Nietzsche's The Antichrist

[Noodles is gay]

Anyone read this? I just found a review on Amazon and it sounds absolutely amazing!

Reviewer: alaskadoggie from BOOM (near Antwerp), BELGIUM
As to Nietzsche christianity was the cause for the decline of the classic, antique civilisation and the most considerable "promotor" for the herd instinct, the spiritual levelling, for decadence.

The Antichrist (1888, written months before he fell ill to death) contains THE MOST FURIOUS ATTACKS by Nietzsche against christianity. It is as if this criticism that we encounter in all of his writings, has been like a fester in his mind and whole spirit that bursts out here as an incredible, tremendously powerful explosion.
"I BRING YOU THE MOST TERRIBLE DENUNCIATION AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH THAT HAS EVER BEEN CHARGED AS ANY ATTORNEY GENERAL EVER HAS DONE. I WILL WRITE DOWN THIS ETERNAL CHARGE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY EVERYWHERE WERE THERE ARE WALLS, I EVEN DISPOSE OF SPECIAL LETTERS TO EVEN MAKE THE BLIND SEE.".

The reason for Nietzsche to do/write so, is because he found christianity, with Paul and the ancient fathers of the christian church in front (NOT the person of "Jesus" as so often misinterpreted!), GUILTY for the decline of the ANTIQUITY. Christianity was the vampire of the IMPERIUM ROMANUM. As the author was a huge admirer of antiquity, not to say that he saw it as a kind of ideal world, a greater denunciation is indeed hard to think of as to him.

Sounds cool, plus has a referance to classics! Anyone else's views?

[Frozen flames]

I bet it`s damn good.

I`m planning to go to library and rent anti christ as soon as I`ve managed to read my other books. also, beyond good and evil, is recommendable.

[Noodles is gay]

I bet it`s damn good.

I`m planning to go to library and rent anti christ as soon as I`ve managed to read my other books. also, beyond good and evil, is recommendable.

beyond good and evil looks pretty good too - plus it's only £3.98, i might get that one too. Just bought the birth of tragedy for £0.01! just waiting for the post now......

[Frozen flames]

beyond good and evil looks pretty good too - plus it's only £3.98, i might get that one too. Just bought the birth of tragedy for £0.01! just waiting for the post now......
how the hell you get books so cheap??
do they ship stuff abroad? like finland for example..

anti christ costs about 17 euros in a book store here... :eek:

[Noodles is gay]

^^ the antichrist costs £1.79 then you add £2.75 P&P - still cheap.

www.amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/3149611/202-0298056-9837443 - there's the delivery rates. Still pretty cheap books even when you add the P&P

[the_GoDdEsS]

Very cheap. Personally I have not read that one.

[Noodles is gay]

Very cheap. Personally I have not read that one.

Damn, i thought you would be the person to have read it... :( then you could tell me if it was good because i know you like Nietzsche from all the quotes you post :p

[Frozen flames]

not expensive at all.. thanks.. it`s like ten times cheaper than in book stores..

[the_GoDdEsS]

Yeah, unfortunatelly I have not.

[Dive]

Haven't read that one. You might also like The Birth of Tragedy. However, my personal favorites are Twilight of the Idols and The Genealogy of Morals. I think there's an edition that contains both The Antichrist and Twilight of the Idols.

Oh, right. You already mentioned The Birth of Tragedy.

[Noodles is gay]

Haven't read that one. You might also like The Birth of Tragedy. However, my personal favorites are Twilight of the Idols and The Genealogy of Morals. I think there's an edition that contains both The Antichrist and Twilight of the Idols.

Ok cheers, i'll check them out. I got the birth of tragedy for £0.01 yesterday and yeah, it looks really good. :p

[HornyPope]

I just bought Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but i've so much reading to do lately i've no idea when will I get to that one.

[the_GoDdEsS]

I got my Zarathustra for 5 euros in German last year. Yay!

[HornyPope]

I am a law only for my kind. I am no law for all. But whoever belongs with me must have strong bones and light feet, be eager for war and festivals, not gloomy, no dreamer, as ready for what is most difficult as for his festival, healthy, and wholesome. The best belongs to my kind and to me; and when one does not give it to us, we take it: the best food, the purest sky, the strongest thoughts, the most beautiful women.


