The Bible is mostly a language game that transfigured the values of ancient cultures. The invetor of the concept of "Light and Darkness" Zarathustra, had noticed there was often a certain internal damage done to a person who experiences war. A few Judaeo-Christian values were appropriated from Zarathustra's Zoroastrianism and other mythologies.

The Abrahamic religions grew out of a necessity to justify the lives of slaves against those who treated them as property and trash to be disposed of. Think of it as a style of metaphysical capoeira that armed the masses against their masters.

Jesus' aim is that of God's grace, to usher the sheep to heaven as a good shepherd should for his flock. Jesus in the Gospels is vastly different than the Jesus in say Pauline doctrine. Jesus haa his own equation. And that's in truth what Christianity is all about.

Jesus, a Jew, was rejected from his society for transfiguring the Jewish values to be less resentful, there was no sin (the divorce between man and God) in the gospels, nothing came between Jesus and another, not even those who would kill him. He lived his life to the glad tidings... and the reality of heaven is more like following Jesus' equation, not the doctrine of the Disciples, which is mostly just an injection of Judaism back into Christianity. Not a new faith, but more so a new way of life.

If people were to act like Jesus, then they would feel themselves as if they were in a kingdom of Heaven... otherwise they're remaon under the resentful wrathful and angry laws of God...God cannot be omnipotent and be denied half of the nature of omnipotence.

So the moral of the story is live to the Glad Tidings of Jesus Christ to feel heavenly.

How do you know jesus was right. You guys believe that god is all loving and merciful but yet we still suffer, you say he loves us the most but still tell me to fear is wrath and anger. How am i supposed to believe you when this earth and my existence itself is contradicting the characteristics of god described by you

Let's open up the discussion a little bit, for the sake of viability.

How can one believe in a (more so than not) benevolent Higher Power, god, deity, or whatever you will, in a world mired with suffering, cruelty, hatred, and so on?

It's a question men of faith and even honest curiosity have struggled with for Millennia; ages even.

So, first and foremost is to understand the dynamic of which we're trying to discuss. We're talking about the supernatural, that which transcends anything we currently know and perhaps will ever be able to know, understand or experience in this existence. That's the key point to understand here many people fail to grasp. It's illogical, it is, by all observable and known science, irrational. This is where people fail to understand the true nature of an alleged god or divine higher power. When you begin to open up your mind to it, most folks often fall into the "oh so none of this matters, this is basically a simulation" trap and reverse mindset dynamic. This is common. You however seem to be stuck at the gates.

So, let me ask you. Do you believe you, as a person, have something either inside you or I don't know perhaps available to you, that separates you from say, the pigeon that eats out of your hand on a park bench? Beyond your body's physical, anatomical contents. The answer to this question will determine what line of discussion will best suit your needs.

You pretty much heard what you wanted to hear. I told you that the formula of Jesus was:

1. His own values.

2. To love his fate.

3. To build bridges where others would give up.

I suggest you learn to read more discerningly for these forums, friend.

What I did was sanitized it of religion and made it secular.

If you need a label you can label me an atheist.

Sorry for that. But yeah first of all we were discussing about gods mercy and the other thing is that you said the formula of jesus was his own values but honestly speaking if we look at history and historians will say the same things that jesus preached the message of god(atleast jesus showed that he was preaching message of god and was sent by god) so i dont think creating own values will come into his formula

By something that differentiates me i assume that you are referring to something like "soul" or stuff like that. So my answer for your question will be "I dont know, maybe there is something inside me different form maybe animals and stuff but maybe there isn't"

Now that you told me to read this properly and discerningly now i understand what you are saying. Your words show that you kind of believe that religions were made to justify the sufferings of the weak and poor and were just there to give them kind of hope.

Well, you specifically were, which caused you to reify what I was saying towards that particular end. Something one muat be careful of when reading.

A pretty digestible book that could benefit your understanding here is a book by Hannah Arendt "The Human Condition." Im that book she spella out how constellations of thought have changed over centuries. You can just search for a pdf of it to read at your leisure. Not all religions were for the weak, but Judaeo-Christian morality emphasizes this.

