The Catholic church opposes euthanasia, regards homosexuality as sinful and opposes state recognition of gay marriages, opposes almost all forms of birth control, and regards all sex outside of tradtional marriage and even many kinds of sex within marriage (no “sodomy,” for instance) as sin. It’s more than just the abortion issue.
(On the other hand, they’re not opposed to letting you have a smoke and a drink, so I’ll take them over the Baptists any day.)
However, the issue was “How has the right been so successful in portraying themselves as the “Christians” and the liberals as atheists, “anti-Christian,” etc?” The RCC is neither in the “liberal” nor “conservative” camp. Economically, the RCC tend to lean left. They also lean left in opposing capital punishment, and opposing non-defensive wars such as Iraq. On most other social issues they are quite conservative. It isn’t a simple left/right issue.
Perhaps because the saturation point has been reached long time ago?
…and Kosovo…
We didn’t go to war in Kosovo. We sent peacekeepers after the war was over.
I think that that question merits a great debate of its own.
So, Hillary is a liberal afterall, huh? 
I have a three day weekend and am glad to spend a fair amount of time chatting about Nietzsche.
I am genuinely surprised to see someone agree with me about Nietzsche. He characterized the Jews as poisonous bloodsucking vermin who destroyed the Roman empire. What is the best way to deal with vermin? Exterminate them. What is the best way to exterminate them? What is the final solution to this problem?
I believe that, far from taking Nietzsche out of context, the Nazis were the ones who truly understood Nietzsche. Those who try to defend Nietzsche are I think too cowardly or too short-sighted to see the implications of his thought.
Exactly right, in my opinion. Those who like Nietzsche’s presuppositions - that there is no God, that we are free to do whatever we like, the only thing that counts is our own will to power and never mind about others - do not know or want to know about the darker aspects of his thought and what they mean when put into practice.
Good point! If I ever met a real follower of Nietzsche I would try to be loving, or at least decent, but I do hate his ideas. I don’t gloat over his insanity though. Too bad he wasted his life.
It’s like two bums finding a sandwich in the dumpster and debating whether it’s fit to eat or not.
I didn’t know about Nietzsche’s personal affairs, but do see his strong hostility to the Christian elements in Parsifal.
Many researchers are unaware of The Antichrist. I have ceased to be surprised at those who try to analyze Nietzsche’s relationship to Hitler and have not read the one most significant book on the subject.
Wagner had a great deal to do with Hitler, as did Ernst Haeckel, the extreme social Darwinist who expanded Darwin’s survival of the fittest to the racial and national level.
Actually, if you read Nietzsche’s Contra Wagner, it is evident that what most set him off about Wagner was Wagner’s “collapse before the cross” in Parsifal. He objected to Wagner’s brand of antisemitism, in one sentence in passing, and an entire book full of hatred against Jews as the originators of Christianity is ignored.
Nietzsche did credit the Jews as you said with inventing Christianity as a survival mechanism that would destroy the Gentile cultures, as you said. Is this why Hitler felt that in fighting the Jews he was benefiting humanity?
The opening parts of The Antichrist are full of elitism, with the elite few meant to rule over the inferior lesser types. There is yet another type, the failures who must be assisted to perish.
I didn’t get the idea of philosophically induced insanity from Francis Schaeffer, though I have read some of his excellent books and find him to the only Christian I know of (in spite of his limitations) to really come to grip with modenism on a philosophical level.
The question of Hitler’s relationship to Darwin is highly complex. Liberal is right, I meant Darwin through the influence of Haeckel, who added his own unique elements - such as elevating Darwin’s basic concept of natural selection to the level of race, making life essentially a racial struggle with racial purity essential for survival. Haeckel is the bridge between Hitler and Darwin (Daniel Gasman’s excellent book The Scientific Origins of National Socialism is very illuminating).
