.
The problem is that the more huge a society grows the more purity on every individuals part it requires to maintain peace in the society; purity, sacrifice and tolerance in its as truer sense as possible but there are people having different level of intelligence, so a person having more intelligence have to be more pure and more tolerant towards other, and if that more intelligent person is not tolerant and pure enough then chaos and destruction will emerge.
The problem is that in this world people having less philosophical intelligence are in majority and a more huge a society becomes (in terms of number of people and in terms of communication growth among people) the more powerful become the voices of the ordinary less intelligent people because this is what democracy is all about.
So there can be two solutions:

1. We make our democracy more limited and give more powers to people who are more philosophically intelligent (how can we achieve that is another question)
2. Other a simpler solution is that we should stop our societies from becoming more and more huge. There are two ways to do that:
   a) Control population
   b) Control the communication among population, i.e. information-all kinds should not go outside a community unless it is thoroughly examined and studied that what would be its impact in different dimensions in a deeper way. I mean to say that people should live in small communities which are not too much connected to rest of the world, this is the only way we can achieve peace. I don’t mean total isolation, but there is a balance that we have to strike between isolation and communication, BALANCE being the key word here.

Let’s say we as humanity choose point no 2 and some World Power arrange our world and our societies in this kind of a bit isolated way…then soon a time come when there will be a kind of stagnation everywhere which will compel people to do something exciting which esentially means to reach out and stirr the world. This will be a natural reaction of people…cause we as people as communities needs calm and excitement both. But the World Power (mentioned above) who chose point no 2 and arranged the world in the world of small communities should strike a balance here too, now the BALANCE should be between Calm and Excitement, how much calm and how much excitement should there be.
To do all this we need a world power, a global organization of people who are intelligent and just and above all PURE and PIOUS in the truest sense to lead us to a path of Peace and Spiritualism.
Regards
Arif Aziz Shaikh

i see a couple of things that look a bit strange about your point (it’s an interesting one nonetheless)

if you don’t agree with your first few points (lifes an exam, strive to know God etc) then the rest of the argument/logic don’t really work. also what you read about both sides being wrong seems reminiscent of Kant (predicates etc) and Aristotle (his golden mean) although i’m not certain about that.

i would not agree with that. the smaller a society is and dependent on the individual, the more likely it is to need “purity” on every individuals part. in larger society’s, the individual is less relevant as it is only an exception or a one off if they deter from the “purity” of everyone like you mentioned.

with this in mind you might like Plato’s Republic. the problem with this is a. would the philosophically ‘dumb’ agree with this? and b. Hitler was a heavy philosopher and also a politician, same for Mussolini (liked Socrates and Plato for example) and we all know what they did don’t we?

a) at face value that sounds not only like Chinese thought (how they treat baby girls) but also could lead onto the atrocity that is “ethnic cleansing” (again see Hitler point) although i’m not claiming you mean it in this way, it could lead to this
b) that sounds like propaganda and censorship and i don’t see how those ideas will help us understand the world and it’s people better

how do they do this if communication is being controlled and censored and they are being isolated from one another?

again Nazi thinking there with Pure and Pious (i.e. aryan race [think i’ve spelt that wrong]). if we were all Nazi’s then we would all be happy and the world would be at peace (everyone who opposed would be dead). how would your world power enforce their beliefs and also what justification would we have for choosing our leaders that would be strong enough to lead us?

although i am interested in a sterner (i.e. erradication of Nazism, Nationalism) and bullshit free society (democracy needs an improvement), i don’t see how notions of God and controlling the information of the world/seperating it into even more groups (which would be difficult to control/maintain by the way) would bring about that.

i’m not accusing you of being a nazi by the way, i apologise for comparing your views to those fucks it’s just that in such a controlled society those sorts of ideas you speak of are difficult to implement and justify without becoming that which you opposed in the first place (see the flaws of communism for example). the nazi’s thought their ideas were right at any cost, your ideas would only seem to work if we as a whole were in agreeance with one another in life, which i can’t say is true as of this moment.