-From the book.

[BREAK]

I have to read that & Twilight Of The Idols for my Intro to Philosophy class. From what I've read in it, he sounds like a bitter old codger who never has any fun. It totally would've blown my mind back when I was 14 or 15, though.

[HornyPope]

A buddy of mine got a little carried away with his praise for Nietzche and composed a prose that he shared with his philosphy class. The professor saw it was his responsability to engage the Nietczhe admirer with a public ad-hominem directed at the student and the Scholar alike. A nevertheless very interesting rebutal on his part. I share with thee:


It would be interesting (and educative) to note how Nietzsche (1844-1900), the advocate of the "Over-man") (Ubermensch), who some, incorrectly call the "super-man") was a sickly, myopic, dyspeptic (possibly syphilitic), very lonely man who had huge issues with his relations with women (and men) (note his relation with Lou Salome, and his love for Cosima Wagner), and a turmoiled filled relation with his sister, mother, and aunts, and that while advocating such grand inspiring, poetic vistas, was a kind, gentle, careful scholar, beginning as a philologist, and what today some would call an over-sensitive male.

This does not mean his theory is invalid (it is not a theory in the end anyway, except in fragments). His hope (and his expressive more literary four part piece Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which Girard would like to add a piece to) was a self-overcoming, and summary of his entire life and dealings with everything from his days at school, to his hoped-for "over-men," (which includes much of everything in-between). It was, by the way, inspired partly by a poem from his impossible love for Lou Salome, an incredibly talented Russian woman!, (if one does the homework), as well as his earlier studies in figures from Pythagoras and Zoroaster, as well as in the Eastern languages, specifically Sanskrit, as I showed in my study on it).

The piece Thus Spoke Zarathustra can be seen as a "I'll show you, cruel world, who is really great" kind of piece (a fabulous piece in itself), a type of re-born "German version" view of classical Greek Theater. The piece was written (most of it, but not part Four) in a frenzy of inspiration, and Nietzsche does leave us great pages on how he actually was over-come by the vision. All this is good. Actually it helps the scholar of his work (those of us who can also read the German, and his notes), to see the bigger picture of his evolution as a thinker. To take the piece as gospel, or in snippets, (as even Nietzsche said it could be seen as, but warned against if you read his other works), is what he would mean by the subtitle, "A book for All and None." Only the "all" the masses would like to take it as a new gospel, (form a brotherhood even, which did start in Germany), but that would be the exact opposite of its impossible individualism. Nietzsche worked in deep ironies and satires. Even following it as an individual (poetically, romantically, or politically, as the horrible fate of Germany saw) is a distortion of the piece, for two then would be already in a pact. Zarathustra (as the figure, wanted and did not want that). Did you know that German soldiers were given this piece to carry with them into battle!? What idiots! Too bad for poor Nietzsche, who clearly said that the Arians (Germans included) were a curse on humanity. He detested his sister (who started the cult (as he lay sick and unable to talk for eleven years, and then died), and by the way, she presented Nietzsche's walking-stick to Hitler!). Nietzsche hated her for marrying a Proto-Nazi and then moving to South American to in-breed! I can even show you pictures.

So, all to say that Nietzsche was up to something more subtle with his Zarathustra, (irony!) and to be a very careful when trying to embrace it as a "guide," "gospel" or "way of life," or attitude. Doing that trivializes the piece. If you read Nietzsche's letters, and the recollections of those who knew him (a majority were women and he couldn't stop writing to them, and did not exclude them at all in his life), he was an incredible gentleman, very English in his style of dress (not a Conan Barbarian type, or Jedi, or Biker, or Bohemian), and even the segment about woman in the Zarathustra is distorted (the Whip thing), if one does not know about the inside joke that he and his sister had about the novel by the Russian writer Turgenev, from where it was taken, and that from a childhood memory. Nietzsche is great (read his other works to see that, a great critic, writer, stylist, philosopher-anti-philosopher, and philologist in spots), but in other spots (like in the Zarathustra) it is like thought-muscle-candy, too much and your teeth will fall out, and your indigestion will start, and steroid after-shock will settle in.

