@ 54 Philosophy 101

Nietzsche at Leipzig read Schopenhauer. He had come to distain the beer drinking, cigar/pipe smoking collegiate crowd arguing the popular philosophies of the day. In the same breath he denounced acetics as satiated and cowards. Twain in his last years painted a picture of Yahweh as an extremely violent, unjust, and unsavory character. Punishing children for the offenses of the parents, and the populace for the offenses of the rulers. Schopenhauer said that the 'will to live" was a pre-eminent motivation for the existence of man and his emotions, and that the perpetuation of 'living' ie. procreating and eating and wearing clothing moved him from cave man to civilization.
Nietzsche was eschewing the mood altering crowd for the benifit of clairity. He said that anyone who altered their consciousness with the drug alcohol couldn't understand his philosophy. He championed Schopenhauer and then villified him. Some of the most poignant times in my life have come from reading the passages of men who were not believers in a particular god, and yet saw truth and beauty. I also have had poignant moments reading passages from the Christian Bible and realizing that if certain premises worked joy followed. Schopenhauer said there is more pain in this life than there is joy. Nietzsche agreed. I think my personal pain just comes from making bad decisions and then having to live with them. Like Schopenhauers man, I will...like Nietzsche's Ubermensch I adjust.
I have listened to Christian apologists rant on the questions regarding death destruction and misery in the world. How it is 'original sins' result. We have had Christ on earth. We supposedly have Christ in heaven. The apologists will tell me that Sudan is the result of Original Sin, and the lack of mans reliance on God to stop that suffering and rape and murder.
I believe we are seeing the future. For no kind loving god let even that kind of behavior go on long in olden times. Here and there you find in the writings, "He heard the cries of his people..." and he answered them with deliverance. Haiti, Africa, etc.... All wealths of sorrow and death, misery, and destruction. We presently have a government headed by a religious leader. He claims Christianity to guide him. He says he has his ear attuned to Gods speaking. His focus seems to be the destruction of Islam. He says that its the liberation of a nation of people. However anyone with even an Idiots ability sees that all Islamic countries are meeting him on this battlefield that they openly claim is a religious war.
Schopenhauer said that the 'will' not only drove early man to plant seeds, hunt for animals, and learn to communicate, and 'reason' but it led him to 'remember' and he was also affected by 'jealousy' rage, murder, and hatred, as well as fondness, recognition of cause and effect, and sentimentality.
Anyone can blame the good and the bad on a god. Since all the dieties are invisible and silent to the masses, he/she/it will not protest the grievances. It is equally easy to blame man for not attuning his ear to the will of god and changing outcomes of disaster and hatreds. Again the gods are silent and not appearing. To have a nation, prosperous, and thriving, and say it is because of God's blessings that it is so, and to attempt to subjugate the religious culture of nations that posess the raw materials for the propogation of that prosperity is hypocracy at its zenith.
Like the young Nietzsche I am learning to allow myself to dispel the myths. Like the aging and bitter Twain, I see that pain follows pain. Ken Burns in his biography of Twain says he believed that Twain believed in the Christian god, but was disappointed and disenfranchised by what he saw ane read and how he (yaweh) operated.
If I am going to defend this god I have to say like Twain that when you come to where you are you want to look back, go back to that beginning and revist so to see how and why you are where you are. To make some sense of it. Twain said "its not that the world is filled with fools. Its just that the lightening is not properly distributed."
Bowe