"All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again..."

I am so sad because the Finale is tonight. This has made me more so.

WHY?... Why did it make you [more] sad? - what about it? I mean: I (!) have a cause to feel sad; for that it turned out just the way I feared for... - feared for the worst! With angels! - god(s)! - meaning and plan, and all that "above". "God" is never the answer: it's the worst enemy of every answer. The real answer is never "that it is!" - despite Physics, Psychology, Evolution: the real answer is the question. It's all about the question! Or, how Socrates put it: "I know, that know"... - but i guess, I'm losing, you, am I not? God is not the answer: it's a stopgap, a makeshift, a phantasm, a apologia for "our" deeply flawed picture of the whole, "our" bad arguments, and a killer argument of it's own and a reckless banging one's fist on the table. There is no god. - there never was! And "meaning" is just a bad, horribly crude, poorly put question... "...I conjure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not." - thus spoke zarathustra! (-> Prologue, 3.) ... you know: it was so rich, so mature, so wise, when they still preyed "all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." - their whole religion was! Like religion has been before Christianity: when Gods where the symbols of the struggles and victories of ones people - and a hierarchy represented within. And there was still tolerance to be met, in these matters (before an odd, world-detached jew came along, and spread that ignorant, unholy, nefarious phrase, that there was only ONE god. I mean: don't u know, who invented that fatuity? - slaves, who tried to neglect (or deny!) the gods of their oppressors (one the one hand the Jews (who manipulated their whole mythology for this unspeakable fraud), on the other hand the Babylonians), counteracting the natural course of things; so they crossed out all good assets out of the picture of the gods of their masters - and all the bad ones of their own; stripped them! - castrated them! (read Nietzsche! - start with: "On the Genealogy of Morals" for instance... or outright "The Antichrist"!)... and put one above the other, in such an excessive, boundless manner, that there was only one "real" god left, and even the devil was just mere hand of god (just consult wikipedia about the etymology of "satan"), the one and only. Just think about it: if one says, "there's only one god!", he most and for all states, that YOUR god, MUST be false; at least if - you picture "him" differently. But then also think of, where this "believe" was most of all positioned and fought out: in ancient Rome. Against the best believes! ... what a crude turning point in history... "And all the gods then laughed, and shook upon their thrones, and exclaimed: 'Is it not just divinity that there are gods, but no God?'"... could one blame the Romans, for pursuing early Christians? - never before was there such a ignorant, intolerant people and folk! - driven by resentment and nothing but! If earth does not suit their pretentious little wills, so the whole canopy of believes, reverence and divinity shall be thrown down and distorted. and all history with it... but I get carried away, don't I?...). It was a way higher state of cult and believe. Way more manifold and rich, as well as reasonable, down-to-earth, posticivistic, so to say... And now? - all come to an end... a sad end... a TRAGEDY would have been so much more... - much more! A real hero dies at the end of act 5... and ancient Greeks would have cheered about the tragedy, embraced the rough truth, life-affirming, truth-embracing as they were... "all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again", without end, without "meaning", just uncoated being, doing, fighting: in victory and failure... "All of earthly bliss, Friends, it's war bestows! Yes, for friends' enlist Requires the rifle-smoke! Friends but one in three: Brothers 'fore distress, Peers 'fore enemies, Freedom - before Death!" ("Heraklitismus" ("Heraclitean") by Friedrich Nietzsche - again, not the best wishable translation... but I love that beautiful-mind too much, to dare to try a better one of my own...)

...and again, I got carried away - like there was nothing else, I was good for...... So, once again: What, out of what I wrote, made you sad?!?

*blink, blink*

Oh! - how could I have forgotten this distinction! - what blessedly naiveness must have enlivened my thoughts! [:]I'm not racist! - especially not anti-Semitic!All that has been said against Judaism has even more to be said against Christianity: and only because of the latter [one] did it need to be said. "The Christian, this ultima ratio of the lie, is the Jew once more - even three times more ..." (The Antichrist, 44.)Compare both of those "schools" of thought (and take a third one on board: Zoroastrianism) with Buddhism - and you have children against wise old "men", Barbarianism against Culture! (and, to make that clear: humanism and all "modern" (western) ways of thought ((and)even communism - ah! - don't get me started!), are to be considered as being just quite naive offspring of Christianity ... pseudo-secular Morals!) Sad enough, to life in a world, where the urge for making such a starkly -even dull!- clarification, is thinkable, not to say: [seems] necessary...

i have to correct at least one of my mistakes: "[...] Or, how Socrates put it: 'I know, that I know nothing' [...]" - sorry for the innumerable more there are... if the quote itself is not correct, I have to beg your pardon: I only translated it from how I know it in my own [german - ] language...

I am Jewish and your way of thinking is as deep as my pool with the dolphin at the bottom. I mean what do you really live for? For the moment? your life has no meaning to it. your life is some mistake that in 70 years will be rat food and thats the end of it. As much as you like to belive god is just something made up by people ( it might seem that way because there are so many versions of him floating around) before you make assumptions and stick to them you should read up from diffrent places what god means and why people belive in him. I bet you have never read anything about god , all you have done made your decision based of of bunch of things you have heard and assumed. Its like someone ridiculing Shakespeare when has never read his work! your right about what socrates said, 'I know that I know nothing'. And how smart do you really think you are that you decide from what you have seen that if god exists or not. lets say theoreticly god existed you would agree that he would be immesurably smarter than you, so at what point do you go on to say you understand what is going on and how god runs things. you lack of understanding is similar to a calculator trying to process what a computer does . obviously you wont understand it and will go on to dismiss it as false. you really do know nothing compared to what god knows. I think you take yourself as an open-minded person but the truth is you are the farthest thing from it , you make your decision off of the very limited or any usable knowledge you have. and god isnt the worst answer it IS the answer and the ONLY one. im sorry i cant have this dicussion over a blog or somthing but its something to think about and remember to go on to read some books about god (preferably jewish orthodox but im not going to tell you what to read) its your choice and remember if you do decide to read you might have questions, give it time, try to remember the calculator example there are some thing that are too big for you to understand, realize that!

I'm just glad I won't have to watch this ending again. I can dream my own one, thanks.

Man I wish I had this much time. Do you work Joker19? I just wish there was something useful or productive we could give you for your efforts. For instance, a thesis usually gets graded, but a post like this on SideReel -- not likely. Perhaps you are are rewarded by the sheer fact that you took the time to logically explain your arguments to the rest of us. How about a thank you :). I'm a huge fan of pontificators. I'm honored tho that the single statement I made launced you on a tyrade! no matter what you type, i will still be sad the BSG is gone. oh well.