I say all this, briefly and quickly, just to let all of you know that the study and scholarship of an author (and Nietzsche's works is one of my specialty areas) is one thing, and advocating snippets from his work (as well as any author's work), is another. Nietzsche even realized that with his textual love-affair with the philosopher Schopenhauer, and the musician Wagner (both by the way figures he uses [in disguise] in part four of the Zarathustra. I think it is great to be inspired by an author, for that can lead to more serious scholarship, but careful in transforming the high comedy (and laughter) into something that is merely comic.

Well, take care crew, and have fun with Sextus. See you next Thursday.

Dr. Lucio Angelo Privitello

[HornyPope]

And here's his prose in question.


My brothers, my fortune today blessed with me a beautiful day; what was high returned as gentle wind that whispered of its heights to me, and what was low blossomed even in winter. And not to sit there stingy, no, but so that my animals could gather its bounty and rejoice!

I passed a church in my walking, a mighty edifice of impressive stone, mute though it was, a tower built to honor other worlds. (And I could not help but smile at the irony that this church served as a graveyard!) Imagine such folly! What good are other worlds, my brothers? What is high above man longs only to fall back to him! What emptiness would the sky curse, what tragedy would it suffer, if it could not fall to earth? What is the sky without its rain, its winds, and its lightning, without its going under? Verily, it can only live with itself because it gives itself away, and sees its reflection and contribution in every blade of grass beneath it.

And the earth below, does it not long for the surface and upward? What does the land itself want if not to drift and grow into mountains that others might behold beauty from a better vantage? Or else to host life as soil, giving of itself that its heart might ascend in other things! Life itself wants to stand up, to emerge from that which is hidden and subterranean, or else it would curse itself too! How could the earth bear itself if it did not offer the sky its trees and mountains?

Formerly men looked to other worlds and called this freedom! Formerly they called this "Being."
As if, my brothers, such a place is for anyone but the sick and dying! This world, my brothers, is why what they call Being even is. How else could there be life even, my brothers? Verily, I was born as testament to this, and you as well, that the worlds beyond might build themselves a place here. How lucky for this "Being" that we do not remember it before our birth! How sad it looked upon us, from the most jealous eyes, at the light that awaited us. And how lucky for it that it could come along! And for us too! It is with it that we can know the joy with which the rain falls to earth, and with which earth climbs toward sky! Verily when we are happiest on our heights, and most raging in our depths, this Being is most at home on our backs because he is farthest from his prison!

How we long for this world, my brothers, and how true this is even in our most bold renunciation! He lives the most rewarding life who gives the most of himself, whose life is no longer his, but is something given! Formerly men lived this in empires and states and churches, giving of themselves and saying, "This makes me worthy" as if it was not for themselves that they gave. And they called this selfless. Ha! What could be more selfish, my brothers? We nobles ones leap from war to war and center to center, always wanting to give ourselves to it. In man's greatest valor, even in his monuments that serve as tombs, I see deeds that outlive their doers, that will remain in this world, changing and growing and rising and falling. So great is our love for this world, so hungry is our longing for it; we throw our spears hardest that they may go beyond us, into that which will outlive the arms that threw them. And man is happiest when he is creating things that will remember his spear.

That is the mystery and the blessing of what we call our struggle, our justification. Man is a well, my brothers, deep and still, and even the heaviest stones hurled into it with the most passion can only disappear into him. A well that gives not lives on forever, but only as a well, only as a still, dull thing, around which life dances and plays and grows and dies, singing and wailing and loving and fighting. My brothers, our deepest waters are sweetest, and woe to us if we keep this for ourselves! Formerly this was called selfish. Ha! What madness! What could betray oneself more than holding onto this, letting even the sweetest water turn stagnant and moldy?

My brothers, I bid you share this treasure! May we live to find golden buckets that will plunge deepest into your abyss and emerge over-filling with the sweetest nectar! May we be selfish and share this very best of us, that it not be squandered at peace, but rather nourish that beyond, the flux of things, all that is in motion! We were given life, my brothers, and only the stingyest among us would not think to return this kindness! I bid you go forward and create, nourish with your sweetest waters what will live beyond you, because of you, with you, forever in this world.

[wheelchairman]

I spent this vacation reading a lot of Nietzche. I agree with him on quite a bit of things, shockingly enough.

I highly recommend starting with Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Get the edition translated by Walter Kaufmann, because he often notes when Nietzche used clever wordplay in German (and gives examples of the German words, although I guess this is only nice if you know a bit of German), and I think he's rather good in this area.