an interesting read for you could be a. Plato’s Republic, b. Nietzsche Will to Power book 4 mainly (“Caesar with a christ’s soul”) and c. Machiavelli The Prince and The Discourses in reference to your political thinking here

i think your main problem here in the implementation of the basis of your idea is that you would need the world to agree to this and although other philosophers might like the sound of it, i don’t see how the rest of the world might agree with your way of thinking. to implement such a mode of thinking into the world, you would need a miracle (2nd coming) or a disaster (WW3) to show the world another “better” way of living after those events. once you have the people’s blessing on your side, there would be nothing as a ruler that you could not achieve as long as a. you always remembered this fact b. remembered what you owed to them as a whole/what you had to do for them and c. never interfered with their own personal happiness (which is something censorship would do for example). note how i say happiness and not necessarily “freedom”/liberty as some freedom should be restrained (that’s why there are laws) but i don’t think someone’s happiness/strive for achievement should need to be interfered with.

I am not saying that my idea is new and no other philosopher has already presented it before BUT what I am saying is that in this current era the world situation has become such that application of some idea like one which I have suggested (it might not be totally mine) is badly needed to achieve mental peace. The time is right for this idea.

Crafedog wrote
"I would not agree with that. The smaller a society is and dependent on the individual, the more likely it is to need “purity” on every individual’s part. In larger society’s, the individual is less relevant as it is only an exception or a one off if they deter from the “purity” of everyone like you mentioned. "

Your idea looks right at a glance because if it is a small society people will be dependent too much on each other and purity of their character is needed BUT because the society is too small therefore there are not enough kind of forces of too many diverse nature my idea seems right to me. In a huge society with global communication every thought and every action affect everyone else in the world…some entities are effected directly and some indirectly … this gigantic amount of diverse forces and ideas puts too much pressure on every person that if a person wants to be a truly good person he has to be extremely ethical in strict sense because he knows that if he adopts a some what lesser ethical standard then tomorrow he might face a situation in which he has to refute his previous action. He has to adopt an extremely high level of ethics to feel and know in himself that he is a right and good and righteous person that is why Prophets have come in this world to teach new and stricter laws of ethics and morality one after another as the societies grow. To achieve such high level of ethics makes a person extremely lean and loose his cheerfulness. Where as in smaller society which I don’t mean to say is totally isolated (I meant to say in my previous post that a right balance has to be achieved between isolation and communication and this balance is not something which will be absolute but this balance will keep on changing according to the need, at this moment the world has become totally imbalance in favor of communication. We need some isolation) people can still maintain their cheerfulness, but there has to be laws inside the societies also…that is internal laws to maintain peace and harmony in side the society but I mean to say that it is easier to maintain peace and cheerfulness in smaller society.
In today’s world if we see people who are cheerful and happy and going along nicely, it is because they have maintained a smaller society on some level and ignored the rest of the world in some ways BUT because the world is totally connected and huge with lots of communication between each other, that society which seems cheerful and going nicely MUST be doing it by ignoring rest of the world which means that they have adopted a less ethical standard … and the more they neglect rest of the world the more unethical they will become as I said above in this huge connected world one has to be extremely ethical to be a truly good person but this extreme ethics is going to make you a lean and extremely cautious and you will loose your happiness.

To me philosopher is a person pious, pure, extremely good natured, having deep eye on world matters, clear thinking but taking into account all the pros and cons in different dimensions, I don’t see these qualities in Hitler.

Crafedog said
“How do they do this if communication is being controlled and censored and they are being isolated from one another?”
I did not mean total isolation but control with right balance between isolation and communication.

