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Summary: Christianity a hindrance to science? no way
Review: Eperimental science was perfected by christian and muslim thinker. Newton, galileo, and other were devout christians. They believed God ordered the world, and they believed he wanted them to study it. We might not have any progress or cvilization today if it weren't for these great(and religous) thinkers. Obviously some reviewers are totally ingnorant of history(ad was Nietzche) Sure Christianity isn't perfect. But the great atheist regimes(stalin, mao) etc inspired by the likes of Nieztche have killed countless more people than Christinaity ever did. The nazis were inspired by Nieztche, and they killed millions as well. Tolstoy said"Nietzche was stupid and abnormal". I couldn't agree more.
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Summary: Mencken's Translation of an Important Book
Review: H. L. Mencken had a large influence on early 20th century American thought. He championed many new authors such as Cather, Dreiser, and Fitzerald.
I don't know whether his translation is literally the most accurate, but I do know that he writes beautifully in English, and he was German-American.
This is probably Nietzsche's most important work. Nietzsche is a hard philosopher to understand. He has been intentionally misrepresented, most famously by his anti-semetic sister during Naziism (he opposed anti-semitism). I think everyone who is interested in the history of the 20th century should read this book.
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Summary: Christianity a hindrance to science? no way
Review: I don't typically review books. In fact this will be my first. But the comments by 'Matthew Acheson' leave an opening for rebuttal. Now, I hold no claim on religion itself, so those rolling their eyes thinking I'm just another 'biased Christian' can throw that canned theory out of the window right now. I study both points, theological and scientific, and consider both to be viable, understandable viewpoints of the world. What I cannot stand, though, is a constant and bloody attack by pseudointellectuals on anything they consider below them. In this case, religion. Do they not realise that by their vicious assaults, they commit the SAME crime the Catholic church was guilty of in the Middle Ages? Do they believe the rules do not APPLY to them simply because they're on the opposing side? How quaint. On the other hand, I cannot stand theological morons who can only give me an elaborate version of "Jesus is Lord" for their beliefs. Can they not spare the brainpower to think, to EXPLORE their own religion? Must we as humans be so weak as to hop after whatever cause or following may appeal to our most base of senses at the moment? Matthew Acheson, your comments are, as such, very base. While I am not Christian, Jesus, whether the son of some God or no, was a brilliant philosopher, and appealed to nothing but sensibility and logic. There's no line in the Bible that attacks religion. In fact, read Genesis closely, about how and what we could eat at first, about WHERE we came from (Water, anyone), and they'll see it falls right into place. Do I believe the Bible was divinely inspired? I think the bigger question here should be- does it MATTER? As for every 'dunamentalist' religion asking for blind faith, I ask you to look at Proverbs 14:15, and for Buddhists, look at the Kalama Sutra. As someone who's gone through everything from pure atheist works, to full-fledged theological works such as the Bible and Samyutta and Digdha Nikayas, I can say that most atheists have as skewed an image of religion, as most religionists have about atheism. People, think for yourselves, please. We all follow something. Whether a God or philosophy, whether Christianity, Taoism, Atheism... does it really matter? Must we critique and insult another for it? Perhaps to you, 'survival of the fittest', Matthew Acheson, is something you would enjoy. Darwinism, perhaps. But remember- we tried Might makes Right once before in history. It was called the Dark Ages. It didn't turn out too well. For any that want an opposing view of this, especially on the points of somehow Christianity being responsible for the fall of Rome (Which any reasonable historian would laugh at), look at 'City of God', by Saint Augustine, who was alive when Rome fell. Please, people, on both sides- try to be more tolerable. We only have one world.
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Summary: IS GOD DEAD?
Review: I had always had a different view on christianity and I never was able to explain it well until I read Nietzsche's Anti-Christ. Immediatley I was placed into deep thought. I began to fully understand why I thought what I thought because Nietzsche thought some of the same things. I truly belive that a large quantity of Christians are very hateful,judgemental and overly hipocritical people. I now have new beliefs in a "higher being" thanks to not only Nietzsche, but others like Marilyn Manson, Aliester Crowley, Anton Levey, and the Bible.
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Summary: The stongest conclusion Nietzche could have made.