Only read Beyond Good and Evil if you have a working understanding of Greek, Latin, Italian and French. Or if the Translator translated those parts. My French didn't help much. It's a great book. And explains the theory of Slave and Master Morality quite nicely, I enjoyed it.

I am currently reading On the Genealogy of Morals, and I must say, this is by far his best work. But you should read the others first, it is not a stand alone piece. I got this as a two-in-one deal so in this same volume is Ecce Homo which I look forward to reading.

[Frozen flames]

I got my Zarathustra for 5 euros in German last year. Yay!
it`s the best book I`ve ever read! I might be a very weird person but I love that book, It`s not obsolete at all, by contrast indeed.
you can`t find it in any book store here :eek:
I think it`s a classic!

[the_GoDdEsS]

it`s the best book I`ve ever read! I might be a very weird person but I love that book, It`s not obsolete at all, by contrast indeed.
you can`t find it in any book store here :eek:
I think it`s a classic!

I know. It's a Bible for the aspiring Übermensch in us.

[Frozen flames]

I know. It's a Bible for the aspiring Übermensch in us.
what`s ubermencsh?

[the_GoDdEsS]

what`s ubermencsh?

I think English people translate it as superhuman or superman. Not sure but I certainly don't like translations.

[Frozen flames]

oh I see...it`s that word. yeah, we translate it in a VERY stupid way too, like superhuman...
sounds something that doesn`t quite convey the real prestige and respect that the object of the word would deserve, in my opinion.

[the_GoDdEsS]

oh I see...it`s that word. yeah, we translate it in a VERY stupid way too, like superhuman...
sounds something that doesn`t quite convey the real prestige and respect that the object of the word would deserve, in my opinion.

Agreed. Therefore I prefer the original name.

[Frozen flames]

I wish I knew german.

[wheelchairman]

Superman is the most common English translation of Übermensch. In the English language, the German version has a rather fascist connotation now, unfortunately. Which is a pity, there are claims that Nietzche was an anti-semite (he wrote of his admiration for the Jews, they were his example of a people who started in the slave morality and who now are worshipped by half the world (Jesus, Peter, Paul and Mary were all jews).)

And he was certainly no German nationalist.

Anyways, anyone interested in the Über-mensch theory should read about Juche.

I know that "On the Juche Idea" by Kim Jong Il is published online. The theory of Chajusong, basically seems to be a collective Übermensch idea. Which Nietzche would've hated, but it's an interested read, I don't like it, but definitely interesting. Rather annoying to read though.

I know there is an online version of it. I'll try and find the link.
You can find it here:
http://www.cnet-ta.ne.jp/juche/index_works_e.htm

[Frozen flames]

In the English language, the German version has a rather fascist connotation now, unfortunately.

that`s a pity indeed.. I`m totally sure that nietzsche wouldn`t have advocated fasicm at any rate. Natzies "philosophy" was actually very different, they just wanted to interpret nietzsche in their own way, which is not a news. Our philosophy teacher said that Thus spoke Zarathustra was like a bible to the natzies.

[wheelchairman]

I find a *lot* of Marxist tendencies in his writings. Yes, I know he was anti-Marxist, but there was a bit of it in there. I heard that he basically believed in a strong social state with a dictatorial power or something, but that is only a rumor that I can't prove.

[the_GoDdEsS]

Our philosophy teacher said that Thus spoke Zarathustra was like a bible to the natzies.

How can people be so retarded and still believe that?

[Frozen flames]

I find a *lot* of Marxist tendencies in his writings. Yes, I know he was anti-Marxist, but there was a bit of it in there. I heard that he basically believed in a strong social state with a dictatorial power or something, but that is only a rumor that I can't prove.

that`s pretty much how I find it too. I think nietzsche lefts very very very much of his philosophy to the reader to figure out and interpret. some of his statements are totally clear, but lots of them can be interpreted in many ways.
I didn`t know he was an anti-marxist.. hmm... I don`t remember when marx lived.. was it before or after or the same time with nietzsce.
I read that nietzsce might have been influenced by the evolution theory that shocked the world then...it sounds reasonable, the superhuman..evolution..