You are right there that we need a Miracle to achieve a global organization of Pure and Pious People, these people will be extremely good natured, with unshakable belief in God, extremely tolerant, who will be extremely ethical when it comes to their own matters and forgiving and caring to others they will know the strengths and weakness of small societies and guide them to achieve a balance, initially in achieving this all the communities and societies have to make some sacrifices…real sacrifices, monetary sacrifices, social sacrifices and other kind.
Yes we need a miracle … a big one…and I am hoping and waiting for that to happen.
Regards
Arif

i’ve got to admit i’ve never been too fond of the waiting for God/Jesus/[insert religious figure here] idea as it increases our dependency on ideas that we can’t possibly understand nor prove to modern day, rational society. the concept of depending on [insert religious figure here] seems a bit lazy really. i believe religion is a strengh for the weak (carrot/stick morality, dependency on unproven characters, comforting feelings of loss/unfairness/evil with notions of fate, destiny, karma, devil etc) and like any strengh for people, they become dependent on it and can’t imagine living on their own without it (the mental block of religion in the faithful i.e. they can’t imagine a world without their deity/faith) which originated in our lack of scientific explanation/order in the world and superstition. with this things almost eradicated, i don’t see the need for religion anymore in modern society.

personally i’d rather see how humans do and to be frank the thing getting in our way is a big fuck off War happening soon which will no doubt be based on either territory (splitting up point here again) or beliefs (religion, communism, nazism) as they all are, which is a shame because last century was quite a productive one for society/humanity as a whole in my opinion (note building of U.N, improvement in global communication, racial acceptances among modern society, weakening of church power/influence etc).

I think Hume sums it up the best when he says “The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one” which i think could be applied to many religions.

Without the entity of God one cannot explain anything. Try finding reason behind any thing the cause behind any thing you will ultimately have to leave it somewhere to God. God is the reason of everything and is the ultimate effect of every action. Nietzsche tried questioning everything but could not reach the end of it, he tried turning every stone in search of answers ultimately his theories became so cryptic that they lost all sense, and lived last ten years of his life in mental asylum. Leo Tolstoy also tried to find reason behind things and ultimately he figured out that its better to pull a gun on your head and kill your self if you don’t believe in God…because without believing in God, how and why are you living.?He said with out God one has no reason to live (Read Tolstoy’s essay “What is religion and what does its essence consist of”). Bertrand Russell also of this opinion that if you try to find the cause and effect of anything you will ultimately reach the entity of God (read his History of Western Philosophy).

Nietzsche was a kind of Philosopher who just questioned everything but did not provide answers…but I guess In a way he did…cause after reading Nietzsche you can only come up with one answer…”do not go too deep…rely on the cushion of God…and you will find answer”…Tolstoy and Russell both have the same opinion. My opinion is also kind of same … go deep…try to find answers…but do not loose BALANCE …. Russell also said that in most human problems the real answer is finding the right BALANCE (may be in his essay “Authority and Freedom or something like that…I don’t exactly remember)…

You can quote other philosophers what they said about non-existence of God…but that way you loose your ultimate reason to LIVE, you cease to provide reason behind every thing.

Doesn’t matter whether the day is modern or ultra modern you always need a reason to live…at least I do…and at some level everybody does.

Last century was very productive but it wasn’t controlled the way it should have been otherwise we wouldn’t have been in such a mess as we are n now. Just try looking deeply whats going on in the societies around the world … people are letting go their ethical standards and values … because they their belief in God is going down and without that belief they do not know WHY they should be good to others. You should be good to others and observe ethical values because God says so.

My POINT was that we need some ISOLATION to be more human and to be able to easily observe our Ethical Values.

Waiting for a miracle to happen like for a Spiritual person to come and save this world looks lazy but its not because in the mean time you should try to do anything that you think is good and makes this world a better place, try to maintain your ethical standard as much you can….its really not easy … but at least you are doing your part … and then wait for a miracle … because when you think that you cannot do anything more … then have a Hope at least… a good hope from God…that’s why I have God as my cushion as my savior.

azizarif

“Without the entity of God one cannot explain anything. Try finding reason behind any thing the cause behind any thing you will ultimately have to leave it somewhere to God. God is the reason of everything and is the ultimate effect of every action.”