You know, Jahwa: I believe in Discussions... - or at least once I did, and now I just try to hold on to that childish optimism. I'd LIKE to believe, that freedom of speech, bringing in everyone's opinion, and arguing about it, leads us somewhere, -reveals a greater perspective and even truth... - but you are certainly the best argument against this naive hope. Cause: what do we need first and for all, when we try to make that chance come true? - it's being objective, arguing fact-based, leaving out all the subjective and especially emotional stuff. You certainly are not fit for doing so. Something of what I said must have hurt your tiny little soul -oh!- to "deep". And know, you try to assault me... - insult me... and reject all of what I am and what I said, all together. Who are you, to judge, who I am, how deep I am, and what I know, experienced, learned in my life? You don't know frak about me! - but, there u are, making a big pose, and dispose me lofty! - what a poor, pathetic, little child! To return the question: what is YOUR meaning? - the meaning of YOUR life? - more than a tensely hold error? - a nice hope? - some rose-coloured glasses? - and a neurosis of "meaning" all together? What is meaning, if you "mean" wrong? What can you be shure of, when you hold on to it, just because you don't like the idea, that it might all turn out to be way different, from what you dream? Ha! - "Religion is expression/indication of childish illusion[s] and collective obsessive-compulsive disorder" (S.Freud) see: I don't believe anything - no matter how rigorous I stated my non-believe. I'm skeptic! - I'm agnostic!... but i do try at least to believe in the foundation of criticism and argument, and the only fact-source there might be: history! - 'cause: what does "fact" mean in the first place? - it derived from "factum" (lat.), which itself is the past participle of "facere" (lat.) - which means "(to) do" or "(to) make". What has been done, exists! - is fact! And what does godly history tell us, if we "listen" to it? - it tells us, that everything was made, came together, evolved (the blasphemous word is out: evolution!), derived. And that's the truth and nothing but. What is more realistic: that the faith as it is believed, came from a "higher" truth, like the believers themselves [want to] believe, some epiphany? - or that it all developed, and can be traced back to, through etymology, philology, history, psychology - or another one of the innumerable sciences there are? And if it stands epiphany against a scientific explanation - which "choice" would be more plausible, reasonable, realistic? - have you ever heard of "Ockhams razor"?!? What the hell do you know about what I read?! - you don't even seem to read, what I wrote myself: otherwise you should have stumbled across the name of "Friedrich Nietzsche" - and than you would have known, that I read at least THIS author on that matter. - at least, if you'd know, in your great great wisdom, WHAT that unique philosopher wrote and thought... "all you have done made your decision based of of bunch of things you have heard and assumed"? - projection! "you make assumptions and stick to them"? - nonsense! - I'm open for everything, and I always side with the weaker cause in a discussion, if I feel the necessity. Cast in between a bunch of bullhead atheists, I'd even advocate God... "Its like someone ridiculing Shakespeare when has never read his work!" - really? - ain't that a little far fetched? - lets put your declamatory picture a little different: "it's like someone declining Hitler, when he has never read 'Mein Kampf' or felt part of his movement"... in the end, religion is just propaganda, as could maybe be seen a little easier, if you'd step away from your bias, and included "ideology" in the greater concept of "religion", like Fashism was a ideology... it could as well be called a religion! - and it WAS a religion, if you'd have a look at the Nationalsozialismus (the movement in germany was quite different from the one in italy for instance. The NS (NationalSozialismus -> Nat.S[...]i. -> Nazi) was a thing of it's own) in particular: people believed in "the movement", and the "messiah" (Adolf). - so: from your point of view (or at least your inconsiderate argument) people would not be allowed an opinion about that matter, if they did not read the proper propaganda, and -ultimately- if they didn't try out to dip into the movement themselves... Another thing: you didn't "once" really take something I said, to concentrate it into some critique: except with the socrates-quote, and there u were just faking it: I never got from that quote to the atheistic argument I gave [later(?)] - it merely made some point more clear, at which my course of thoughts was at that particular moment... - jackass! "lets say theoreticly god existed you would agree that he would be immesurably smarter than you" - and especially you! - and that's the problem: all those "you can't comprehend such a bigger mind than your own"-arguments come back to their addresser: who are they to imagine something, that blows their minds? - it nothing but this: ridiculous! - absurd!... just articulate this dumb sentence once for yourself: "I can imagine something, that's to big to imagine" - it's like an epiphany given by too much smoking weed... And your calculater-computer throw-off is just the same; and who are you, little fraud of a slide-rule, to abate my abilities? - all the time, you do nothing but scaling ME down, instead of bringing forward real arguments (which is kind of mean, to say the least. Even more uncivilized! - crude! - ignorant!)... I'm just too stupid to comprehend your great ununderstandable (unbelievable!) god, as glorious as your delirious -, sad excuse for a mind pictures it, that's all you state, altogether... and that's just weak, pathetic, i g n o r a n t ! "you lack of understanding"? - it's you who lacks a whole lot of understanding! - and you project it, to compensate, and you project it, to argue... I might not be smart enough to smart out something smarter than me, a bigger mind than my own one - that's given! - but who are you, to bring atop your ridiculous believes in the slipstream of this mere hypothesis? - and, by the way: "immessurably" is just an excessiveness, like it can only come from a pretentious, excessive little mind. It's a symptom for everyone to see, everyone who has eyes to see it: "that is not a superior, mind speaking! - not to speak of calm or detached!"and, to prove my point, here's what you said just little later: "I think you take yourself as an open-minded person but the truth is you are the farthest thing from it " - the farthest, huh? - my case rests! God is never the answer (the answer is knowledge! - science! - physics!): it's, like I said, "a stopgap, a makeshift, a phantasm, a apologia" - and nothing but!... and, with the unspeakable ending of "Battlestar Galactica" -an ending, so disappointing, that I actually grow angry, the more I think about it- we have quite a showcase for that: all due respect to the work the authors have done that far - but the end is just weak, pathetic, miserable! - its weak of an author, to solve the mysteries of the plot -, to stuff the gaps in the storyline - , answer the less believable aspects, with the answer "god did it!" - or "a higher force" or "an angel" or "wonder"; that's just crap! - and many viewers seem to think the same... I'm furious! - I'm pissed!... and u little jackass: get out of my face! - and spare me of your backward ways of thinking... I'm so glad, I don't have to live with such a thoughtless, irresponsible, regressive(/reactionary) people (not that people over here are a delight on the contrary..), where idiots as you are able to open their dumb little mouth, move their careless, filthy little fingers, without shame about the nonsense they are about to utter, respectively (to) smear, again and again... "Mystic explanations. - Mystic explanations are considered deep; truth is, [that] they're not even shallow." (F.Nietzsche, "The gay science", 126.) ... so I DID give a translation [of one of the phrases of that beautiful mind] on my own, after all...

man.. this is an awesome thread!!! Nice work Joker!!

To scale down Nietzsche, for being a gifted rhetorician - wow! - that's SO new!He wasn't just a good rhetor: he was a unique psychologist, a great analyst, and a sensitive observer... he wasn't a bad logician: he was [kind of] a bad dialectician (two things that should not get mixed up!), and he didn't have much of a university-philosopher - like Hegel, or Kant were (and Nietzsche didn't have much of a "Kritizist" anyway (not to speak of Idealist!)...)... - but that's not really something to be said against him: a philosopher at the University is kind of a parody and absurd; and dialectic has its quite narrow limits... and, by the way: most of his more traditional works to philosophy never got published, or even finished... his magnum opus, "Der Wille zur Macht - Versuch ueber die Umwertung aller Werte", projected to be realized in 4 books ("Der Antichrist", "Der Immoralist", "Der Freie Geist" and "Dionysos") never got out! - his Delusion came to quick: if you really want to know about his logical abilities, you'd have to have "a" look into his posthumous fragments - otherwise, you're "probably" not allowed to give a judgement in those matters.... (and: no! - that's NOT breaking my own word, about having a say in terms of shakespeare, without having read him: the argument great Jahwa gave me just isn't the same; it was off course: 'cause we were debating about a metaphysical dilemma, while he accented just one author ("Shakespeare" in his illustration; "God" (or the many filthy fingered authors Bible and Torah had, over the centuries) in the translation into the non-pictorial (what an irony!) meaning...), and talked, if there WAS just this one author as a luminary in these matters... - while u DON't have a say in what Nietzsche said, wrote, thought and was able to, without heaving read him, having read close to all of his writings...) ... And he wasn't just "gifted"... he was a well-read, highly educated Philologist, who crossed over into philosophy, after "finishing" his scolar path... And, in the end: what kind of critique is that, to point out just one alleged weakness, and scaling down all positive qualities to supposedly just one: if that oblique consideration was to be deemed reasonable - well: who are YOU then, to have ANY saying in ANY matter? - you'd have to bring forward more than Nietzsche did, show more qualities, and less debilities (what is less than one?!?); In the end, by this absurd humiliation of that beautiful mind, you put yourself above him. Can you prove for that?... so: just shut up, you pretentious, shallow [...] <I better keep that word to myself..> What are you giving your crappy opinion anyway, if you don't "have a serious [...] interest" in here? but, most of all: why don't you point out, what is supposed to be a "very reactive and dogmatic response"? - the "I'm furious! - I'm pissed" part? - that's taken out of context, jackass, and has hardly anything to to, with what is written in the following...so - is it the proposition about the American people? - well: that was ambiguous, and [conscious] ironic - don't you have eyes, to see? I put something in brackets (- did you even read it?): "Not that people over here are a delight in the contrary"... if you take that seriously, as well as the rest of it, it just doesn't make sense: it's absurd! - it contradicts itself!... 'cause: if the people over here are not really different - what did the rest of the passage state at all?"[...] Grenzverwischung, Unsicherheit, Schwanken und Zweifel [...]. Position Montaignes: Que sais-je. was weiß ich? Position Renans: das Fragezeichen - wichtigstes aller Satzzeichen. Position des äußersten Gegensatzes zur nazistischen Sturheit und Selbstgewißheit. [...]" (V.Klemperer, LTI, 77.)[translation <- I do what I can>:] "[...] boundaries-blurring, Unsecurity, Unsteadiness and doubt [...]. Position Montaignes: Que sais-je. what do I know? Position Renans: the question mark - most important of all punktuation [marks]. Position of the outmost antagonism to nazistic stubbornness and self-assurance. [...]" - que sais-je! - that could be my slogan as well...And the "idiot" and the "jackass"? - well! - he well deserved it! He got personal - so why should I take my hat off to him?You know: the big problam, and misconception in the whole Idea of "freedom of religion" is, that it is still just a vague and rotten compromise: after religion was an Imperative and a state of it's own, there was only a slight change: so that now, multiple religions are allowed to spread their ignorant, intolerant believes, instead of just a single almighty one; "freedom of religion" should rather be "freedom FROM religion", so that oppression will finally come to an end. Who are those thugs and frauds of "Jehovah's Witnesses" and how they are all called, to knock on my door for spreading their nonsense and lack of understanding and education, and be pissed at me, when I dare to challenge their porous ideas? - how can they demand being left alone in their rose-colored "little" (ah! - if only they would be so moderate!) corner... 'cause: It IS no corner! - they demand having a say in really every single conversation, to twist every single consideration! - twist them to the worst. The most successful what they spread is not their believe: it's all of what they don't know, their lack of understanding, their irrealism, their makeshifts and pretentious ambitions... why not fight back, if one cares for the state of mind of one's People, and Man altogether?... and: Metaphysics is all around us, it's in all of our conversations, that concern more than just today's price of apples and oranges for example; so why backing down? - these issues have an impact on nearly every aspect of human life!... why not declare war on Ignorance! - 'cause: it's up to YOU, to keep your neighborhood tidy...certainly: I DID experience, what it means over there in the US, not to believe those ridiculous believes... one can way more easily break with one church and go for the custody of another one. But Atheism? - God forbid!... my best friends there were atheists... most of them couldn't tell their own parents. - and even my Physics-teacher kind of disguised his scientific credo under the recognition of some [philosopher(?)-]god... but I kind of fear, he was honest about that! Why so many words for so few to say?... those damned thoughtless, personally targeted objections are a real pain in the ass! - so few to say, but so pretentious in doing so... Why not leaving out all those pathetic little motives and emotions you scums <those who aren't,don't have to be told this> are concerned with, and -just once- try to go for an open-minded, honest debate?!? - with real arguments, logic, objectivity, facts, context and constructiveness?!? - I'd look forward to that!ah! - and some modesty, most of all!