As to Hitler getting his ideas from street pamphleteers, that is a rather dogmatic statement for one claiming to be a cynic. The parallels between Hitler’s ideas and those of Wagner, Haeckel, and Nietzsche are deep and consistent.
True, liberals don’t defend Wagner or deny the Wagner-Hitler connection, though some Wagner fans try to. I found a good online essay about Wagner and the Jews if anyone is interested: members.aol.com/wagnerbuch/intro.htm. As to Nietzsche being a liberal guru, his influence has been very great and many people admire and defend him, but I don’t mean to say he is a guru to the liberals.
Then rfgdxm made the point that " ‘Social Darwinists’ would hold the position that the state should let people succeed or fail on their own, without state intervention. The Nazi death camps would be inconsistent with social Darwinism, as this would be interfering with the natural order of things."
That was not the position of German Social Darwinists, who felt that it was the duty of the state to assist and support the natural order of things. Moreover, it is not a matter of Social Darwinism alone - that is only one element. Nietzsche said in Section 2 of Antichrist that “The weak and the failures shall perish: first principle of our love of man. And they shall even be given every possible assistance.” The state can speed up the process of selection by exterminating the weak and selectively breeding the stronger.
Agreed, he was not an atheist. None of his collected religious comments contain any of the most basic Christian doctrines, such as forgiveness from sin and eternal life through faith in Christ, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and so on. He did make a couple of references to Christ dying on the cross, but not as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Use of god-words and religious or spiritual language outside of the traditional Christian viewpoint was common in 19th-century German philosophy.
Hillary? A church-going Methodist? Does she believe that the bible is the word of God, and that salvation from sin comes through faith in Christ? Going to church does not make one a Christian.
The “right” has been successful in portraying the “left” - let’s be fair and say “right-left” not “right-liberal” because the vast majority of liberals support abortion, pornography, and immorality, no matter if they go to church or not.
A lengthy quote is given as an introduction. Here it is again for convenience:
As to how much of Nietzsche I have actually read, I have read the Antichrist carefully and in depth. The ideas that he proposes there are as I have stated them. Have you read this book? You do not refute my description of it in any way, so I suspect you have not.
I looked at the link you posted, and found its description of Nietzsche’s comments about Christianity in “The Antichrist” to be false. He did not suggest that Christianity “may” have been propagated by Paul as revenge against Rome for their Jewish war. He said plainly and explicitly that Christianity was invented by the Jews (Paul being an arch-rabbi) as a means of dominating and controlling stronger people. The “introduction” also did not refer to Nietzsche’s ridicule and scorn heaped on the Old Testament which (apart from the wars and conquests) he considered to be a gigantic fraud. That he expressed a remarkably high view of Jesus in the book is ridiculous. Just another whitewash.
The site also describes thirst for revenge as a “healthy” and “natural” desire - they got that part of Nietzsche right at least.
It did quote this part of “The Antichrist”:
The weak and the failures shall perish, and they shall be given EVERY POSSIBLE ASSISTANCE. Including Zyklon B? Happiness is power? Hitler must have been the happiest man on earth. War is better than peace, another good introduction to Nietzsche’s thought. Notice also that pity is not merely a vice, it is worse than a vice. Himmler understood that. Pity interferes with the extermination of the weak and the failures.
As to Nietzsche’s criticisms of the Germans, he objected to their docile bourgeois morality, and their subservience to Jewish values. If he could have seen them shaking off their old morality and rising up in a new paganism he would have been delighted. By the way, the Hitler and the Nazis also criticized Germany. What was their slogan “Germany awake!” if not a criticism of the Germans as being asleep?
Nietzsche’s sister is a convenient dodge for Nietzsche fans. Whatever they like is authentic Nietzsche, whatever they dislike is edited by his sister. The site posted quotes from Nietzsche that support my contentions without saying “These are from Nietzsche’s sister.”