The first two Essays in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals is a much quicker read, but I'll tell you that many people aren't neaely as discerning as they ought to be while reading Nietzsche. If you read Genealogy of Morals, read the preface too. And make doubly certain of doing your due diligence. One must follow Nietzsche carefully to understand his meanings in depth.

Apologies for disappearing, I fell asleep. Welcome aboard.

PS: religion is about faith, not knowing.

PSS: most here wont engage with such a limited OP. They find them too lacking and probably too common. That's okay though, we all start somewhere, and you seem eager enough to learn and discuss things. Though you'll find a few here who aren't so adjusted to baring, banning and ignoring.

An okay place to gather some knowledge, but the community as a whole is severely lacking. There are posting gurus who live here in these hinterlands of thought. They're fragile nihilists in disguise as philosophers. Except this whole community has little to no impact on the world, let alone on philosophical thought.

Better off reading philosophers of impact rather than the ramblings of the relatively powerless madmen here.

They claim god is all merciful and loving yet there is so much cruelty and hate — QuirkyZen

Well this is only true if you think of god as a magic sky wizard with a plan. The literalist account in Islam and Christianity, for instance. But if you consider god to be not a person at all but the source of all that is and that we can understand God not as a being among beings, but as Being itself—the foundation of existence rather than a contingent entity.

In the view of philosopher and theologian David Bentley Hart, God is the infinite wellspring of goodness, beauty, and truth, not a cosmic manager intervening in history. From this perspective, suffering and evil do not contradict God’s nature but arise from the misuse of freedom within creation, which remains ultimately grounded in divine love. At least that's a more intelligent account of theism which has a long tradition. Literalism seems to be a product of the modern period. Personally I am an atheist.

Thanks for the advice man! I appreciate it

Well you gave the answer by referencing to a different interpretation lf God and there are various questions about this interpretation but i won't ask them because you are a atheist too so you pretty much don't believe in this too so their is no meaning in that.

You have to be the one causing the suffering to show mercy, no? So it is the cruel and hateful who are in a position to show mercy. God might still be immoral for not intervening, but the intervention wouldn't be correctly called 'mercy'. I'm nitpicking I suppose.

Well you gave the answer by referencing to a different interpretation — QuirkyZen

God is an idea with many interpretations. The cartoonish, literalist account of God is the easiest to undermine. People focus on it most because Biblical literalists have the loudest voices (and dominate American culture), while atheists find the cartoon version of theism the easiest to refute.

i won't ask them because you are a atheist too so you pretty much don't believe in this too so their is no meaning in that. — QuirkyZen

You don’t have to believe in Brahman to be well-versed in Advaita Vedanta. But fair enough.

You don’t have to believe in Brahman to be well-versed in Advaita Vedanta. But fair enough — Tom Storm

Brother if you hve knowledge regarding this interpretation of God then i would love to question because i literally wanted to question but stopped because I thought you might not have enough knowledge on it or maybe you used this interpretation to only answer my question. I would really love to question about it

If i understood you correctly then you are basically saying that god gave us free will and we do cruel acts and it wouldn't be fair to call intervening in our free willed actions mercy. Okay for instance i agree with your thought but lets be real if he was merciful why in the first place would he make us play such game where cruelty is a good option in various cases. If he was merciful shouldn't he have created something where we could be tested without suffering and cruelty. By the way you said "God might be still immoral" but brother realistically god cannot be immoral because if there is a god then morality comes from him so he realistically cant be immoral thus if we see somewhere that god is being immoral than can only mean two things.
1. Our understanding is not clear and he has some purpose behind it.
2. Our understanding is clear thus good is immoral but god cant be immoral so therefore god doesn't exist

Okay for instance i agree with your thought but lets be real if he was merciful why in the first place would he make us play such game where cruelty is a good option in various cases. If he was merciful shouldn't he have created something where we could be tested without suffering and cruelty. — QuirkyZen

Maybe. It might be that suffering is a necessary consequence of creation that God cannot avoid, if God chooses to create. Or it may be that the suffering is not God's so he's not bothered about it. There's a few possibilities.