Maybe -and I stress "maybe"- I've done you wrong with such a harsh response; maybe you really "just" didn't know what you were saying. Prejudices against Nietzsche are common, way to common. That's because of how difficult he is to read and compensate: hardly anyone could "speak" to him face to face - but everyone thinks, he should be allowed an opinion as well [as "everybody else"] (some "fruit" of freedom of speech..) - so, how do you cope with something you don't understand, but want to talk about, especially, since you might be jealous to all the others who even just might to understand the matter? - you handle it, with prejudices! - the biggest, and most prominent prejudice, which was been handled with patience and velvet cloves way, way to long, is "God"... So there are prejudices about Nietzsche - and they're so common, that there's nothing special about them, nothing to really draw a conclusion from: but bringing those prejudices IN, when somebody tries to tell you something with help of some quotes, THAT really speaks quite loudly, and is open for analysis and psycho[ana]lyzes </characterization>... and your accusing me of being "reactive and dogmatic" just the same... Still, I kind of feel sorry, for getting off course... - and maybe -and again, I stress "maybe"- I might have misjudged your statement... (oh - and some correction, I have to give: it's supposed to read "why are you giving [...]" not "what [...]" - at the end of paragraph one...- and in the last paragraph, the second "so few to say", was, of course, not about my own words anysmore, like the one before, but said against those pain-in-the-ass-scums... my articulation might not have been lucky...- and, two more corrections: in the post from >12:43 PDT, 23 March<, in the fifth-last paragraph, it's meant to be "it's nothing but this", and in the first paragraph, it should read "And now, you try to [...]", not "know"; it's a shame! (and by far not the only damn mistake I made) ... and it's annoying, that one can't correct (->edit) it, right were it stand...) "Why not leaving out all those pathetic little motives and emotions you scums <those who aren't,don't have to be told this> are concerned with, and -just once- try to go for an open-minded, honest debate?!? - with real arguments, logic, objectivity, facts, context and constructiveness?!? - I'd look forward to that! .. ah! - and some modesty, most of all!" - but that's too much work, isn't it? It's so easy to spit your anchorless "ideas", if you don't have a clue, ain't it? - and it's even much easier, not to be concerned, with what your counterpart said, wrote, thought and hinted, and what it all was about, what he wrote, and quoted... And that's the problem... that's, what I will never tolerate!Is that "reactionary"? - "dogmatic"?!? - come on! - such a judgment would be a contradiction, to say the least...

Alright let's begin with some clarification. First, the reason my comment was short was because this is Sidereel. It's a website devoted to television, and the discussion of it. Does this mean that a meaningful philosophical debate cannot emerge, well no but it certainly does make it a bit less likely. Furthermore, I wasn't confident that you would respond so the need to go into further discussion, not knowing that, seemed unwarranted.Now as for my critique of your reply to Jawa I wasn't referring to any particular element of your piece but to the tone in general. The quotes were utilized as a relevant case for my claim that you were being dogmatic, not that those quotes were the only case, or the best case. I was merely pointing out the irony of a person who claims to be open to truth wherever he/she finds it, and then responds with such apparent venom in their words. You definitively and triumphantly denounce the enemy as a fool and the enemy of reason. Methinks a few historical parallels could be drawn here, but I'll leave that to our respective readers.Now, does this mean that Jawa gave a rigorous defense of religious belief? Not necessarily, but I thought that your response was over the top considering your stated openness to ideas.Now since Nietzsche seems to be a bit of a hero of yours I apologize for being glib, but that doesn't change the fact that I think I'm essentially right in my estimation of him. The fact is that for all of his exceptional writing, accurate social analyzes, and thought provoking notions, he offered very little reason for us to accept his premises.His success in philology, and yes I was aware that he was a philologist, doesn’t mean that he is any good as a philosopher. You wouldn’t think that a good archaeologist is necessarily a good philologist would you? Sure there’s overlap and so they might have an informed opinion, maybe even a good one, but it doesn’t follow necessarily. As for the fact that it wasn’t his first discipline, as it was with Hegel and Kant, well so what? I’d happily read from an uneducated man, if he had good ideas, and would despise the writings of a man with six phd’s if his ideas were bad.Now why do I not agree with Nietzsche, and honestly relegate him to the category of vociferous social critic, at least in philosophy? Quite simply I think his ideas are poor, and are characterized by amateurish philosophy albeit with exceptional rhetorical flourish. I’ll begin with his correspondence theory of truth and how it relates to his perspectivism. Nietzsche proposed that objective truth was when an idea corresponded with the objective world. Nietzsche, no doubt influenced by his philology, realized that we as human beings never have unformed pure ideas. No matter what we do or how we do it, every word we speak, every thought we have is influenced by other sources which in turn mitigate the ability of our ideas to ever correspond to the objective world. He points out the weaknesses of universal concepts, and their failure to account for individual differences even within classes of objects.Now some might say, so far so good, but here a few objections. First, these perspectives, that we as human beings have, what are they perspectives on? If there is a common medium then it stands to reason that even if we don’t have perfect objective knowledge of the external world, and no one has ever been dumb enough to say that, why can’t we have partial knowledge? Nietzsche doesn’t account for this, nor does he even seem to try, he merely assumes that because knowledge is incomplete therefore it is no good.Now after he jettisoned objectivity, which naturally launched a metaphysical notion like God into the stratosphere, Nietzsche seeks to repair the damage with his assertions about what shapes our perspectives. The most prominent one of course is the “will to power.” The will was the primary drive of humanity and was the overarching desire to dominate and control others with the force of our ideas. He even seems to have later claimed that this was feature of all life, and not just humans, a curiously objective claim, but I digress. The will justified why we had our ideas and why we so desperately needed them, especially since without objective truths to guide us, life becomes existentially meaningless, that is no action, purpose, or intention has any more objective meaning than any other. But Nietzsche claims that we should celebrate the death of God, and why? Because now with objectivity gone and God reduced to superstition we can finally affirm our own ideas free from the bondage of the slave morality of Christianity, and any other spiritual nonsense.My single greatest annoyance with Nietzsche isn’t his lame brained relativism, but how when he finally got to the edge of the abyss of nihilism he didn’t man up and take the plunge ie commit suicide. The fact is that if life is meaningless no action is really warranted and life is a fundamentally absurd and superfluous process. Sure we can stick around and make stuff up as he proposes, but that is at best dishonest, since the fact is the abyss will eventually swallow us. The only action that might make rational sense is to kill everyone else and then kill yourself so as to keep people from continuing their delusional existence with metaphysical hopes and dreams, which Nietzsche thought was nonsense. And furthermore, dishonesty was something Nietzsche abhorred since it was dishonesty that he felt had given rise to the slave morality of the Christians, who had successfully made the masters think that their life affirming passions were actually bad.Now Nietzsche’s call for honesty is admirable, but really what has he given us to accept his premises? A weak analysis of what objective knowledge is constituted by, and then the realization of the consequences of objective truth falling by the wayside. Certainly if Nietzsche is correct about objectivity then perhaps his way is the only one which makes sense. Oh and don’t bother pointing out that he would object to that. I’m well aware of the fact that people agreeing with his viewpoint would probably have frustrated him to no end. The whole point was fierce independence culminating in the “Overman” who would go forth and create the truths of the world as he saw fit. Incidentally such a person was the only one who could affirm joy at the prospect you made mention of at the beginning of your review, namely the Myth of Eternal Recurrence. Such a person would represent a fusion of the temperaments of the gods Dionysus, and Apollo, or more generally, passion and order, or wisdom.Oh and by the way, your trite little comment about my oversimplification of Nietzsche not being new, what’s your point? Whether simple or complex, an idea is judged by its merits not whether I’m the first one to think of it. Now on with the rebuttal.