Truly profound words displaying real knowledge of the actual nature of things!

Unfortunately you’ll have an uphill battle all the way when it comes to finding minds subtle enough to appreciate the implications of such words.

You are a Gulliver in the land of Lilliput!

i don’t believe in God so your argument has no substance with me. if a child is raped and murdered does this also lead to god as he is the reason of everything and is the ultimate effect of every action? if god is all-powerful, all-knowing then surely he can stop it. if he is good surely he would stop it? why would he chose not to help and leave that to happen? and why would i want to believe in an amoral god like that?

not entirely true. he did go nuts but actually his mum and sister took care of him at home. also he claimed that “man is a rope, tied between beast and superman over an abyss”. this is his idea of man being an animal (lust, greed etc) and a superman (his idea of the perfect man) over the abyss, the abyss represents the emptiness and ammoral apsects of the universe. there is no good/evil in the world except what we impose on it i.e. our understandings of good and evil. the inquisition in the 17th century was under the pope and god’s authority to torture non-believers, this was considered moral and good in the name of god back then. how can we claim that there is such a thing as good and evil/justice etc if this sort of thing can happen? We impose our own understandings of good/evil on our own empty meaningless existence (the abyss) and label them as god who is our “cushion” against the meaningless of life (see mental block point and topic “thus spoke Nietzsche”)

how much have you actually read of Nietzsche? not “read of him” but actually sat down and read his work like the anti-christ, BGE and thus spoke zarathustra?

you can also quote other philosophers about what they said about the existence of God and i don’t have to listen to any of it.

i don’t see how you can claim that peoples belief in God is good for mankind and makes them better people when you consider the roots of ethnic cleansing originate within religious differences as well as the whole problem with the middle east at the moment i.e. holy wars and non-muslims invading their countries as well as numerous priests being caught out being paedophile’s, why are they not all good for believing in god and why are these the actions of god?

i have no belief in any form of god as i believe the notions of a higher being can be explained away with psychology and science i.e understanding the human mind and universe without labelling it as just being an act of god/“god did it” (i.e. the universe for example). even though i do not believe in god i have never harmed others and i would consider myself to be a moral/happy man so the substance of your argument there is lost on me as well.

you are a perfect example of what i believe religion does in people (likely through their upbringing/parents); it creates a mental block in people in which they can’t imagine a world without god/meaning to life/death/good and evil. that is your safety net against the “abyss” and that is why Nietzsche would claim that you are weak as you cannot aknowledge the existence of the abyss.

anyway from what i know Nietzsche actually went nuts because he contacted tertiary syphillis according to Bryan Magee (a highly respected philosopher/lecturer/writer) in “The story of philosophy” which is a lot more likely/plausible story then “god did it” like most of the faithful/superstitious claim about something that they don’t take the time to understand something.

(see my Nietzsche posts and my post about the “way” in the philosophy board for more on what i think about this sort of thing)

I think after reading my last post if you don’t start believing in God then you probably will never believe in him…:(anything I say after this point on existence of God will be a mundane babble …

So here is the Mundane Babble…less important things…important things I have already said in my last post:

You have to think about the reason WHY God has created this world; he created it because God wanted to be recognized. That is why he created Humans and put us in a situation (World) so that we recognize the instability offered by this world … there is no such theory that can put you at ease … God wanted us to recognize that ….because this world is not the place of Justice … it’s a place of examination … what we as human beings should do is try to achieve some sort of harmony in this world … but we can only try … it really cannot be achieved …. But to TRY is necessary … because this quest makes us realize understand and recognize the power of God….Even if you believe in God this world does not instantly become a paradise for you … because as I said this life in this world is an EXAM for everyone whether you are a believer or a non-believer.