To say that Nietzsche’s thought is opposed to Naziism is false. Why did the Nazis quote him so often? They didn’t quote Jesus or the apostles. Nietzsche did not despise antisemitism, he despised Wagner’s more conventional antisemitism that was infected with Jewish values. He especially hated Wagner’s seeming reversion to Christian values in Parsifal. Nietzsche goes on about that at length, and mentions Wagner’s antisemitism only in one sentence (maybe two).
As to racism, Nietzsche also refers in the Antichrist (Section 3) to breeding a higher type of man, and says that this “higher type” can be not only individuals, but also families, tribes, or peoples. Saying that the concept of pure blood was not harmless could have been praise of the concept, as Nietzsche liked things that were harmful to the staid and complacent bourgeois society that failed to appreciate his genius.
As to Kaufmann’s explanation of the blond beast, I have zero confidence in his explanations - he said that the Old Testament was one of Nietzsche’s great loves, after Nietzsche plainly dismissed most of it a fraud. Kaufmann is determined to defend Nietzsche no matter what. Anyway, Nietzsche praised the proud, fierce, cruel beast and asserted (also in the Antichrist) that man was only an animal, nothing more. His ideal was man as the fierce pitiless cruel beast of prey. Perhaps having been brought up in such feminine surroundings made him want to try and prove he was a real man.
Saying that Nietzsche praised the strength of the Jewish people is pathetic. He did praise their strength - they were very tough willed in the fight for survival (Hitler said the same) and they used tricky ideas to dominate and enslave others. The intoruduction you gave me is shallow and incompetent at best, deliberately dishonest at worst.
Finally, I asked “Why don’t they do a website linking Stalin, Lenin, and Mao to atheism and secular humanism?” and was told “Perhaps because the saturation point has been reached long time ago?”
Would that that were so. I have seen countless references to Christian influences on Hitler, but who links Stalin to secular humanism, atheism, and a state without God? People are afraid the religious right will set up a dictatorship, but they are not afraid the secular left will set up a dictatorship.
No, not really. It’s actually quite simple. No relationship exists whatsoever. If Hitler misunderstood natural selection, that’s not Darwin’s fault.
Is it your position that Darwin is somehow morally culpable for Hitler? Out of curiosity, do you deny that Darwin’s findings were not valid? Do you think evolutionary theory itself is false or evil?
Does she believe that the bible is the word of God, and that salvation from sin comes through faith in Christ? Going to church does not make one a Christian.
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I don’t know specifically how she interprets the Bible or personal salvation. I know she is a practicing Christian and I know that you have not personally been given any authority or magical ability to determine who is or is not a true Christian.
You are committing a fallacy commonly known around here as the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. You are attempting to define Christianity in such a way as to include yourself and exclude others. It doesn’t work that way. You do not get to stake an exclusive claim to Christianity based on denominational differences or political. That fact remains that the majority of self-identified political 'liberals" in the US also self-identify as Christians. I might add, that it’s just as easy for :liberal" Christians to say that anyone who supports the death penalty or non-defensive wars in the middle-east is not following true Christian values. That whole tactic is a non-starter for you because there is no agreed upon definition of Christian values.
The problem wasn’t finding the best way to exterminate the Jews. I hate to defend the Nazis in any way, but the concept of mass extermination wasn’t even on the table until 1941 and wasn’t official policy until the Wannsee conference in early 1942.
Cite
You make a completely unsupported jump from your interpretation of Nietzsche’s characterization of the Jews to his supposed advocacy of the Holocaust.
Don’t confuse Germans and Nazis.
My interpretation of Nietzsche’s seemingly anti-Semitic comments has been that he was looking for a solution to the problem of nihilism. Once he grasped one, he reformed his thinking around the goal of the overman and the will to power accordingly. Christians, Jews, Germans, and Women were all seen as barriers in some way to his goal. It’s a rather immature characterization, but traditional morality isn’t applicable in his thought.