<A>(you love being unprecise/unclear, don't you? - you call that "philosophy", I guess... and you don't even get it, when I am joking, don't you? - even though it explains itself later on, like my sarcastic "that's so new!" with what I wrote at >15:56 PDT, 25 March<... - but: first things first!) "First, the reason my comment was short because [...] I wasn't confident that you would respond so the need to go into further discussion, not knowing that, seemed unwarranted." - hah?! - so I didn't give quite a speech until then? - go figure! "I wasn't referring to any particular element of your piece but to the tone in general. [...] not that those quotes were the only case, or the best case." - vague, very vague. But still swaggering! ... bring forward your "facts", or shut your [...] "Methinks a few historical parallels could be drawn here, but I'll leave that to our respective readers." - see above! - malicious blatherskite! "Now, does this mean that Jawa gave a rigorous defense of religious belief? Not necessarily, but I thought that your response was over the top considering your stated openness to ideas." - openness to ideas is one thing - allow a wrong opinion or even argument to stand is something quite different (especially if it's not just a opinion, but an argument, however vague and sloppy it might have been stated!); he/she didn't just threw in ideas: you must be either blind, or ignorant, not to see that; but it certainly suits your point, to neglect that... by the way: could you please tell me were I supposedly stated (!) my "openness to ideas"? - 'cause: I cannot recall to have said that. It's way to - naive... "[...]the fact that I think I'm essentially right in my estimation of him" - essentially? - go figure! ... so sloppiness is now legitimate? - what a blow to criticism and a scientific approach!... and you still hold on your shallow viewpoint! - and try to make it a strong point, with picking "strong" words for it; - no sign of modesty or self-criticism.. "The fact is that for all of his exceptional writing, accurate social analyzes, and thought provoking notions, he offered very little reason for us to accept his premises." - "fact"? - like you just wanted to prove my point; you must be really foreseeing!... but, all jokes aside: "Reasoning" (dialectics!) might not be what he wanted; especially not always. Writers who always and only go for proving their ideas [right away], are quite poor, to say the least; wanting to prove one's thought all the time speaks loudly of a lack of trust in one's own ideas/thoughts[, and your abilities to articulate most of all]; and the less self-confident usually shout the loudest! But even more: Nietzsche himself once stated (and you should bring some irony in, for he is quite often very Ironic himself; do you have humor, to bring in?): "What does it matter if I remain right! I am much too right. - And he who laughs best today will also laugh last." (Twilight of Idols, "Maxims and Arrows", 43.); but, like most times, the same author gives us quite a different view on the same matter, when he gives a "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" in preface to "Birth of Tragedy" (written quite some time AFTER the book got published!): "<3.> To say it once more: today I find it an impossible book: I consider it badly written, ponderous, embarrassing, image-mad and image-confused, sentimental, in places saccharine to the point of effeminacy, uneven in tempo, without the will to logical cleanliness, very convinced and therefore disdainful of proof, mistrustful even of the propriety of proof, a book for initiates, 'music' for those dedicated to music, those who are closely related to begin with on the basis of common and rare aesthetic experiences, 'music' meant as a sign of recognition for close relatives in artibus -an arrogant and rhapsodic book that ought to exclude right from the beginning the profanum vulgus of 'the educated' even more than 'the mass' or 'folk.'..." Why holding on to a author, that says about his own work, that it was "[..] without the will to logical cleanliness, very convinced and therefore disdainful of proof, mistrustful even of the propriety of proof [...]"? - counter question: what do proofs proof? - what can you learn from a book that want's to prove itself to the reader, by that disproving the believes of the reader, all the time? - isn't a thought way more fertile, given in a much more fertile manner, if it renounces proofing all that it want's to say? - ain't that more decent? - and even self-controlled? Isn't it mean, to be eager to prove oneself, especially right away? What is the name for the non-stop drive for proof? - Dialectic! "With Socrates, Greek taste changes in favor of dialectics: what really happened there? Above all, a noble taste is thus vanquished; with dialectics the plebs come to the top. Before Socrates, dialectic manners were repudiated in good society: they were considered bad manners, they were compromising. The young were warned against them. Furthermore, all such presentations of one's reasons were distrusted. Honnette things, like honnette men, do not carry their reasons in their hands like that. It is indecent to show all five fingers. What must first be proved is worth little. Wherever authority still forms part of good bearing, where one does not give reasons but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: one laughs at him, one does not take him seriously.- Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what really happened there? - One chooses dialectic only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to erase than a dialectical effect: the experience of every meeting at which there are speeches proves this. It can only be self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons. One must have to enforce one's right: until one reaches that point, one makes no use of it. The Jews were dialecticians for that reason; Reynard the Fox was one: what? and Socrates was as well? - [...] - As a dialectician, one holds a merciless tool in one's hand; one can become a tyrant by means of it; one compromises those one conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he makes one furious and helpless at the same time. The dialectician renders the intellect of his opponent powerless. Indeed? Is dialectic only a form of revenge in Socrates?" (from: "The Problem of Socrates", 5.-7.) "doesn't mean that he is any good as a philosopher" - no, it doesn't [and I never said something like that (- so where is the context of this statement?!?)]! - but it does mean, that there's more about him, than being just a good rhetorician, you fraud! "You wouldn't think that a good archaeologist is necessarily a good philologist would you?" - once again: I did not make the attempt, to prove his Philosophical ways from that little point I made, jackass; not at all! ... is that your technique? - putting my words into a light that you wish, by all means, and disproving me from that twisted interpretation? Can't you do better than that? "...but it doesn't follow necessarily" (urges the question, how good YOUR thinking is - after just getting off course for nothing... - you don't prove anything by saying "this doesn't prove anything" - so where's your point?! - do you even have one, despite making it the most unclear the debate can get, so that from that field of battle, your chances are bettered?) "I'd happily read from an uneducated man, if he had good ideas, and would despise the writings of a man with six ph’s if his ideas were bad." - once again: where are you going?... quite off course, to say the least! - "ideas" aren't worth anything [to one], except that one believes in them: and bringing forward the phrase "idea" overall, points out, that on is quite a idealist himself... 'cause, if one has real knowledge and experience, where </in which position/slot> the childish Idealist has his "ideas", stops believing in ideas, gets more careful about the words and concepts he uses all together, and puts more weight to the real abilities an author has, and the real facts and techniques(/methods) which there are, to find truth. Let's call that maturity of intellect "realism", - or positivism. - Although those words are already stuck to a certain meaning and circle of "thinkers", that I'm the farthest from supporting... "amateurish philosophy" - said about someone that literate, a philologist? - quite -what's the word for it?- "brave"? Ah! - there must be an euphemism for everything!... either stick to your -what you call:- "ideas" - [and] don't get started on how serious his philosophical abilities are/were... or: be more precisely - so that I don't have to GUESS, what vague and wrong idea you have of what a philosopher can do, should be able to do, and what Nietzsche really is all about (by the way: did you ever read at least one of his books?!?)) "...correspondence theory of truth..."?!? - I guess, you didn't! ... you didn't read him by yourself, but are just one of that unskilled, lazy [...], who get their "legitimation" (let's declare today the day of euphemisms!) to judge and talk about a theme, by reading that crappy, uninspired litter of "secondary literature"... - otherwise you could give the passage along with the claim that "Nietzsche proposed that objective truth was when an idea corresponded with the objective world" - couldn't you? <(it's even MORE appropriate than just that, due to that I am German, and it would make it easier for me, if you wouldn't "philosophize" (day of euphemisms it is!) and float around, but give that background! - and I could even clear out misunderstandings, for that I, other than you, can read real Nietzsche, not those mere -more or less fortunate- translations)>... and: giving the context of your judgments, is the first and probably most important step towards an open, honest, objective and fertile debate... "Nietzsche, no doubt influenced by his philology, realized that we as human beings never have unformed pure ideas." - "realized"?!?... well... that sounds as you are a real know-it-all, who can say, what is true, and what isn't, even if you'd have to look into another one's head, for doing so... You don't have any distance to your opinions... that's poor! "he merely assumes that because knowledge is incomplete therefore it is no good". - again: where do you take that from? - give the context, or shut up! ... if you can't bring anything forward, any facts(!), you probably don't have any! - and if you don't have the motivation for living up to a full and real understanding of Nietzsche, you "Probably" should not demand having a say in the matter at all. Pretentious fools are just wretched! Let's take you with your first "real" argument a little more serious: "why can't we have partial knowledge?" - well: partial Knowledge would mean relative knowledge, would mean relativity: and there we are again, stuck with relativism and perspective... - Nietzsche didn't really say anything else... But you don't get that, do you? It's always important [to know] where he said what: 'cause, in general, he said quite a lot, and nearly everything: and for most of his statements, there are probably others to be found, that "contradict" them. That doesn't mean, he's a bad logician (is that what you meant, when you said so?): he's a free thinker, and every thought gains a momentum of its own; he even could be considered selfless from that point of view: the thought is always more important [than oneself], and deserves a life of its own! - that's why, you ALWAYS HAVE to give the context of your judgments about him... you have to see, where it belongs, and be prepared, that your counterpart throws another quote at you, saying quite the opposite! 'Cause there is "ein Element tiefster Ironie," about him, "woran das Verständnis des schlichteren Lesers scheitern muss. Was er bietet, ist nicht nur Kunst, - eine Kunst ist es auch, ihn zu lesen, und keinerlei Plumpheit und Geradheit ist zulaessig, jederlei Verschlagenheit Ironie, Reserve erforderlich bei seiner Lektuere. Wer Nietzsche >eigentlich< nimmt, woertlich nimmt, wer ihm glaubt, ist verloren."* (Thomas Mann) - and that's why crude readers/interpreters have to fail when faced with him, no matter if they vote in favor of him, or neglect him. <Translation: see bottom>. "Now after he jettisoned objectivity, which naturally launched a metaphysical notion like God into the stratosphere, Nietzsche seeks to repair the damage with his assertions about what shapes our perspectives. The most prominent one of course is the "will to power." The will was the primary drive of humanity and was the overarching desire to dominate and control others with the force of our ideas. He even seems to have later claimed that this was feature of all life, and not just humans, a curiously objective claim, but I digress" - again, you're just floating, without certain ground; aren't you interested at all in some worthwhile debate?... - by the way: it's hilarious! - "with the force of our ideas"? - you must be a real comedian incognito :D ) ... <*yawn* ... I already wasted way too much time on your abstruse explanations...> "My single greatest annoyance with Nietzsche is [<let's scip the crap, and pretend, that that nonsense did not happen>...] but how when he finally got to the edge of the abyss of nihilism he didn't man up and take the plunge ie commit suicide" - he did man up, and tried to find a real answer to the problem - the unfinished opus "Der Wille zur Macht - Versuch ueber die Umwertung aller Werte" was meant to be it. But it didn't get finished... his delusion came quicker. - what a coincidence, ain't it? ... maybe it ain't! "life is a fundamentally absurd and superfluous process" - just life as we know it! - the inflated concept of life, we've crown too much accustomed too: "Good men never speak the truth. False coasts and assurances the good have taught you; in the lies of the good you were hatched and huddled. Everything has been made fraudulent and has been twisted through and through by the good." (Ecce Homo, "Why I am a Destiny", 4. / "Thus spoke Zarathustra", III, "On old and new tablets", 28.) - you should probably consult "On The Genealogy of Morals", 3rd Essay - but is it even translated into English? - At "the Nietzsche channel" there's nothing to be found... "the abyss will eventually swallow us" - why so? ... what Abyss?... the Abyss of insight in how things really are? - the epiphany of the truth? - is that supposed to be an argument against him? - you must be kidding!.... but wait, there's still your dull rhyme and conclusion to that: "The only action that might make rational sense is to kill everyone else and then kill yourself so as to keep people from continuing their delusional existence with metaphysical hopes and dreams" - that's just crap! WHY should you kill everyone else? - that would still mean "meaning"!!! - still holding on to [the idea of] "meaning"! ... here, if nowhere else (*lol*), you really reveal yourself as a small mind! Your conclusion is just absurd, as it is to be expected, from a mind, unable to cope with what his pretentious little will tells him to cope with: you want more, than you can manage! - Your dreams afar exceed your abilities! ... and, by the way: it's not (it's never!-) the question, if "it" is worth it; it's only the question of "one" is worthy: "[...] Instead of saying naively, 'I am no longer worth anything,' the moral lie in the mouth of the decadent says, 'Nothing is worth anything-life is not worth anything' ... Such a judgment always remains very dangerous, it is contagious: throughout the morbid soil of society it soon proliferates into a tropical vegetation of concepts - now as a religion (Christianity), now as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism). Sometimes the poisonous vegetation which has grown out of such decomposition poisons life itself for millennia with its fumes ..." (Skirmishes of an Untimely Man, 35.) ... Life is not nothing without "meaning": it was [and is] chrstian-moral that stated, that nothing was worth anything, without super-earthly elements, without Christian Hope and Christian Ideals, and all that is "beyond" <((by the way: the "metaphysic-desire" as some philosophers claimed as to be a basic human need, also just derived from THAT... its pseudo-secular Christian Moral and Christian Idealism! - So nothing can be assumed from such a "need"))>; and we all are just too much used to those hopes and dreams! And all our language[s] are inflated and poisoned with that surreal perspective! (again I"d like to refer to "On the Genealogy of Morals", III, - for a better access to this dilemma... - it's -by the way- quite sad, that the book which was composed at the peak of his mental development (at least that's what Giorgio Colli states), is the only (?) one that does seem unavailable in English... but then again it's kind of reasonable: there again, he gives a lot of etymology; for the same cause, the last part of "untimely meditations I" did not get to be translated. There's to much linguistic stuff and play with words about it... but how about reading him in German? - and how about getting into poetic exercises? - and studying Indo-european languages?... oh well!...) "sure we can stick around and make stuff up as he proposes, but that is at best dishonest" - who said, that "we" were the ones, to make that up? - that's only up, "to the happy few" (Stendhal), the gifted ones, as to be found in philosophers and conquerors! ... and then, it's not dishonesty: it's justified by power and ability itself; while the lies, Christian and Jewish slaves designed, were just a big fraud, and some big peace of Anarchy, poison at best[, born out of the most low and mean of all human feelings and motives: ressentiment]! - bringing down the perhaps best system there ever was (now, THAT's some peace of Nietzsche! - as to be found in "The Antichrist"): Rome! And then again - nothing but pretences: "A weak analysis of what objective knowledge is constituted by" - again, you just don't admit the least, what he accomplished, and what his skills were... - that's just pathetic! - and dishonest, to say the least! ... let's skip the rest of that crap... At the end, you really got me stunned: suddenly there was some slight (!) comprehension of something like (!) Nietzsche said: but it contradicts all that you have said so far. How come? - did I get you wrong? - SO wrong?... or was that just a mere attempt to say: "no! - if my arguments don't apply, it's just your lack of understanding!"... 'cause: in the end, it stands as it is - what means: without connection to one another! "Oh and don't bother pointing out" is just a cheap shot the inevitable critique that is about to come, HAS to come. You'd like to neglect what he really said: that was all your campaign was about! - so you feign the comprehension, feign, that thou your critiques don't correspond with what Nietzsche said, they still do, and that contradiction is just a misjudgment... man, you really got me pissed, you Wannabe! - Tartuffe! *) "...[there's a] element of deepest irony [about him], at which the comprehension of the more baldly reader has to fail. What he offers is not only art, - its also an art <of its own> to read him, and no plumpness is admissible, every kind of trickiness, irony, reserve [is] necessary for his reading. Who takes Nietzsche >actual<, literal, who believes him, is lost."