Review: It's hard too add something to what's already stated in all reviews. The book is great! The idea wasn't new to me, I pretty much came to it by myself. And the more of a pleasure it was to read it! The argument is very strong and convincing, but I don't think it can change anyone's 'True Christian faith', for there's no such logic that can penetrate faithful christians - they simply don't pay any attention to logic whatsoever, they are by definition incapable of denying their beliefs. For those, however, who themselves have some doubts about the present religion, Nietzche may provide the best guidance. I personally do not recommend to read this before you read some other works of the author, such as 'Genealogy of Morals', Thus Spoke Zarathustra', and 'Beyond Good and Evil' - even one of those alone will definetly help. The Anti-Christ, is short because it's only a conclusion and a final verdict to Christianity, rather than development of the argument. Oh, and by the way, I don't think Nietzche ever says anything about denying God completely - he wages war against Christian God. If you prefer, even after you reach full agreement with Nietzche, you can still keep some sort of faith in higher immortal being(s), only it will be different God: more Greek or Roman-like God, or maybe just something abstract, completely new.
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Summary: NIETZSCHE: ABOUT ANTIQUITY AND CHRISTIANITY
Review: ONE ADVICE BEFORE READING OR MAKING A CRITICISM OF THIS GIANT MASTERPIECE: PLEASE BE HONEST TO YOURSELF AND THROW AWAY ANY OF YOUR PREJUDICES (if you would have any)!!!
As to Nietzsche christianity (NOT JESUS OF NAZARETH !!) was the cause for the decline of the classic, antique civilisation and the most considerable "promotor" for the herd instinct, the spiritual levelling, for decadence.
The "Antichrist" (1888) is written months before he fell mentally ill (NOT syphillis, as is told in the streets...) to death in 1900. This MASTERPIECE contains THE MOST FURIOUS ATTACKS by Nietzsche against christianity. It is as if this criticism that we encounter in all of his writings, has been like a fester in his mind and whole spirit, that bursts out here as an incredible, tremendously powerful explosion.
"I BRING YOU THE MOST TERRIBLE DENUNCIATION AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH THAT HAS EVER BEEN CHARGED BY ANY ATTORNEY GENERAL. I WILL WRITE DOWN THIS ETERNAL CHARGE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY EVERYWHERE WHERE THERE ARE WALLS. I EVEN DISPOSE OF SPECIAL LETTERS TO EVEN MAKE THE BLIND SEE.".
The reason for Nietzsche to do/write so, is because he found christianity, with Paul and the ancient fathers of the christian church in front GUILTY for the decline of the ANTIQUITY (RE: NOT the person of "Jesus", of "The Christ" as is SO OFTEN MISINTERPRETED!!). Christianity was the vampire of the IMPERIUM ROMANUM. As the author was a hughe admirer of antiquity, not to say that he saw it as a kind of an ideal world, a greater denunciation is indeed hard to think of as to him.
AN ABSOLUTE MUST FOR EVERYONE (sic!!!) !!! Lots of people talk about the book, but have never read it, for different reasons. Some amongst them "HATE" Nietzsche - BUT that is hardly a reason at all, nor is it ... "christian". Others are afraid the read is too difficult for them. This book is only about 90 pages, has SOME difficult stuff to read on A FEW PAGES, but certainly NOT THE WHOLE WORK!
THIS IS ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECES OF NIETZSCHE, WHICH I WARMLY RECOMMEND FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY WHOLE BEING: A REAL MUST (remember: forget your prejudices...) in which you can see Nietzsche REALLY fulminating on the very highest level ever done, in every way and sense.
A FANTASTIC BOOK THAT YOU WILL RE-READ.
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Summary: A Bad-Tempered, Blasphemous Blast
Review: THE ANTICHRIST (1888) is Nietzsche's most coherent and well-organized work, in some ways a rhetorical masterpiece, yet at the same time a striking example of his infantile megalomania and insupportable presumption. He dedicates it to the man of tomorrow who can endure "my seriousness, my passion," who is "accustomed to living on mountaintops Ä and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as beneath him," who moreover has "the courage for the forbidden, predestination for the labyrinth." But very shortly he is writing as though that man of tomorrow had already arrived, multiplied and gathered around him in a cluster: "we ourselves, we free spirits, are already a transvaluation of all values... this higher type of man... we others, who have the courage for health and likewise for contempt..." This said by a puny, sickly and neglected ex-professor who takes drugs to go to the bathroom and to go to sleep. He rails against "the learned world of Germany, three-fourths of which is made up of the sons of preachers and teachers," himself being the rebellious end-product of five generations of clergymen. He makes his famous pronouncement, that "there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross," and characterizes Jesus as a revolutionary distorted by nineteen centuries of church obfuscation; then declares that only "we free spirits" can understand him, so that "one might actually call Jesus 'a free spirit.'" Thus while seeking to destroy the church, he provides a goad to its renewal, like Kierkegaard in his ATTACK UPON CHRISTENDOM (1855). Actually Nietzsche's attack is upon Paul, whom he sees as the inventor of Christianity, and upon the "slave mentality" of the Jews who found a psychological way to weaken and defeat their Roman masters--by injecting pity, guilt and heavenly judgement into their healthy minds and institutions. He glorifies the Roman Empire, which he misrepresents as the fulfillment of the Greek ideal, and anathematizes the "dirty Jew," the "evil-smelling mess of Jewish rabbinism," and the power-usurping logic of the Christian priesthood ("three times Jewish") as unspeakable filth, weakness and decadence. His re-evaluation is maximally blasphemous, but also inspired, insightful and thought-provoking, and must be read as cultural history, though it remains on the level of adolescent protest. The chief flaw in his attack is treating Christian history as stages in an unfolding conspiracy, as if Paul planned the Crusades and Luther intended to end the Renaissance. With equal or greater justice, one could claim that Nietzsche heralded the Third Reich, which embodied so many of his principles, such as "What is good?--Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man." (Section 2) And: "What is freedom?.. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one's cause, not excluding oneself." (TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS, section 38) His apologists want to write off his canonization by the Nazis as just an unfortunate episode, and indeed after the war he was adopted by the political left, as Allan Bloom has shown in THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND (1987), but actually Nietzsche was simply a egotist with a bad temper and no political persuasion, an anarchist with delusions of grandeur, and any attempt to realize his ideas socially is certain to prove a disaster. The reason to read this version of THE ANTICHRIST is that H.L. Mencken, the famous journalist, turned Nietzsche's German into such direct, plain-spoken American English that it puts the haranguing philosopher right up in your face. Also Mencken, himself an Anti-Semite, brings out the strain of anti-Semitism in this work in all its ugly rancor, so that it cannot be mistaken, though elsewhere Nietzsche blasts anti-Semitism as well. He thought himself above judgement, and it is an anomaly of history that any grown-up ever took him seriously, but then he said the same thing about Saint Paul. Both were tormented geniuses who tranformed the world, and we must deal with the consequences.
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Summary: His Best Work
Review: The Antichrist is, in my eyes, Nietzsche's best work. It keeps his superflouious style of writing, yet manages to stay direct. A good, short read for someone who has a free evening.
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Summary: Great stocking stuffer
Review: This book gives me a great new perspective on why Christianity is detrimental to the advancement of society, or at least the Overmen. Sure Christianity is false and weird and perverse, I knew that, but this book instead deals with how Christianity takes away man's "will to power" that is the driving force of all life. I had heard of "will to power" before reading this but this is the first time I understood exactly what it means. As a result of this book I now consider myself an immoralist. What a great Christmas present for that preachy aunt who gets on your nerves... well, perhaps Christmas isn't the most respectful time. One part that struck me as a little inaccurate is when he says "One loses force when one pities". I have to disagree with this. Without pity or sympathy you have a psychopath, and that psychopath won't get far, he'll be either killed, imprisoned or institutionalized. We have acquired the ability to "pity", but make no mistake, it's because it helps us gain power by forming an alliance with the rest of the human race. Nietzsche has made us honest about our animal nature, but nothing much has changed. As usual, a great thought provoking read from Nietzsche.
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Summary: Excellent Translation
Review: This is Nietzsche's most vigorous work; it conains in little over one hundred pages, a summary of his later philosophy, and as such, should probably be read after all of his other works if one means to avoid misunderstanding what Nietzsche is saying. He portrays Christianity in gory detail as the religion of revenge, dishonesty, small-mindedness and pity which it is, and a leading cause of the west's descent into nihilism. (A reading of this book almost forms a mini spiritual biography of western civilisation of the last three centuries). The adherence to a religion like Christianity forms a sort of enslavement to an outdated meaning system thus causing anyone with a scrap of intellectual integrity to lie to theirselves as a means of supporting a bankrupt world-view and while appropriate for Zarathustra's "last men", is death for all higher types, and had waged a bitter war against all manner of vitality, stregnth and honour which are the hallmarks of die ubermensche. He talks of the psychology of the priest and the natural hatred of science that they all possess as well as the slave morality and cowardice that Christianity promotes, but for all the vim that the book possesses, it is not a very scholarly work, and contains many errors. Nietzsche understandably finds it difficult to restrain himself, but this gives the work a sort of amateurish tone. Mencken has done a wonderful job here -- all the more because he had a deep appreciation for Nietzsche -- the man and his work. For those who cannot understand Nietzsche's "hatred" of Christianity, I would recommend a very thorough reading of the Geneology of Morals, which goes into much greater detail and is much more scholarly and will provide better insight into the anti-Chrsitian perspective. One of the jewels of modern literature.
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