[Frozen flames]

How can people be so retarded and still believe that?
was he wrong? I would be relieved if that wasn`t true. I mean if they didn`t think it as a bible.

[HornyPope]

No one read my stuff you fags.

What is an Ubermenschen?

"It would be interesting (and educative) to note how Nietzsche, the advocate of the "Over-man") (Ubermensch), who some, incorrectly call the "super-man") was a sickly, myopic, dyspeptic (possibly syphilitic), very lonely man who had huge issues with his relations with women (and men) (note his relation with Lou Salome, and his love for Cosima Wagner), and a turmoiled filled relation with his sister, mother, and aunts, and that while advocating such grand inspiring, poetic vistas, was a kind, gentle, careful scholar, beginning as a philologist, and what today some would call an over-sensitive male."

[the_GoDdEsS]

That's debatable. They might have taken it as a bible. But Nietzsche himself did not design it for such a purpose. Übermensch is something completely different than that.
Maybe it was Hitler's misinterpretation or inspiration or whatever. Other than that, Hitler was a retard anyway. The only thing he was smart at was fooling masses.

[wheelchairman]

No one read my stuff you fags.

What is an Ubermenschen?

"It would be interesting (and educative) to note how Nietzsche, the advocate of the "Over-man") (Ubermensch), who some, incorrectly call the "super-man") was a sickly, myopic, dyspeptic (possibly syphilitic), very lonely man who had huge issues with his relations with women (and men) (note his relation with Lou Salome, and his love for Cosima Wagner), and a turmoiled filled relation with his sister, mother, and aunts, and that while advocating such grand inspiring, poetic vistas, was a kind, gentle, careful scholar, beginning as a philologist, and what today some would call an over-sensitive male."
Yes but Nietzche never claimed he was the Super-man. In fact he mentioned several times that he was no 'Zarathustra.'

[Frozen flames]

No one read my stuff you fags.

What is an Ubermenschen?

"It would be interesting (and educative) to note how Nietzsche, the advocate of the "Over-man") (Ubermensch), who some, incorrectly call the "super-man") was a sickly, myopic, dyspeptic (possibly syphilitic), very lonely man who had huge issues with his relations with women (and men) (note his relation with Lou Salome, and his love for Cosima Wagner), and a turmoiled filled relation with his sister, mother, and aunts, and that while advocating such grand inspiring, poetic vistas, was a kind, gentle, careful scholar, beginning as a philologist, and what today some would call an over-sensitive male."

that doesn`t make his philosophy any less interesting, valuable or insignificant.
he was ahead of his time, it`s like he claimed that the world is a ball not a flat, when people still believed in the flat world. haha, stupid metaphor, but anyway.

[HornyPope]

Not saying he did. Just the concept of a strong, superior people from a mouth of a sickly, feeble nobody is one derisive contradiction.

[wheelchairman]

Not saying he did. Just the concept of a strong, superior people from a mouth of a sickly, feeble nobody is one derisive contradiction.
Sickly feeble nobodies often end up making huge changes, it could be argued. Lenin for example.

Although you could often trump up Nietzche's achievements, becoming a professor without ever graduating from University, based solely on his talent as a philologist. etc. etc.

[Frozen flames]

That's debatable. They might have taken it as a bible. But Nietzsche himself did not design it for such a purpose. Übermensch is something completely different than that.
Maybe it was Hitler's misinterpretation or inspiration or whatever. Other than that, Hitler was a retard anyway. The only thing he was smart at was fooling masses.

yep.. that`s pretty much how he said it too. it`s not like nietzsche would have created it for that, no way. according to what I´ve read he was a very empathetic person, not someone who would want to kill masses and make the world suffer. people who read philosophy superficially get wrong impressions on him. he wrote that all the beggars should be killed since it`s uncomfortable to give them and uncomfortable to not give them, but as far as I`m concerned he never meant that beggars should really be killed, it`s just philosophy. I think it only means that it`s immoral to beg.

[HornyPope]

Sickly feeble nobodies often end up making huge changes, it could be argued. Lenin for example.

Yes this is further proof that the stupid masses seek not the top, best man to champion their cause.

[wheelchairman]

Yes this is further proof that the stupid masses seek not the top, best man to champion their cause.
Didn't you go under the pseudonym of Caligula for a while?

[HornyPope]

I have. Don't see the connection.