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Hello everybody!
Today I'll talk about
Nietzsche's criticism of atheism
Now wait, you might want to say.
Wasn't Nietzsche an atheist himself?
Wasn't he the “God is dead” guy?
Yes, he was.
But it depends on
what you understand as atheism
and I want to
talk about
a worrying tendency in today's atheism
Nietzsche already critizised it
because it already existed
in his contemporaries' thoughts.
There is obviously more
than one possible Nietzschean criticism of today's atheism
but I tend to do videos
that are...
a bit long
and I want to avoid this for once.
So...
The dangerous tendency (in today's atheism) is
the belief in the concept of “truth”
even the try to
justify atheism with “truth”.
“truth”, as “morality” is a religious
coward's way out of
describing the world honestly, critically, and realistically.
Thus: Scientifically!
Science should always...
Um... science should not concern itself with
“truth”
but with the world! (With reality).
See my first video for this.
There's another big problem with “truth”
one I'll have to explain
“God is dead” first for you to get it.
(Um,)there's another big problem with “truth”, one I'll have to explain “God is dead” first for you to get it.
Strictly speaking, Nietzsche never means only one thing
I'll thus give you just one meaning of
“God is dead”.
For Nietzsche, heathen gods have more reality than the Christian one.
Not because they are physical entities, no god is.
But because they are more closely related to a people and its concrete
way of life in a natural (in a scientific sense, thus: real) environment.
The Christian god had aspects of this when he still was the god of the Jewish people.
But he lost this connection to reality when, over the centuries,
his properties where rendered more and more abstract and “universal”.
(by us)
Since in life and nature, nothing is universal
but everything is individual and has a context
This process removed god from life,
killing him.
He became a mere word.
Thus, those who follow god are asked to remove themselves from the world
in a similar way.
This is (one reason) why Nietzsche calls Christianity nihilistic.
And this idea that it would be good for one to move away from the world
is what Nietzsche calls “the ascetic ideal”
And, as he says in “On the Genealogy of Morality”
the tendency for “truth” in modern atheism
is the final victory of this ideal.
Why?
Well, you could say that the Christian god, removed as he is,
is still a concept that has kept a very small connection to reality.
Because he, for example, shows behavior that is similar to real entities:
Human beings.
“Truth”, however, does not!
It is cold, platonic and totally ascetic.
It has no similarities at all to anything that exists.
In the “God is dead” sense, truth is even more dead than god.
Following truth is among the most nihilistic things one can do.
Therefore, you need to get the idea of “truth” out of your view of the world
and of how you do science.
And don't use truth for arguing with religious people,
least you want to become even weaker than them.
And if you now wonder how to see and describe the world without adhering to truth
you should watch my first video.
It also explores everything I just said in much greater detail.
See the video description for the link.
Thank you and good bye!