After realizing the instability and non-absoluteness offered by this world our mind is instantly directed towards an entity which is stable and absolute i.e. GOD.

You said that why does God let rape and murders happen … again I say that this life is an exam … the people who did it failed this exam …. Yes for a person who gets raped you can ultimately blame God because HE wanted to be recognized and created this world ….BUT do not forget that through all this process we are actually moving towards recognizing that fact that this world is unstable & non-absolute and that only belief in God (without any reason) is the only sensible thing you can do. After all this is the part of this exam …. YOU HAVE TO BELIEV IN GOD WITHOUT A SUBSTANTIAL REASON.

Obviously I don’t approve rape or murder and I also do my part in preaching the message (like all good people) that this is wrong but after all this, when a rape or murder happens I pray to God … cause I have that cushion and I KNOW that GOD will do justice … that man who committed that murder or rape will be murdered or some of his loved one will get murdered or raped, or he himself might go insane thinking about the crime he committed…and even if that doesn’t happen then I still know that justice will be done to this guy after life, as Promised by my cushion, my GOD. That’s why I don’t think that True justice can be carried out to the people like Hitler, Gangez Khan or any other ruler who kill thousands of people because they cannot be killed over and over for every person that they killed, but even then I am still contended, thanks to my strong belief in God, I know the impossible justice will be done to these people after life.

You are a moral person because God’s Prophets brought rules and implemented these rules in this world … who told you not to merry your mother or sister … told by Prophets sent by God …. All the good things that are going on in this world and the fact that this world is STILL going on, points to Message brought to us by Prophets. You are a happy person because of all this, if we did not have all this we would be living like a savage and then you wouldn’t be that happy a person.

You are right that in today’s world religious figures having immoral character can be found in any religion…it is because these are only just people after all, their belief in God is shaken, but it doesn’t mean that you denounce the message, the philosophy of existence of God. If a person, who is Nitsche’s follower, commits murder unjustly, do you start believeing that Nitsche preaches for Injustice & Murder.

Ethnic cleansing is done by people who do not have the PIOUS and PURE and GOOD character, they do not understand the truth behind the God’s Message (that is why I like a global organization of philosophically intelligent, Pure, Pious, extremely Good Natured, Spiritual people, which can only happen in a miracle), although I also think some time violence is necessary…because absoluteness cannot be attained in this world…you cannot say that I will never commit any violence even if your brother or sister is murdered in front of you…its just not possible….but the bottom line is … one should not loose the BALANCE. And the idea of God and belief in Him is a key thing in achieving that BALANCE.

There is no abyss it is actually filled by God….the abyss comes when you remove God from the picture.
The true purpose of Philosophy is to bridge the gap between Science and Religion, if philosophy is not leading us to religion and if its just philosophy just for the sake of philosophy …it becomes nothing but a mundane babble. Similarly if in Religion, ethics and morality does not lead to more powerful belief in God its nothing but sheer horror. Science->Philosophy->Religion->God……if you remove anything from this path you start drifting in an abyss without any good purpose in front of you.
Arif Aziz Shaikh

please read all of my words, don’t just dismiss me as a non-believer and discredit my ideas/dub it as mundane babble as i have not done the same to you (i’m not saying you have, but you might after reading this next post). please think about my responses and the logic behind them, and to take time to answer the questions issues i bring up with the same logic and understanding i have put in to considering them.

after reading your last post i know that you will never stop believing in god because it is such a strong part of your core as a person. it is faith, not logic or rational thinking that is your believe in god, i on the other hand believe in logic and rational thinking to get me through this life

sounds egotistical; “give glory and praise to God”.