So there we have it, Wikipedia whitewashes Nietzsche. Conspiracies are everywhere.
Few samples from “Beyond Good and Evil”.
Hear that message: accomodate the Jews, kick out anti-semitic rubble? Must be some secret code for top-notch anti-semitism, none of that vulgar Wagnerian type.
Who, indeed?
I, for one, am very afraid of insidious lefties. But I still somehow manage to cling to sanity, or so I hope.
Joe Keysor
While I’m delighted that we have a point of agreement, I should point out to you, given your newness and in the interest of full disclosure, that I am a liberal of the old school or, if you prefer, a European or classical liberal. I advocate the repeal of all laws of prohibition, including those against drugs, prostitution, immorality, and gambling. I do not believe that judgment of morality is within the jurisdiction of man. There is likely far more that we disagree on than that we agree on. I am also a Christian and an Objectivist.
Nietzsche was a homosexual? He proposed to at least two women and I’ve heard comments about how his attitude towards women was born from his inability to relate to them socially, but I’ve never heard of an attraction towards men.
“The subject is not new. Although evidence of Nietzsche’s homosexuality has been strenuously disputed by earlier biographers, many have speculated on the nature of his attachment to Salomé, since neither seemed to manifest any overt erotic interest in the other. Rumors existed in Nietzsche’s own lifetime, and the Nietzsche-obsessed circle around Freud considered Nietzsche’s homosexuality common knowledge. Freud reported having heard from Jung, whose uncle was a physician in the clinic in which Nietzsche was confined after his final collapse, that Nietzsche confessed to having been infected with syphilis while visiting a homosexual brothel, although Freud warned that neither the story nor Nietzsche’s state of mind was to be trusted. (At the time, Nietzsche was also claiming to be Christ and Dionysus and Cosima Wagner’s husband.) Freud, who believed that Nietzsche achieved greater introspective insight than anyone ever known, nevertheless concluded that he could not be analyzed because he remained a sexual mystery. This staggering contradiction, coming from the master theorist of the sexual roots of the inner life, may at least suggest one reason for the circling evasions that have made Nietzsche so impossible to pin down; it may suggest a reason, too, for the tragic sense that only darkened as he grew older, in response to the utter loneliness that overtook his life.”
Concerning the question of Darwin’s relationship to Hitler, which I said was highly complex, Diogenes said:
I think the question is not simple at all. German social Darwinists of the 19th and early 20th centuries (not all Germans) reasoned that Darwinisim is true - therefore, our philosophy of life and concepts of morality and law should be founded on that basic truth. The strong survive, the weak die. That is what it is all about, that is how we got here, period, and any religious concepts such as God, ethics, heaven, and so on are useless fantasies.
Maybe, Diogenes, you can find some flaw in their logic and reasoning. Nevertheless, it is directly related to Darwin’s theory and comes from Darwin’s theory. Moreover, it is logical. Attempts to find an evolutionary explanation for altruism, love, ethics, and so on seem to me to be farcical. Anyway, Darwinism had a deep influence on 19th-century Germany, and Haeckel’s interpretations of Darwinism along the lines I have described above are directly related to Hitler (see Daniel Gasman’s The Scientific Origins of National Socialism).
The extent to which vital elements of National Socialism are inherent in Darwinism is I think complex. Why should not the principles of evolution be applied to us today? Can we reach a certain level of evolution and then stop because we are satisfied with the level we have reached? What if the process of struggle goes on? The strong take what they want and the weak go to the wall - this is the law of life and does not magically stop at the human level. This is why I have read from credible sources (but not personally authenticated, I am open to correction) that Darwin viewed the extermination of the primitive savages in America by the Europeans as evolution in action. The stronger and more advanced replace those less fit for survival - that’s what life is all about, baby. The primitive savages on a lower level died out and were replaced by a species more fit for survival.
Can someone authenticate for me whether or not Darwin believed that blacks were closer to gorillas on the evolutionary scale than to whites?