The problem of evil is definitely a challenge to those God-mongerers who want to hold to a particular set of assumptions about God. But if one is willing to shed some assumptions, then the God concept can perhaps survive in a modified form. But I guess there's a limit to how much one can modify one's God-concept before it becomes an eccentric use of the word 'God'.

By the way you said "God might be still immoral" but brother realistically god cannot be immoral because if there is a god then morality comes from him so he realistically cant be immoral thus if we see somewhere that god is being immoral than can only mean two things. — QuirkyZen

The truth of this depends on your general standpoint in moral philosophy. I think I'm probably a metaethical moral relativist, meaning that moral truths depend on a point of view, so what is right for one person may not be right for another. So what is good for God isn't necessarily what is good for me, so I can judge what God wants (or allows) as immoral, from my point of view, without contradiction.

Good and evil are fundamental features of reality and they are both necessary. Humans mostly are inclined to prefer good over evil though but that does not mean that we could live with good only. For example, you feel pain when you are hurt. You look for a cure as the result of pain so it is right to feel pain.

You said "what is right for me might not be right for other person" this could be said for various things and I agree on that but dont you think that this type of relativity is harmful and can justify various things that are not permitted these days

Good and evil are fundamental features of reality and they are both necessary — MoK

Yeah both are necessary in this world but isnt god said to be All powerful. If yes then he can change the fundamental features of reality according to his own will thus good and evil are his own choice and he put it himself thus not being merciful

Nietzsche was not a religious scholar and never seriously studied the traditions he was commenting on. A lot of his "history" is just made up speculation to suit his points. I would advise against swallowing it uncritically. From the standpoint of history, it is more on the level of creative fiction.


For instance:

The Abrahamic religions grew out of a necessity to justify the lives of slaves against those who treated them as property and trash to be disposed of. Think of it as a style of metaphysical capoeira that armed the masses against their masters

Who exactly were slaves here?

The compilers of the core of the OT were most likely caste priests, elites in their society, working under the auspices of the royal authority of an independent kingdom. Most of the Biblical literature predates the Exile (and at any rate, the Jews were not slaves in Babylon, but kept their class structure intact).

The later books were written by the victorious party in a war against the Seleucids, an elite celebrating their own victory in war against one of the great powers of the period.

None of the Apostles were slaves. Indeed, one Pauline epistle in the NT is to a slaveholder about a slave that Saint Paul has converted while in prison. Mohammed was not a slave, but rather a scion of a dominant tribe and a leader who oversaw a rapid conquest. If one accepts the longer compilation period thesis for the Koran then it was composed over a period in which the composers were engaged in a massive expansion by conquest. They were the ones taking slaves, not the slaves.

Whereas the spread of Christianity seems to have occurred across classes, but was already a major influence in the intellectual/elite sphere in Alexandria by the time we get a more consistent history in terms of primary sources.

If one goes with mainstream secular history the Hebrews were never even slaves in Egypt.

In general, I would be skeptical of claims to have successfully psychoanalyzed the intentions of anonymous authors from millennia ago at any rate. Nietzsche's critique is apt for some forms of Christianity, Platonism, and asceticism, and indeed these forms are also inveighed against by many of the Church's saints. For instance, St. John Cassian and St. John Climacus actually point to similar issues with poorly motivated asceticism (a sort of misunderstanding and wrong motivation), and obviously there was a great deal written about body/life denying readings of the Phaedo vis-á-vis the Gnostic heresies by the Patristics as well, that often touch on similar notions. I think it's fair to say though that Nietzsche doesn't really transcend his own upbringing here, and is often backwards projecting problems he finds in 19th century lay German Protestantism onto three plus millennia of quite diffuse history and thought.

