/lit/ - Literature

What if god hates us and wants us to suffer? What should we do in response to that? Is there anything we can do?

There is no objective meaning, only subjective meaning. Nihilists can't handle this fact, that life has no objective meaning or value, so they cease to have direction, existentialists accept this fact, that there is no objective meaning, and in the absence of religion, the existentialist create his own meaning, and his gives his life a direction that he determines.

Religion is the illusion of purpose, determined by dogma, conformity, cowardice and stupidity. Existentialism, and willingly bearing the cross, is to actually give life purpose, if anything is real that is, and it requires will, conviction and the acceptance of suffering. Not to run and turn away from it, but to actively seek it and love it.

would like to continue a discussion about whether or not, deep down, Nietzsche remained a Christian (started in a reply in another recent thread). A brief account of some of his main interpreters, as well as some quotes by Nietzsche himself:

Consider these words from Jung from his seminar on Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
> That an atheist is particularly concerned with God is not understood with us because we are still unspeakably barbarous in that respect, but the East is a bit more differentiated in such matters. Thev have the saying that a man who loves God needs seven rebirths in order to be redeemed or to reach l\irvana, but a man who hates God needs only three. And why? Because a man who hates God will think of him much oftener than a man" ho loves God. So the atheist hates God, but he is in a way a better Christian than the man who loves him; Nietzsche is a better Christian and far more moral than the Christians before and after him. You see that explains a great deal of Zarathustra, which is a highly moral book. If anybody should try to live that teaching, he would have astonishing experiences. He would certainly feel himself to be a better Christian than all those before him.

and

> The Christian symbol of Christ carrying the cross means that he carries his own body, his own corpse. We have here a sort of Christian symbolism, therefore. Zarathustra carries his own humanity, his human body, Nietzsche, as the rope-dancer who has been killed, a kind of paraphrase of the Christian sacrifice. As I have said before, Nietzsche was in a secret way more Christian than anyone would expect.

Was Nietzsche a closeted Christian?

Doesn't it follow from Nietzsche's concern with "evil" that Nietzsche is complicit with the anti-life axioms of Christianity he simultaneously despises? He remains in search for a "redemption" of some kind.

What would Nietzsche react if he saw the Gospel of Thomas?
Is his prediction of Jesus wrong if the gospel is real?

Is there anything in Nietzsche's philosophy you disagree with or criticize?