Anyway, I believe some (not all) key elements of National Socialism derive logically and inevitably from Darwinism.
My position is that on the day of judgement Darwin will be held accountable by God for his own life, what he said and what he did. I think you meant to ask “Do you deny that Darwin’s findings are valid?” Yes, I deny that they are valid. I agree that they are not valid. I think Darwinism is a false and unscientific theory. Also, I believe it is an evil theory that destroys morality and ethics and reduces man to the level of a beast. It is no coincidence that the four greatest mass murderers of the modern era - Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao - all believed in evolution. There is no God, there are no ethics other than survival, man is only an animal - the results are evident.
You may be aware that there are numerous scientific problems with evolution. One of them has to do with the genetic mechanism. A fish fin can not gradually turn into a leg by some sort of vague and unknowable process as Darwin imagined (he knew nothing or next to nothing of genetics). There have to be huge numbers of changes in the skeletal structure and the nervous system, not to mention others, all of them happening simultaneously (a change in the skeletal structure without a corresponding change in the nervous system would be of no benefit). Not that I have too much faith in arguments of this type, since Darwinists believe in the theory by faith, but scientifically and genetically great numbers of highly complex and interrelated changes do not happen simultaneously by random mutation and have never happened. That is why constant experiments with fruit flies yield in the end nothing but fruit flies. The boundaries of species are fixed, not fluid, as Darwin imagined.
Please don’t tell me about finch beaks or dog sizes. Variations within the boundaries of an existing species (microevolution) do not prove transformations of one species into another (macroevolution).
Moving on to Hillary, Diogenes says:
You do not know what Hillary thinks about the bible or personal salvation, but you can determine that she is a practicing Christian? Because she goes to church? If you define a Christian as someone who goes to church, she is a Christian (though I don’t know how regularly she attends). If you define Christian as someone with the basic doctrinal beliefs and a salvation experience, then you don’t know if she is one or not, by your own admission. So, you don’t know if my understanding of her is correct or not.
Really, we should discuss “What is a Christian?” According to my understanding, someone who participates in a gay pride parade and supports abortion is not a Christian. Do you think Hillary believes that the bible is the inspired word of God, that there will be a day of judgement, that those who have been saved by faith in Christ can go to heaven while the lost will go to hell?
I do not say someone who goes to a Methodist church cannot be a Christian. I do not say someone who is oposed to the war on Iraq is not a Christian. I am aware that people can be true Christians and go to different denominations and have different political views. However, the bible does define a Christian as requiring some basic standard beliefs, and also showing a manner of life consistent with those beliefs. We can not tell in each case who is a Christian or not. Some Christians are behaving in sinful ways but they will get straightened out in the end. Others seem to be living righteous lives outwardly but are void of the Spirit. Still, there is a basic minimum that professing Christians should believe in and adhere to and I have never seen a spark of real concern for biblical Christianity in Hillary, who I think loves only power and serves only herself and her false left-wing feminist ideologies.
Are you saying there should be no definition of Christianity at all, so that everyone in the world is called a Christian, no matter what they say or do or believe? You have a definition of Christianity (when you don’t even know if God exists or not, and I am sure you do not accept the bible as the inspired word of God) and Hillary falls within that definition. I have a different definition, and Hillary falls outside of it. I believe my definition is more consistent with what the bible says about the beliefs and lifestyle of those who follow Christ. You have a right to your definition, I have a right to mine.
Many people identify themselves as Christians. All of this will be cleared up on the day of judgement. God knows those who have believed on his Son and been cleansed by his blood, and those who have not. It is not a question of being for or against the death penalty, or for or against the war in Iraq. Christians can have differing political views. There is no agreed upon definition of Christian values on things not mentioned in the bible, such as Iraq or whatever, but there are basic standards the bible stresses repeatedly.
Anyway, this is far from the subject of Nietzsche.