Philosophize

[eadire]

Ok so I am a philosophy student in Ireland I was just wondering what peoples opinions were on different philosophers? For Example:

1. Nietzsche saying God is Dead

2. Kant and everything (seems to be in everything.)

3. Spinoza and his Philosophy of Religion.

4. Plato and the Theory of Forms.

And of course any other philosophers you might have interest in?

Please show some interest in philosophy.

[eadire]

Does nobody here have an interest in philosophy?

[KirstyEkua]

I think that unless you study the subject itself, it's difficult to have an opinion. I don't know any of the people you mentioned and to be honest i don't fully understand what philosophy is or what it entails.

[eadire]

Understandable but many other people do, I no of a lot of people who do have an interest in it without studying, and can there honestly be nobody else here that is studying philosophy. Plus alot of people are philosophers, without people realising.

[eadire]

I would appreciate some help if possible I am currently doing a thesis on Nietzsche and could do with some people's views?

[MTerry]

I'll definitely share my view on Nietzsche saying God is dead. I think that the statement can be interpreted in so many ways that it could make you dizzy, but I'll try to give you my view on it.

First of all, I think it is interesting to take into account how one feels about God. Some people consider his existence to be a universal truth that bestow their faith upon, yet for some, God is a product of wishful thinking or fear. It basically boils down to whether God made people or people made God. Whether God is dead because the idea of his existence was dismissed by the very people who invented him, or whether he is dead because those who "knew" he existed just didn't want to acknowledge him or follow his teachings. And I guess Nietzsche meant that by the death of God, everything related to Christianity remained pointless, because God was the very cornerstone and foundation of Christianity. With Christian values being the cornerstone of many believer's faith and moral values, God dying represents the decay of ethics in a society that is increasingly obsessed with the greatness and potential of the human race to rationalize the divine into rational irrationality. When people couldn't explain or understand something, they responded with a very simple thing; inventing something that both explained the unexplainable, yet left them with something that never had to offer any explanation, because it was greater than them, and they were just to have faith in it's position as their "superior". Thus being both rational, explaining it, but being irrational because they explained it in a strange and very imaginative way, as if they were ashamed of their own shortcomings to see the truth to rationality. And when people could see that the ever developing human race found answers, and we could believe that there were things we didn't understand, but by working and seeking answers to unanswered questions, an answer would eventually be reached. It was just a matter of time, and when that realization came, humility, morality and ethics died, along with God. With no universal and superior "leader" to stand above us, human arrogance and immorality just exploded, and yet we didn't care, because we were greater than him anyway.

And I guess I think it also can be relevant to remember that Gods, and the belief that people are under supervision, guidance and wrath of a divine being that could and would intervene, has been around for a long, long time. "Our" Western God, however, is younger. But all of these older Gods, aren't they dead today? Are there hundreds of millions of people sitting in a room bowing their heads to Zeus or Athena, or Gods like Thor and Frey from Norse Mythology? And that's pretty interesting too, hundreds/thousands of years ago, those Gods were many people's religion. Now, we don't call it that, we call it mythology, and we dismiss it as myths. So maybe God is dead, but we keep re-interventing him in new forms? We kill him off, and adjust him to suit us better? Until we maybe reached a point where we didn't need that security any longer, and then he died for good. First, we need him to give us explanations and purpose, but as time comes, we find or wait for explanations, and we want to define purpose ourselves. Maybe people sought to find the divinity in themselves, and envied the superiority they invented themselves. The fear/love wasn't longer vested in the divine creation above them, but in themselves, and they couldn't maintain those things in themselves if their own creation, God, robbed them of it.

[eadire]

Thanks very much for your opinion Im writing about what other people think just ordinary people think so i need as many views as possible if you have anything else to share it would be grateful

[emmasi]

I wish I could be an atheist but I've seen, heard, and felt too much not to believe in some kind of God. Or maybe it's just the spirits of the dead trying to help and guide the living, because they couldn't do enough to change the world in their own time. Either way, something's out there. The reason I wish I could be an atheist is that it just seems so simple, believing that everything about your life stops when your heart does - no responsibility, no consequences, no guilt over everything you messed up while you were alive. No sadness in leaving people behind, no worry or fear about what will happen to them if you're not there to try and protect them. Knowing that you never have to say sorry. That all sounds pretty good to me. Atheists (stereotypically speaking) think that believers are the ones who hold onto a lie for comfort, the idea of life after death, and someone to be there when you go. I think that atheists are the ones with the more comforting lie, because no matter what they do in life, they can go though it all and believe that when it's over, it's over.

[eadire]

Technically speaking Nietzsche was not an atheist he did believe God had died but that does not mean he was an atheist he just believed he was not a living being or divinity like some people think