Nietzsche's passionate atheism was the making of me

[rug]

Nietzsche's pious lack of faith led to my own conversion to Christianity

Giles Fraser
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 February 2012 15.10 EST



Bust of philosopher and atheist Friedrich Nietzsche. Photograph: Jens Meyer/Associated Press

The Big Ideas series has for several months now explored the meaning of a number of familiar intellectual phrases, among them Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message", Hannah Arendt's "the banality of evil" and Adam Smith's "invisible hand". But none of these feels quite as big an idea as Friedrich Nietzsche's "God is dead". After centuries of Christianity, a new dawn is being announced. And the language Nietzsche uses in his famous passage from The Gay Science reflects the enormity of his discovery: "How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?" Nothing again will ever be the same.

But what is his discovery? It isn't a eureka moment in which Nietzsche comes to understand that God does not exist. Indeed, he is not all that interested in the question of God's existence. The Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson recently told me that he would be an atheist even if God walked into the restaurant. Similarly for Nietzsche, it's not a question of evidence or the lack of it.

He is in a completely different place to the new atheist brigade of Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling. If God walked into the room, Nietzsche would stab him – for his "God is dead" revelation is that humanity can only become free if it rejects the idea of the divine. Christianity is not a mistake. It is wickedness dressed up as virtue.

Nietzsche himself was raised in an overly pious religious household. And on the death of his father, who was the local pastor, Nietzsche was brought up to fill his father's shoes. In his first year away from home he wrote some nauseatingly sentimental Christian poetry and won the university preaching prize.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/05/passionate-atheism-me-christianity-nietzsche

Dr Giles Fraser is the former canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral. He resigned in October 2011 in protest at plans to forcibly remove Occupy protesters from its steps. He lectures on ethics and leadership for the army at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham

[DonCoquixote]

1. a lot of people quote Nietzche

but few understand him.

If there were ever a book to be offered an an athiest scripture, Thus Sprach Zarathustra would beat anything Dawkins wrote. Nietzche summons enough poetry and mystery to go toe to toe with those some call prophets, but never compromises his ideals.

[ZombieHorde]

2. "God is dead" was a social observation.

He didn't think people were basing their everyday decisions and morality on scripture, so people had to become their own gods and create their own morality.

That was my take on that proclamation, but I have not read everything Nietzsche wrote, and I know he was loosing it toward the end, so there could discrepancies in this writings.

[provis99]

3. what a moron.

he read that Nietzsche wrote "God is dead", decided that Nietzsche was an atheist, and became a delusional religious nut?

So he became religious basically because he didn't have a clue what Nietzsche was talking about.

[Jim__]

5. Actually, Giles Fraser is an expert on Nietzsche.

From wikipedia:

Fraser attended Newcastle University, Ripon College Cuddesdon and the University of Lancaster. He was ordained as a deacon in 1993 and as a priest the following year, serving as the curate of All Saints in Streetly from 1993 to 1997.[3] From 1997 to 2006, he was a chaplain and then a lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford. He is the author and co-author of several books and is a specialist on the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

I don't agree with his interpretation; but I wouldn't presume that because I disagree with him he has never read Nietzsche.

[provis99]

6. if he can't interpret Nietzsche right, then he's not an expert.

he's simply a clown whose wasted decades on something he doesn't have a clue about.

[Jim__]

8. "... he can't interpret Nietzsche right ..."

Do you really think there is a "right" way to interpret Nietzsche?

[provis99]

9. if there isn't, then any fool can claim to be an expert.

After all, it's simply a matter of "interpretation".

I've seen "experts" on Nietzsche who claimed that even Nietzsche didn't know what his own philosophy was, while they did. Post-modernists are particularly notorious for this kind of dishonest fraud.

[Jim__]

10. Whether there is or isn't, anyone *can* claim to be an expert, but claiming doesn't make it so.

However, as noted in post #5, Giles Fraser has the credentials to justify such a claim.

And, no, it's not simply a matter of interpretation; it's also a matter of being able to support your interpretation.

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. Good read.

I think he touched on some stuff that's still relevant today. You have that idea of the Ubermensch:

Nietzsche introduces the concept of the Übermensch in contrast to the other-worldliness of Christianity: Zarathustra proclaims the Übermensch to be the meaning of the earth and admonishes his audience to ignore those who promise other-worldly hopes in order to draw them away from the earth.[3][4] The turn away from the earth is prompted, he says, by a dissatisfaction with life, a dissatisfaction that causes one to create another world in which those who made one unhappy in this life are tormented. The Übermensch is not driven into other worlds away from this one.

I posted on that just last night, I was saying that there are those who embrace a cold and analytical view of this world to gain power from it, and in so doing forsake ideals and religious concepts, and that furthermore this is leading to a bifurcation of the culture into a small group of extreme elites vs. believers. I said the left is in kind of an uncomfortable place in between, most not embracing hardcore dogma, but still holding to a priori moral ideas like the very religious.

So yeah, its all as fresh and as real as it was back then. And I totally understanding looking at that choice between amoral embrace of the world and faith, and choosing faith. I understand it completely.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Your 'bifurcation of the culture' seems to only apply to the right

As you say, the left is in between - so, if you consider the whole culture, there is no a bifurcation, but a continuum. And I don't see why that puts the left in an 'uncomfortable' position. It makes the right the extremes (Randians on one side, and theocrats on the other) , and the left the desirable golden mean of Aristotle - people who want a society that works together, but does it for the sake of people in this life, not a god described by a book of unknown authorship that demands it must not be challenged.

You do say in the other post that a search for 'truth' should be good; and that is something I'd agree with. Nietzsche didn't concentrate on the truth of whether there are gods or not; instead he thought people were better off not worshipping, because he thought being a follower was inherently demeaning. Modern atheists do put an emphasis on truth, and find big problems with the 'leap to faith' that being religious requires - that you have to believe in gods without the evidence.

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. Yeah, its clearest on the right.

Economically in terms of wealth inequality, socially in terms of evangelicals sided with secular money elite, who smile and nod at them without believing,.

The uncomfortable position of the left is just the complexity of ideals mixed with reason. Both parts of the right have the advantage of ideological simplicity. Thats why I was saying speaking and seeking truth was a good simple direction.

As far as atheism and truth, I think the first thing thats important is that we realize no one knows the whole truth, and share it as we see it. I think if people did this, people would see a lot more atheists. I myself am not one, but my faith has an Eastern flavor: my God is beyond the matrix, so seeing any kind of evidence inside the matrix is a rare event, an anomoly experienced by a rare few only by grace from the outside. So in this sense I think atheism is a rational stance for many.

[tama]

14. "Leap of faith"

is another matter. AFAIK Kierkegaard (cf. Zen etc.) mean by leap of faith letting go of all beliefs and attachments, a quantum jump to unknown.

[opiate69]

7. "Apes don't read philosophy"

[FarCenter]

11. +1