yes a believe in something higher because you are weak and need to believe in the strong and since you can’t seem to find them in the life you have to imagine that such a being exists, someone who comforts you and takes away your feelings of pain and the injustice of the world. your words here claim that we, in our own weaknesses created god. weakness and lies is the basis of all faiths as well as group conformity within the religions themselves

so logic, reality, facts and rational thinking don’t play a part in religion/faith? well i’m glad we agree on something, so by your logic then i should believe in unicorns, fairies and santa because other people do and i don’t have any substantial reason for doing so?

what a nice way to lie to yourself about the lack of justice in the world and having developed a defense mechanism against this understanding (i.e. your cushion against the truth of reality). in relation to your point about someone the persons cares about being harmed, how does that make God moral by harming an INNOCENT person? surely if “He” does it to someone, he is no better then the person who did it to the other one?

i’d agree that religion had its place milleniums ago when we didn’t have any structured sense of law, order and science and we needed to fill this lack of understanding and create a carrot/stick believe system for the “masses” to follow, but i don’t believe we have any need of faith now as we are intelligent enough to realise that WE in our own weaknesses created God, not the other way round.

Nietzsche isn’t an almighty higher being. he is a dead human being, nothing more and nothing less. he couldn’t stop an action like that even if he wanted to whereas (supposedly) God could if he wanted to. so i ask you, why doesn’t he if he does in fact want to stop rape and murder? does not actually care?

there is only the abyss, the problem is you have filled it with the answer “it is God”. this distinct lack of any form of justice in the world except what we impose on it is not God’s doing, it is our doing. that is why we harm/help others because we are human and there is no God/justice to the world.

[quote=“azizarif”]
The true purpose of Philosophy is to bridge the gap between Science and Religion, if philosophy is not leading us to religion and if its just philosophy just for the sake of philosophy …it becomes nothing but a mundane babble. Similarly if in Religion, ethics and morality does not lead to more powerful belief in God its nothing but sheer horror. Science->Philosophy->Religion->God……if you remove anything from this path you start drifting in an abyss without any good purpose in front of you.

i know my purpose in life in this abyss of existence and i never needed God for it. why do you need/turn to an idea of god? because you are weak and cannot live without the solid defense mechanism you have created for yourself (i.e. your faith).

that is the difference between me and you, i do not need a ‘cushion’ as i am comfortable where i am in life and reality without one.

azizarif…

You seem to be using the “first cause” argument to prove god’s existence.

If this is the case then you are compelled to accept the doctrine of determinism. This necessarily leads to the conclusion that all the evil in the world is the responsibility of god.

Also, such enquiries do not necessarily lead us to god. The fact that we are unable to explain something isn’t proof of god’s existence at all. How do you know there is not a rational reason behind the mysteries of the universe that has simply eluded us up till now?

In effect you’re saying that if we don’t know why, then it’s god’s doing.

WELL FOLK’s I give UP…at least I have the courage to admit that I cannot argue with you anymore because I have already given all the answers … and I will not try to bog down the debate with mundane questions. What you are doing is picking every word and drilling down into it due to which we would never be able to integrate…same mistake Nitzche did.

I have already given all the answers to all your questions in a way.

When Tolstoy was a non believer he thought about it very deeply…and he came to understand the fact that his every philosophical problem end up with one question…Existance Of God…and he concluded that he should kill himself if he keep on denying GOD…cause this way there is no reason to Live…HE was gourageous enough to admit that … and then he accepted the entity of GOD …with out any substantial reason…simply because it provides basis to everything.

I am not weak because I have a firm groung on which I am standing…GOD…weak are you cause you are in an abyss.

May god Help you and lead you to a right path.

Best Regards
Arif Aziz Shaikh
Keep on the mundane babble!

“phrygianslave the wise” … thanks for your kind words!!

Strange that all this, ‘god,’ business has been around since the dawn of man, (so far as we know,) and it’s showing no sign of going away.

Surely therefore there has to be something to it, something more than my weakness, or need. Perhaps there might be something more to it than we know or are prepared to admit. Leastways we ought to investigate a little before we dismiss it.