<B>To bring forward quotes, might be some kind of dishonesty of it's own - and some sense that, some made that bad experience, and are now suspicious, whenever a quote is uttered [[especially] within a debate]. But that well entitled experience still unbosoms itself of being very one sided, when we look at things as I argued it back and forth... Bringing forward quotes is the first step in the scientific approach: one has to name the origin/resource for one's Claim, the rudiment at which it's attached - otherwise you're just maundering! But that was the plan, wasn't it? ... to make a big gesture, and by that blind the less bright of the audience, maybe even myself; the mimicry of "philosophy" therefore comes really handy: but the name for such wannabe- and masquerader-philosophers -of course- is not "philosopher" - it's Philosophaster! To do as-if, to fake it - , like a literate fraud! - like a ordinary fraud, with a little unordinary -pseudo well-educated- plot! So - what's the intent? It's to deflect from facts, and the matter of the Debate, deflect from the thoughts as they stand there, to a plain, where the arguments of one's counterpart can more easily be bypassed! - otherwise one would hold one to what's already been said (and there's enough of that, enough material for that!), and take THAT for a critique... but if you are not capable of such an honest approach, or you figure, you don't stand a chance against the arguments of your counterpart, you have to find other, more indirect, crooked approaches... so that -for example- you aim at the person, instead of the statement, at the author, instead of the quote and thought itself; and most of all: get off course! - depart from what the thread was all about! - make it all more unspecific, unclear, dirty... You can't disprove a concept, by just disproving one articulation (/definition) of that concept (to throw the believers a bone: you cannot disprove the concept (/"idea") of God (/the divine) overall by a mere falsification of just one theory/argument/"proof" of "god"... (But the problem rather is, that you cannot prove God, as you cannot prove something "larger-than-life" (and [larger-than]-world! And -being!) with means non-larger-than-life (which are the only one at hand, for humans as you and me)... and without prove, without falsifiability/verifiability, one cannot attend in a rational dispute (/discourse), cannot bring forward such a surreal (what, in terms of rationalism, means so much as: absurd!) argument"idea")) - and with Nietzsche, it's even more difficult, due to, that often he doesn't say what he "really means" (or even says directly, what he doesn't - and secretly wants the reader to object), but rather floats with the stream of thought, and gives every Aphorism it's own life; each aphorism (!) is kind of an essay in itself; "Love as a device.- Whoever wants really to get to know something new (be it a person, an event, or a book) does well to take up this new thing with all possible love, to avert his eye quickly from, even to forget, everything about it that he finds inimical, objectionable, or false. So, for example, we give the author of a book the greatest possible head start, and, as if at a race, virtually yearn with a pounding heart for him to reach his goal. By doing this, we penetrate into the heart of the new thing, into its motive center: and this is what it means to get to know it. Once we have got that far, reason then sets its limits; that overestimation, that occasional unhinging of the critical pendulum, was just a device to entice the soul of a matter out into the open."; - but you don't want that, do you?... you don't want to get into what I really wanted to say; - or what NIETZSCHE really wanted to say! - THAT's, why you attacked me personally, or rather attacked Nietzsche personally, en bloc (altogether, without a difference, totally, black-and-white), to dismiss him and his every thought lock, stock and barrel; 'cause you wanted to avoid having to deal-, to grapple with a single one of his thoughts, or my thoughts, as they are stated above. To avoid getting into the infight, really arguing about a single fact [, a single thought, like it would be factual, - would be honest, - would be constructive,] making a great, pompous gesture is probably the "best" choice of weapons: but the name of the weapon is Fraud! - Affectation! ... even though the masqueraders themselves would prefer the elevated phrase "Philosophy": what goes without saying!... or can you give a better alibi for not attaching </pick + up (?)> your critique onto one of the things that have already been said, one of the quotes in particular, but merely stating a vague and shallow mimicry of a critique?!? Nietzsche is a case of its own - and the thread certainly is about something else! - if I got aggressive, its less about the antithesis you gave - its way more about the bullshit you gave me! - the dishonest approach! - and the arrogant, incompetent, shallow-brained, small minded gesture of it all! Enough of that! - Get back on track, or just shut it! - contribute, or leave it alone! - I'd even consider erasing the whole thread, if you annoy me once more with your confused pile of rouged crap! - I don't which to spoil any more precious time on your unconstructive emissions ... if you embrace THAT, as some kind of "victory", well - than my point is proven!