Whether there is a God who is all-powerful is the subject of debate. The reality is that we are left with our own so if we have to achieve Utopia if it is possible at all. Living the life as it is is interesting. We learn things. We become wiser after we realize our mistakes. It is through challenges that we become stronger. Etc. It seems that God if we accept that It exists couldn't possibly create Utopia since living in a Utopia requires all-wise Creatures, namely Gods. It seems that humans' destiny is to become Godly on our own if that is possible at all, even if we accept that God can create Gods.

Nietzsche was not a religious scholar and never seriously studied the traditions he was commenting on. A lot of his "history" is just made up speculation to suit his points. I would advise against swallowing it uncritically. From the standpoint of history, it is more on the level of creative fiction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's pretty simple to examine history though. And plenty of historical scholars like Hannah Arendt even detail the history quite well. Further still, we can see the intellecual Jews highly appreciated Nietzsche's Genealogy. It helped them in overcoming the neurosis which was plaguing their kind... (Nietzsche and Zion pg 10-12 Jacob Golomb).

Your little spat there means nothing compared to these scholars who have actually impacted the world while you loaf around here trying to say small things in defending a life denying dogma.

Who exactly were slaves here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Jews in this case.

It was the Jews who, in opposition to the aristocratic equation (good = aristocratic = beautiful = happy = loved by the gods), dared with a terrifying logic to suggest the contrary equation, and indeed to maintain with the teeth of the most profound hatred (the hatred of weakness) this contrary equation, namely, "the wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the sick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones who are blessed, for them alone is salvation—but you, on the other hand, you aristocrats, you men of power, you are to all eternity the evil, the horrible, the covetous, the insatiate, the godless; eternally also shall you be the unblessed, the cursed, the damned!" — Nietzsche, Genealogy 7

I get that you don’t really study this stuff much, but I do, so carry on with the obtuse bs you're attempting in order to obfuscate, but you're just ignorant on the matter really:

Nietzsche not only supplied the European Jews with the conceptual means to understand their self-hatred and to regard anti-Semitism as a manifestation of inferior mentalities....

The Jewish psychoanalysts (and Herzl as well, as we shall see) were especially attracted by Nietzsche's genealogical methods of unmasking. Nietzsche proclaimed these as a way of freeing oneself from religious, metaphysical, and social ideologies that had previously provided ready-made and inauthentic identities, and thereby attaining a solid sense of selfhood and individual identity. The death of the divine Father-the Jewish God-and the decline of the authority of the human father were responsible for bringing the sons to the schizophrenic state they were now in. — Jacob Golomb, Nietzsche and Zion

And in The Antichrist 24 Nietzsche spells it out quite clearly the origins of Christianity and antisemitism are unoriginal copies of Judaism:

the Christian church, put beside the “people of God,” shows a complete lack of any claim to originality. Precisely for this reason the Jews are the most fateful people in the history of the world: their influence has so falsified the reasoning of mankind in this matter that today the Christian can cherish anti-Semitism without realizing that it is no more than the final consequence of Judaism.

Further still, we know Philo Judeas, a Helenic Jew was responsible for creating the Christian Logos in CE 22-24 with his work "Die Vita Contemplativa" by Hellenizing the Old Testament with Plato's teachings... which would be 8-6 years before Christ began teaching at 30 CE.

So, I'll go with the academics on this one while being wary of you, a Christian, who is really just defending his beliefs against their ugly truths...

And Nietzsche was the first real philosopher to even consider the historical account, of philosophy, through history, philology and etymology... that he didn't write history books doesn't mean he wasn't a discerning scholar of history... pretty weak reasoning there if I may say.

Gotcha, against the consensus of historians and the claims of the texts themselves, the authors of the Scriptures were slaves because Nietzsche said they were. Nevermind that the temple cult was developed under an expanding and prosperous, independent Hebrew kingdom under the auspices of that society's elite.

Apparently, if you read Nietzsche and actually understand him you must become convinced of his infallibility.

And I'm the dogmatist!