I wonder, did anyone ever do any studies to investigate the incidence of atheism amongst the terminally ill or those starving after yet another famine? What hope have these poor people got?

It’s alright for us in the rich industrial countries of Europe and the Americas. We can pick and choose. You can even choose to be a vegetarian if you want, how strange! One indulges in all the available opportunities for freedom of expression whilst simultaneously denying oneself. (For vegetarianism is a branch of asceticism.)

But some poor so-and-so’s have to eat fried locusts and cows blood mixed with milk. They have no choice in the matter.

Azizarif

One does ones best! I see what you’re saying. And as for Tolstoy, did you ever read, “Resurrection?”

Now there is a work of art, beside which, “Thus spoke Zarathustra,” pales into insignificance!

Good luck to you!

Apparently, Jesus said, “Life is a bridge over which we must pass but we should not linger there to build our dwelling.”

Wise words indeed!

For it is not easy to persuade men that there is more to life than merely building their dwellings!

No I havent read “Ressurection”…I will soon…the things which I have written about Tolstoy, I read my be in is essay “Confession” or “What is religion and what does its essence consists of”.

Currently I am reading Dostoyevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov”.
I also recommed you to read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from the Underground”.

is that any good? i should be reading it soon (it’s ****ing massive)

hello Carfe, nice to here from you.
Brothers Karamazov is a novel but kind of religious…yes its huge, I like it. I also like dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot”.
Couple of years ago when I was living in US, I went to Barnes & Nobles and there I started to read “Portable Nietzsche” (which contain several nietzsche’s books), I must say that at that time I didnt like it that much, but now I would like to have another look at it…I will when I get some time.
Arif

on a personal note, i’d advise reading Beyond Good and Evil (“that which is done out of love, always takes place beyond good and evil”). the first fifth of it is a bit slow i have to admit but it gets a lot better later on (it’s my favourite).

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (“truely he who possess little is so much the least possessed; praised be a moderate poverty!”) is a masterpiece but not something just anyone can read from the start (very poetic in structure and pace) and can at times play with your head (it really is good though).

Will To Power, interesting yet heavy going so to speak (“the Roman Caesar with Christ’s soul”). Interesting yet peculiar (not in the same way TSZ is).

Anti-christ is good if you’re interested in christianty and the gospels from a more psychological point of view (“the bringer of glad tidings died as he lived, as he taught - not to ‘redeem’ mankind but to demonstrate how one ought to live”).

I’m starting Gay Science at the mo which looks good and The Birth of Tragedy is more for someone who is interested in greek tragedy which might not be for everyone.

penguin and kaufmann on Nietzsche are the way to go in my opinion (just thought you might want a recap in Nietzsche’s work)

i really am looking forward to reading Dostoyevsky over the summer i have to admit. Brothers, Idiot then Crime & Punishment i think should be the way to go.

Carfe, good information u have given me about the books.
You mentioned Nietzsche’s Gay Science, and u know what, I was kind of suspicious about the title and so I went to amazon.com and there I found out that its not what I suspected
You can read dostoyevsky in any order u like but the order I followed is:
House of The Dead
Notes From The Underground
The Idiot
Crime & Punishment
Brothers Karamazov

Although I want to read Nietzsche but some how I feel that I already know what he is saying…really…In fact when it comes to pure philosophy I feel (I might be wrong) that nobody can tell me anything which can amaze me…I feel (and I cannot prove it) that if we see things in wider or universal (may be this is not the right word) context, the philosophy/idea which seems in harmony with the universe is the philosophy/idea of trying to achieve balance. Nature will try its best to put us out of the balance but I feel that its our job to try to create that balance. And I think that Religions are a good source of laws and principles to achieve that balance. Also I think in this regard Religions which teach balance in different human matters are the religions to be followed (this is just my humble opinion). I also feel that all religions in their unaltered and purest form are teaching us to achieve that balance. These are just my peronal opinions.

Arif