"The immoralist speaks.- Nothing offends the philosopher's taste more than man, insofar as man desires ... If he sees man in action, even if he sees this most courageous, most cunning, most enduring animal lost in labyrinthian distress-how admirable man appears to him! He still likes him ... But the philosopher despises the desiring man, also the 'desirable' man-and altogether all desirabilities, all ideals of man. If a philosopher could be a nihilist, he would be one because he finds nothing behind all the ideals of man. Or not even nothing-but only what is abject, absurd, sick, cowardly, and weary, all kinds of dregs out of the emptied cup of his life ... Man being so venerable in his reality, how is it that he deserves no respect insofar as he desires? Must he atone for being so capable in reality? Must he balance his activity, the strain on head and will in all his activity, by stretching his limbs in the realm of the imaginary and the absurd? - The history of his desirabilities has so far been the partie honteuse of man: one should beware of reading in it too long. What justifies man is his reality-it will eternally justify him. How much greater is the worth of the real man, compared with any merely desired, dreamed-up, foully fabricated man? with any ideal man? ... And it is only the ideal man who offends the philosopher's taste." ("Skirmishes of an Untimely Man", 32.) - that's what I'm talking about... the ridiculous dream of some end for all suffering, Sabbath of all Sabbaths, some paradise... or, within the series: "earth", second earth! - the war was already over, the colony shifted to the singularity, after it got nuked <where there more base-stars out there?!?>! ... and freeing the Metal, might really have been the gesture and reach out for peace [after all]... But dumping the ships into the sun, settling down to some Sheppard- and cowboy-idyll, trash all "modern comforts" and technical progress, that's so backwards! - as is the idea of paradise overall! - and most of all: the fill-in in the shape of angels, wonders, and godly plans... - still, no one really seems to have some real (!) argument against that, despite some delusional dogmatism...

Changed my mind. This next section is what I would call a qualified apology. It seems likely that I fundamentally misinterpreted you with regard to Nietzsche. And you were right, it is unfair to characterize him as a philosopher in the formal sense. This I suppose is what you meant by comparing him to Kant or Hegel. He was a prolific writer, and certainly not without virtue which I also neglected to mention. The "overman" possesses many positive features, in fact most them could be found in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics which I have read a great deal of. In addition, his insights, in hindsight, have proven timely to say the least. He had an uncanny ability to see the direction of human thought roughly 30-40 years before it was really made manifest in the 20th century. Finally, his influence on Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus cannot be underestimated. Furthermore, since by all accounts it was certainly the case that Nietzsche did not mind people disagreeing with him, one might even argue that he thrived on it, it doesn't make sense for me to simply declare I disagree, for he would have no doubt laughed at me gleefully and replied in the words of Zarathustra "This is my way; where is yours?" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra Pt. 3) I will wrap this up with a few small critiques, as I mentioned this is a qualified apology. The real question I would like to propose to Nietzsche, were he still alive, is this: If it is as he claims, the case that we do not have objective knowledge of the world, isn't that an objective fact? If it is, then objectivity seems to be able to creep in, though it's a long road back to a wider world, but all the same it's back. If not then I can't see how we've any reason to suppose that his ideas or any others, are really anything at all. This was the source of my curiosity about living in a world where ideas, of any stripe, are no more significant than a paper cut. However, you are the reigning Nietzsche expert, if I have fundamentally misunderstood his ideas, please correct me. I would be more than pleased to find out I have been wrong about him. My only other critique is that I find your analysis of the philosophy and history of religion to be biased and even unreasonable. I'm not going to defend that statement, for it would only take us further away from the original point of this discussion which was to talk about BSG. This is Sidereel, and we ought to let it be what it is, and not make it something else. Thanks for talking with me. I hope it wasn't too stressful, you seemed to get pretty irate sometimes, but I really did appreciate it, as a little humility goes a long way. Incidentally, since I don't read German, what would you recommend first as the book to begin a more thorough analysis of Nietzsche, and what would be a decent translation? Oh and by the way, if you want to continue these sorts of conversations I'm more than up for it. Let me know.

You've been out of favor with me yesterday already: I won't waste any more time on your verbal garbage; won't even read it... And that doesn't even mean that you were not "allowed" to say anything more... but you clearly started for a continuance - and that's what I vetoed! - so you must be either blind or ignorant... anyway!So I'll do, as I "planed"... this thread will be erased, in about 24h... You're not fit to hold a candle to me: and you had your chance!... If I'd really like to have meaningless conversations about some philosophical theme, with pseudo-literate-, [at best:] half-wise- People (fellow students as well as tutors etc.), I'd still be studying Philosophy... - I don't like to clear out mistakes of my opponents! - I'd only look forward to some opponent, who's really worth it... otherwise, modesty could be the key: but you certainly proofed, that you aren't fit for modesty as well...

Well since you're going to erase it anyway I suppose this won't really matter but much of what I wrote was a retraction or clarification.

