God isn’t dead as Nietzsche would have you believe, he simply doesn’t exist. At least that is the story according to Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame.
According to Jillette:
Not believing in God is easy — you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do…anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God.
He goes on to explain that ‘no god’ makes his life better. The things that matter most in life aren’t ‘fearing an angry god’ or ‘begging for forgiveness’, they are simply his family, both the one that reared him and the one he is raising now.
Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
I think that is a good message in general, even if you do believe in god. So many time christians count on god’s forgiveness, or the ability to go to confession (if you are catholic) that they tend to overlook the fact that if they would just ‘do things right’ in the first place they wouldn’t have need to ask for forgiveness.
He also brings up the fact that the christian god, being “an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force” he rarely helps out when we need it most, and bing omniscient means not only does he not help often but knows it’s coming and didn’t prevent it. If that is true then there is little anyone can do to prevent all of the pain and suffering in the world. We are at the angry god’s whim. However, if there is no god, the we have the possibility of actually making a difference in the world; to make it a better place.
Uncle Jubba
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2 Comments
Have you read David Pollard’s ‘Nietzsche’s Footfalls. This is what one reader wrote:
This is a book that hides its philosophical learning beneath a bushel. Readable and fluent, it charts Nietzsche’s life in relation to history and shows how his ideas have been reconstructed to suit various interest groups. Especially interesting is the way his hatred of fanaticism, war and Germany were redefined by his sister to make him a kind of proto-Nazi. A fascinating biography with many undercurrents. Highly recommended.
You know I haven’t read as much Neitzsche as I probably should have by this point in my life. Thanks for the tip!
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