You're little spat there means nothing compared to these scholars who have actually impacted the world while you loaf around here trying to say small things in defending a life denying dogma.

But Nietzsche levels lots of scorn at Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. If having a great name makes your interpretation of history or philosophy correct, then surely he falls victim to the same deficiency. After all, he calls Socrates out for being weak and ugly in Twilight, yet Socrates not only fought the Spartans man to man in battle, but exceptional heroism and ferocity was attributed to him by his contemporaries.

Anyhow, you are indeed correct. Nietzsche is, I would imagine from bookstore shelves and online philosophy spaces, by far and away the most popular philosopher of our era. I find cruel irony in that though. First, that he who disparaged the crowd became the "philosopher of the masses," and second that he became the philosopher of the masses in this era, one which he would surely see as the Age of the Last Man. But to me it makes a certain sort of sense; the Overman is the fever dream of the Last Man. The latter gives birth to the former.

I imagine there is also a connection to be drawn here between C.S. Lewis's contention that modern society raises "men without chests," and young men's perennial attraction to Nietzsche, but I digress.

I see your edits and they seem to me like just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. How exactly does the fact that 20th century Jews appreciate Nietzsche support the assertion that "academics" think that the ancient Hebrews were slaves? What does Philo have to do with the assertion that all the Abrahamic faiths were originally embraced primarily by slaves?

That Nietzsche's diagnoses might be taken to fit for 20th century Jews makes way more sense. The Jews became an oppressed diaspora people. The ancient Hebrews, Christians, and Muslims, however, were not.

When I think: I have cascading series of thoughts, they don't all come out at once... unless you want me to just submit multiple posts in a row. I can do that, if you prefer.

First you whine about historical scholarship and his psychoanalysis... well there are an abundance of those in such professions who appreciate Nietzsche's works. You trying to say his notions are shit when there are many Jewish scholars, which is only a subset of all those who detail his Genealogy as accurate shows your agenda...

You're not here to learn a damn thing so shoo. Tis the last I speak with you (here).

I find cruel irony in that though. First, that he who disparaged the crowd became the "philosopher of the masses," and second that he became the philosopher of the masses in this era — Count Timothy von Icarus

You should probably read Thus Spoke Zarathustra more closely then... that was exactly his intention. Not to preach to but to draw from the masses.

A light hath dawned upon me: I need companions—living ones; not dead companions and corpses, which I carry with me where I will.

But I need living companions, who will follow me because they want to follow themselves—and to the place where I will.

A light hath dawned upon me. Not to the people is Zarathustra to speak, but to companions! Zarathustra shall not be the herd’s herdsman and hound!

To allure many from the herd—for that purpose have I come. The people and the herd must be angry with me: a robber shall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen.
— Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue

But Nietzsche levels lots of scorn at Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You mean Plato, Socrates and Kant. Aristotle used a double orbit to show two opposites are connected. Just as Heraclitus... N doesn't bash Aristotle, except rarely, more rare than he mocks Spinoza...who he claimed a sort of kinship with...

Which is one of Nietzsche's fundamentals (the plant that grows out of two opposites which are fundamentally of the same cause).

You're not here to learn a damn thing so shoo. Tis the last I speak with you (here). — DifferentiatingEgg

Applies now that my cascade of thoughts is more or less done...

Yes, that's the main logical inconsistency with monotheism, just as omnipotence is the problem with polytheism.

It was the Jews who, in opposition to the aristocratic equation (good = aristocratic = beautiful = happy = loved by the gods), dared with a terrifying logic to suggest the contrary equation, and indeed to maintain with the teeth of the most profound hatred (the hatred of weakness) this contrary equation, namely, "the wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the sick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones who are blessed, for them alone is salvation — Nietzsche, Genealogy 7

Sounds more like the Gospel to me.

In any case, I would love to ask Nietzsche when the Jews began espousing such a message. Given that I don't see this message anywhere in the Hebrew Bible when did it begin? If the Jews hate that which is noble why did they have wealthy and noble kings?

When did this hating of the beautiful begin again?