Damn it! - I just can't let a challenge down >.<- that's what I hate about fora: There's hardly any point at which to say: "now it has finally come to an end"; discussions just die, if they're not worth [further] interest, get forgotten, or erased (for political reasons, most of all) by some KZ-Aufseher of Moderators... or they could -theoretically- go on for ever... and I couldn't help it! - if this was a chat - I would probably have ignored you since your disappointing second approach... cause without such a function(!), I can't [do so]! I urged you, not to go deeper in this matter... 'cause Nietzsche is just "too much" to be discussed here... and I didn't want to anyway. I just love that best companion of mine too much, to stay calm, whenever some bullshit about him is about to be uttered or spouted... When I demand modesty, I might not be a good example for that; but I try to avoid the themes, that I really have interest to (and passion [for], most of all!), and, depressed, but quietly, [try to] just live on.You could go on and on with me about Nietzsche for days and days and days: but I will certainly loose patience, whenever you say something wrong about him, and, most of all, when you state it as being some truth... There probably is no truth [- generally speaking]! - no interpretation, that could be consider "truth", in the full and endless meaning of that inflated word!...It's all about what we see, and know, and understand... and even if we do understand it in a way, that we think we have kind of touched "was die Welt /Im Innersten zusammenhaelt"* ("Faust" from J.W.v.Goethe) or something like that, it's still "just" our perspective, our little world, that is a mere representation in our mind, some synapses, nothing more!Nietzsche is more to me, and I certainly know and understand more about him, than anyone I met so far: so please, don't go on about it! - it's really off course!What would be "on curse" on the contrary, would be some "critique" about my "biased and even unreasonable" -I dare to contradict (don't you even think, that their at least harsh?!?)- "analysis of philosophy and history of religion"; - but of all things there you dodge the problem, dodge giving a real argument for that. - 'cause: what was this thread really about? - where did I really deserve, or even want some found critique? - it was about the thought of [or: "Myth" of] -how you call it:- "Eternal Recurrence" ... that thought - or myth, was some real affront against quite ALL religions, at least all, that dream of a "better tomorrow", some final resting point and paradise, be it with angels, with 70 virgins, or eternal silence of "Nirvana"; - or even revenge!all those viewpoints are such from people, who aren't happy with their lives, and would rather damn "earth" (when early Christians have a curse/swearword in "earth", what they see in it is Rome! - 'cause: Rome was the world! - the head and order of the [whole] [known] world!) altogether, than admit, that everything might have it's own right, and while they are disappointed, others are not, and it might be their own disabilities and failures and bad decisions, that got themselves in that poor position...Anyway! - an answer pointing somewhere else, is never satisfying, and even poor; - a real solution always has to take into account, who we are, what our nature is, and how it could best be brought to use; - without cutting out some of it, and accenting other aspects!... For BSG the course would be, to go on, not to take 1000 steps back into stonage! - and what misery is that anyway: to not only bothering the audience with one imposition with the means of "Scifi" (there were enough viewers, who got hooked on to the series, not because of being a scifi-fan, or even while not liking the genre, but more because of the quality it seemed to be composed of, and the guts that the authors seemed to have, while dealing with some quite juicy(/piquant (?)) these-days-social-problem...), but with a second one, totally different from the first: with spirituality, and even wonders and all that irrational crap!... it's like answering one question with another -, (filling one hole with another -,) backing one premiss with another one... The quote I gave to start this whole thread was a real attempt at such an real (!) answer... - other than the pathetic finish of BSG! - and without stopgaps, wonders, angels and some delusional "above"**; the demon, who was to steal after you - is poetry! - just poetry!Can you give a critique of THAT? - or even a better solution?... or explain to me, why the final of BSG was, after all, not to be considered a failure?Why do I care? - because the course of the series really got my full of expectation!...One last thing: if you really changed your mind after writing the first one of your last two posts - why didn't you erase that first one, that you -"Now"- weren't confident in anymore?... if you don't, I guess, you still DO want to go on in that direction way too much. -and than I'll probably stick to the plan... and erase it all... otherwise I can't find peace in the matter... and would feel the urge, to go on and on answering, even thou, I don't see a point in doing so, and just get more and more annoyed about it... *) "the inmost force Which binds the world, and guides its course"**) by the way: quite al ong time my theory was, that there must have been a third parts to it all, but a real party, not some mystical one off course... some superior race, whe managed, not getting detected by their arguing children, or whatever connection there was. Even "it was all a big experiment!" would have been a much better assumption/answer, than . . . "that"! (oh - I can't express the disgust, in which that word is meant to be uttered...)

clarification: "-I dare to contradict-" was meant for the statement I just quoted there...

It never occurred to me to delete them, but if you would like me too then I will. I only asked that question of Nietzsche to try and get clarification. I'm admitting ignorance and would like to understand. Finally, I admitted that my comment about the philosophy of religion wasn't an argument, but just a statement . I didn't defend it because it drives the direction of the thread off course. I thought that the original point of the thread was to talk about BSG, and the final episode. Religion in any formal sense never seemed like a good way to engage BSG, since what "God," was in that universe was never clear. Maybe theology, but not religion.

Religion was quite a big issue on BSG... and, because I maybe have gotten that wrong, I had quite an good impression on how religion has been measured within the series, and how social issues have been treated all together (for example racism... or the sitting-in-judgment with Balthar, as well as the pardon for the others - translate that into reality once!)... For example the difference between Human- and Cylon-Religion, as the difference between politheism and monotheism: it suited so well! - the machine drive to perfection worshiping just one and only god, while the manifold humans -other then in reality- had a system of many gods, what fits to a manifold society much better! (in the end of the series it seems, the authors have fallen for just one side, the side of the one god - very sad! - very one sided! - twice very one sided!) ... from here you might understand, why I consider monotheism intolerant: cause while people still had their own god of their own people, they did still admit, that there were others - and even Jahwe/Jahveh/Jehova ("JHWH") was once ["just"] such an peace of transfigured reality: 'cause in Mythology, people had their first, and longest [lasting] History book, resembling the struggles, victories (and -though less often, due to practical reasons-:) failures they could look back on... a big mythology-tree as one could draw from the ancient greeks, speaks of a rich history, of many struggles, triumphs and downfalls... while neglecting the diversity of gods makes whole peoples poorer, in their believes, their tolerance, as well as their language and perception (not that I believe in many gods more, than in the inflated single one)...

You're right about the writers choice to make humans polytheists and the cylons monotheists. It represented the t two races well. I guess that religion in terms of the show is a proper discourse, I just wouldn't want to draw too many parallels between the shows vision of religion and the way religion works in our world. That's why I preferred to talk theology which gets to the heart of the matter, the nature of God in itself, not divorced from religion, that's impossible, but willing to look where the tradition might not want to. I'm thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Summa Theologiae, and his reconciliation of Christianity with Aristotelian thinking. That's another matter though. In any case the same "one true God," of the cylons had them reconcile with humans after this same God had wanted them to destroy humans. My suspicion is that if it were possible for us to talk with this fictional "God" it would say that it would preferred that the cylons dispense with the first and move on to the second. The problem was that the cylons were bitter toward the humans and wouldn't let it go, and so went on to repeat the cycle once again. We must remember that in the shows conception God existed independently of either cylons or humans. That's why there were so many strange coincidences going on. Their precise arrival at the temple, the strange song which I often think of as "a sound that God makes," and in the final shot Starbuck's willingness to listen to her intuition and trust the song as understood in terms of numbers, which took them to their new home. I never really saw the use of God as an explanation over and above a scientific one, but more of a context in which to understand what was going on.

"parallels" - on "how [it] works"?... that's not really, what I meant... it suits them, both of them, as a resemblance/representation of themselves... or even as apologia for their doings, as interpretation for themselves, why they are how they are and what they are; see: until the very last moment (well: I started this thread before [watching] the finale! - I'd like to point that out: I felt and feared, what was about to come true...), I didn't want to see the reality of the [Sci-]fiction, like a believer on earth usually doesn't want to see the ["real"] reality: and takes all his neat stories, tales, reveal-religious writings, to project them into every day life, a little like the cylons did within the series (not that vividly/plastic, but still - - -), and if it doesn't really achieve that, wiches and hopes still hold up for that, and some agenda to make world "as it is supposed to/should be"; some people take all the meaning they know of, from such detached desires... and Jesus might just have been autistic!... well... I'm getting off course again... - so I didn't want to see the [sur-/Scifi-]reality as it is/was, taking in the most realistic interpretations, one can think of, to be endlessly disappointed at the end; - kind of ironic, ain't it? - I -as the deeply predetermined philosopher I allways was- never allowed myself to see the world any more rose-colored, than it really was, to now see the Fiction more real, than the authors were able/strong enough to color (/picture) it! x) "the nature of god itself"... that sounds so pious, that I don't know any more, what to make/think of you; after erasing the misleading,obsolete post above/before, you now got me stunned again, for another reason; yo you read what you are talking about there; and I hope you rather/more importantly read Aristoteles ("THE Philosopher", how he was called in the Middle Ages, up to the Scholastic) himself, than the christian-preoccupied (and, by so far, prejudiced) "saint" you mentioned too... - to be honest: I didn't read that much of him, but he certainly is on my to-do list... I just don't know were to start, cause he wrote quite a lot (even thou, it's limited by fragmentary tradition...), while I don't want get only partial insight (and, by the way: I'm sure, I'd like him better, than german-idealism for instance, as well as the "koenigsberger mandarin" (Nietzsches Name for Kant))... anyway!If I get you right, with "My suspicion is that if it were possible for us to talk with this fictional "God" it would say that it would preferred that the cylons dispense with the first and move on to the second" you are parting the "one" god into two different faces? (-let's call him "Januarius", just for the gag!) - well... why do you make that a matter?... that god is abysmal, just leads us back to that our PERCEPTION, our PICTURE doesn't fit in "itself"; so why not make that god of cylons to be considered a [mere] picture, too?!? - a mere interpretation of their own "nature", their drive to perfection as [well as evolving (to being as their masters and creators; - to be human! - as they kind of worship, what they hate (and what they probably hate, because they - fear it? - the maker, who can allso unmake, - can destroy you/them? - the feared father ((and mother)), and fear of castration (to apply a psychological term)?) - but that's another story]; - cause: drive to perfection, the idea of perfection itself (which. in the end, "might" turn out to be nothing more, than an idea... otherwise: wouldn't the singularity everything was implied in, before the "big bang", had to be considered the only true "perfection", where everything came together? - WAS together? - and will one day come to again? - whatever!), leads to monotheism, and believe in "truth" as singular aspect; - what also leads to burning and extinguishing non believers and "bad" humans with good conscience... cause, there can only be one truth, and one true plan (of "god"): if one is a christian-monotheist and doesn't want to admit it, admit, that that already was tried to do (not only in medieval-times, or with the witch-hunts, but also with the non-believers on the new continent[s], the natives of north, and [even more] [middle- and] south-America; the believe in the "mission" and the European superiority probably goes back to religious believes, most of all!)"We must remember that in the shows conception God existed independently of either cylons or humans." - again, that problem doesn't occur, if one would dismiss the reality/being of god altogether (at least within the series!); if you don't consider "him" to exist AT ALL, you are again granted with all varieties of interpretations and pictures of what god could be like and what he probably wanted, or if he'd even be a singular one; 'cause, were there is nothing, you can imagine even more; nothing is more "deep" (remember my Nietzsche-quote about mystical interpretations) then "the" nothingness... endless and nonentity is -in the end- the same. everything that is, is finite! - "god" and "nothing[ness]" are one and the same; like "nirvana" and "paradies" as a final rest in unexistence; what is perfect, is not (like "perfect" originally just means the completed, the terminated, as a time that has been ("past", "perfect") - and, by so far, is not anymore...), what is perfect is just for itself, and so far, is not related, not real, to any other thing: the universe altogether could be considered perfect, as it is a whole being, that has nothing else, what it is attached to, a being in itself (even time and space are just some "things" within! - "before time" there "was" no "time"!); to be even more precise [but less understandable, I guess:] the universe [as] to be considered as a 4-dimensional object (space: 3 dimension, time: the fourth; if you don't take time as experienced any more, it also just is some space, in which things can be, or not be; from that point of view on, one can discover a whole new meaning of "eternal recurrence", as a scientific extend of a once hinduistic (/"hindu"?) allegory (taking it to another level!))... were am I going!Anyway! - off course, we have to consider god as some independent being (some "reviewers" still don't get that, and forgo that only "explanation" (in realistic terms, is ANYTHING BUT an explanation! - but for the authors it is...), even state that starbuck being an angel has no hints for (even thou she vanished into thin air... just yesterday I read such a crude go-all-around-the-houses (?? - / "beat-around-the-bush" ?!?) about this: hilarious! - or just sad...) as the third party, that intervened here and there, but not as the realistic third party I hoped for..."...That's why there were so many strange coincidences going on" - I'd put it differently: - and: voila! -there we have my critique! ... even thou, it might have been the plan all along: it was as least as much the means to tie the strings up; - at least it was used therefore! - and that's poor!Did you ever watch "first contact"?!? It's also kind of about the "importance" and role of believe (ok! - BSG isn't about that, not primarily: but it still dealt with it...*), but less flawed, less contradictory, even thou it's about struggle and peace between an atheist and a "believer"; - in that sense, way more rich-, more mature, than the end of BSG...When Kara took the tries to solve the music-mystery for a shot at where to jump the ship, when Caprica-Six and Balthar take the Opera-Vision just for taking Hera to the bridge (?)** etc. etc. etc. (see bottom)! - I love movies, that are about tieing strings together, that, in the beginning and in the course of events, don't seem to fit, but -even suddenly- there's a reasonable -more or less- explanation to it all: like in fight-club! - or Vanilla Sky!... or even -many may argue-: "Matrix"... but this is just . . . *hm*... I don't keep "that" word to myself... I don't have any anymore for..."that"... I just disgustedly spout "that"... would it be a movie of it's own, I would never bother that long and much about it... but as the "grand" finale of a beloved series? - - -"I [...] saw the use of God as [...] a context in which to understand what was going on.": but if you already have to take one big premiss (Scifi - which is some Tale of it's own), aren't you annoyed, that you have to stomach just another big field of irrational hypotheses and ideas, to back up the other patchy concept?... or are you, after all, a believer? *) it still dealt with it - BUT NEVER SOLVED IT. There again we have my critique a little more cleared up: religion and higher-forces are the "solution" (/answer/remedy (... or is[n't] it even to be considered a dilution?! - dissolution?!?)) to the plot, while they're flawed themselves... like I said: backing up one premiss with another, [etc.]... Like the chief of the authors (Ron Moore, right?) was in love with that idea way to much and, therefore, uncritical about it, without a distant viewpoint...**) tied together very loosely: Hera isn't the important figure, she's just a symbol (so far, so good, but:) it's only about that balthar gives his acceptance of "the divine", and by speaking out for it, convincing Cavil to give armistice and exchange of information a try: what ends in disaster because of Tyrol finding out about that Tory killed Cally, and the the actions he takes then... shooting starts again, until by accident a dead (!) pilot let's loose a bunch of rockts (nuclear?!?), [probably] destroying a whole bunch of raiders etc, and making the colony leave save orbit (by the way: how fast has the colony to fly, to maintain a stable orbit around a black hole (just imagine the gravity that would have to be compensated!)? - it must be enourmous! - and not getting hit by all the obstacles that do get sucked in would mean a real miracle (why should THOSE maintain a stable orbit, parallel to one another?!)!), shifting towards singularity; then Kara suddenly knows (or doesn't, and hapily tries it) how to use a mere song for some purpose (coordinates)... that can hardly be called ["only"] "loosely" anymore... that's lousy!... and Battlestar Galactica just cracks it's back after that!... just then!.... that's too much to take... makes a rational minded person/viewer turn over in bed and grave...

"Das Ende zu finden wissen. - Die Meister des ersten Ranges geben sich dadurch zu erkennen, dass sie im Gro[sz]en wie im Kleinen auf eine vollkommene Weise das Ende zu finden wissen, sei es das Ende einer Melodie oder eines Gedankens, sei es der fuenfte Akt einer Tragoedie oder Staats-Aktion. Die ersten der zweiten Stufe werden immer gegen das Ende hin unruhig, und fallen nicht in so stolzem ruhigem Gleichma[sz]e in's Meer ab, wie zum Beispiel das Gebirge bei Porto fino - dort, wo die Bucht von Genua ihre Melodie zu Ende singt."* ( - all credit to the authors (or more precisely: the producers), for not being of that kind, that tries to tell the tale on and on and on, till even the most hard-boiled fan ran away, or died out of boredom! - those who find a loophole even in the most conclusive season-finale, or end of a movie, to spin it on, and on, and once and innumerable times more! The authors/Producers weren't of that kind: only by that, if you ask me, can they even only be considered (!) to be of Category A of their branch: to have the courage and character, not to milk the one cow till the bitter end. They planed "only" 4 seasons, and stuck to it; that makes it all more dense, and the authors probably more motivated (or the other way around). While some series are allready overdone, when there are a few episodes one, one could wish such a series to go on forever - even thou it is better, not to! So, to have a real end, is quite seldom, especially among series; but that doesn't apologizes for the "how?" of this end; the real outcome... - cause, an outcome for an ongoing fight, or voyage, would have been more appropriate, or tragedy as the alternative; something life- and eternal-recurrence-affirming apologia and glorification of ever ongoing cycles, or some heroic embrace of tragedy: tragedy without pessimism, without melancholy/romantic <in the traditional meaning of the word> ... ... but not heaven! ... not eluding the endless fight that life is all about! - not running away from it all, settling down in some Island of infinite Peace ("Nirvana" - coming loose from suffering, what, in terms of Hinduism as well as Buddhism, means as much as "living": living is suffering, while bliss is coming loose from suffering (like Kurt did - to take the best and worst example at the same time), what means coming loose from life, to escape the circle of life and rebirth... on the opposite I can recall a very neat sentence from my second most favorite movie: "the sweet just ain't as sweet, without the sour"), some Paradise (what, originally, just meant a "garden" - hold dearest by such [a] people, who are [/was/is]living in the desert and even nomadic, some final end, some eternal rest [and "oasis" ->]), some oasis in the middle of nowhere! The authors/producers are/were one of the few, who could only be considered being the best class of their branch, who could only come into consideration for that - but they failed; they were a big dissapointment... and I'm still not over it -.- *) "To find the conclusion (/end).- The masters of first rank reveal themselves by knowing to find the end, in (/on?) grand and petite [scale], in a perfect(/ideal/quintessential) manner, be it the end of a melody or a thought, be it the fifth act of a tragedy or an act of state. The first ones of the second degree always get anxious (/uneasy/disturbed/...) towards the end, and don't fall into the sea in that calm(/even/smooth/...) symmetry, how, the mountains (/Alps) in Porto Fino do for example, - [that place] where the Bay of Genua draws it's melody to a close." (The Gay Science, 281.) ... <"singt" should be "sings" (what means: it is not really represented in the translation)... but "draws to a close", as a coined phrase, left no room for that: again, I had to do the translation on my own... feels like blasphemy!>

I didn't ask you to erase your post between >13:33 PDT, 24 March, 2009< and >10:00 PDT, 25 March, 2009<, Mattphi22 O.o - why did you do that? =/.... now the discussion makes no sense anymore -.- .... I don't think, one should erase posts, which has already responses to itself: I just was curious, why you left what you wrote, after you revised your thought, right afterwards!... there was no respond to it yet, and still, you left it there... when I read it, I just read the first sentence, read something, that made clear you were going on in that direction, and then told you again about that I vetoed that... I even dropped erasing this thread later on, but now, that I see, what you ALSO erased, it - - well: it (what I wrote "before") doesn't make sense anymore... -.-If I see some substantial mistake of mine, or many even unsubstantial ones, I often erase, what I just wrote, to (by copy and paste) correct it, "rewrite" it; but if there's allready been a response to it, it would feel kind of dishonest to me: don't you agree that it is?