New Blog

I started a new blog about the philosophy of science, Philosophy of Science

The God within Us

if one thing is characteristic of all gods, it is their will. The whole universe cannot go against a god's will, his commanding will is always what happens, gods are masters in every sense of the word and everything else has to obey. These gods are most likely human invention and human madness, I would like to add, human weakness, but these fictional characters, are they not present in each and every one of us at least in potential? Are we not all potential gods? Did it not occur more than once that the will of one person changed the world? The answer is surely yes! there are wills so strong that the world had to obey. The biblical God might inspire fear, and require submission, the real gods however re-defined for us what is possible and inspired us with hope and stung the god within us back to life.

Children can ignore probability and possibilities, they are most of the time even unaware of the possibility of failure, their dreams are concrete realities to them and perhaps there's a lesson we should learn from them; the great people of all centuries did not care for the limits and probabilities humans have believed to govern them, their god-like will commanded and the universe had to obey. We have made our way from worm to man, but much within us is still worm, perhaps it is time we are also aware that much within us is god, in this sense, are we not all atheists disbelieving in ourselves and the gods we can be? How can we will if we submit? How can we be free, strong, how can we be gods if God existed? To believe an that god is what it is to be a real atheist, a denier and a weak person.

Can you imagine Achilles saying "I'm not sure what I really want"? Our images of these heroes is that they have strong wills, that they are sure what they want. I can't think of Gandhi thinking "Why am I on a hunger strike? is it really worth it?" His will was stronger and greater than great Britain. They did not wish, dream, fancy or even believe, they willed strongly and violently and the world is powerless against strong wills.

Either, Or

In "The Genealogy of Morals" Nietzsche puts two kinds of moralities in contrast, the morality of "Good and bad" and the morality of "Good and evil." Something which helped me undetstand the whole intent of Nietzsche's philosophy was Nietzsche pointing out that the morality of "Good and bad" which he favors, and in contrast to the morality of "Good and evil", is a positive one; which means it is simply defining what is good, and otherwise is bad, while the later defines what is evil, and otherwise is good. The difference is huge between a morality and a mentality that works to avoid something, and another that works to bring about something even with sacrifices, Nietzsche does not like sacrifices in themselves, for example he doesn't like danger (unlike what most people think), but he likes the positivity which has inevitable sacrifices.

What is health? Is it the absence of sickness? That approach to health is a negative one, it seeks to avoide sickness rather than attain something. Values like safety, the absence of sickness and sadness, comfort (defined as the absence of pain) and all the such are not in themselves bad, to the contrary, what they seek to avoid is really worth avoiding. The point however is that they are keeping us from the greatness of the positive values, like strength, health and joy to name a few. It seems that a brave healthy person should not retreat from the great battle of life, but rather attack, should not seek peace but victory as he mentiones in "Thus Spake Zarathustra".

Keeping this in mind, I can now talk about the idea that just occured to me. It seems to me that at every decision and every action we take, we are either seeking victory or peace, either comfort or joy. The great warrior is not afraid to make sacrifices, he gets wounded, scared and at any time, may be killed, but only such a warrior living in the struggle with pain and danger can experience real joy and victory. Everytime we make a decision we should ask ourselves, are we acting as the great warrior would? Are we being positive in the Nietzschean sense? As we train ourselves to be warriors at the heart we learn to be stronger, we start to be braver.

As beings who are fond of saying no, at every decision we take, every action we do life is offering as a new fresh chance to say yes;"Yes, yes to life, yes to joy and for the sake of that....yes to sacrifices and pain." Who wishes at his deathbed that he didn't suffer, That he didn't cry? They always regret the lack of genuine laughs the lack of passions and special moments; moments of "intoxicating joy" that makes life worth living. I recognize how hard that is, but it is rewarding as it is hard, so remember to say Yes!! at each chance.

The Morals of The Muslim

I have recently read an introduction of a book about ethics that wasn't written by Nietzsche, It's been long since I did that. I think it's true what people say, when you study philosophy you start to feel wierd about all people, you yourself become strange to the world, but I should add to that; When you study Niezsche you feel wierd about all philosophers, you become even stranger to the world. And just as one thinks "people should read philosophy", one starts to think "philosophers should read Nietzsche."

The book is about Islamic philosophy, "The Morals of the Muslim" was the name of the book. I only read the introduction so far, its about something most muslim thinkers like to talk about, how great thinkers from around the world have done their best to define a "perfect" universal morality, how they all failed to come up with perfection, and how only Islam succeeded to define that perfect universal morality. But the question that can be raised to this is; who defines the criteria for this perfection? To answer this question, Muslims often refer to one of the essential ideas of their philosophy, "Fitra"; it is a word that is hard to explain, it is more than just the human nature, it is the human nature and innate longing for the truth, God and all that is good. And with Fitra it is now easy to explain why Islamic morality is perfect and universal, it is because the very human nature God has created has nothing that suites it except for the morality God created for that nature. "That morality is the only hope for a happy life, for spiritual growth and all psychology and philosophy be damned. The human 'soul' finds its comfort and happiness only with its creator and by following his rules."...that is the basic idea of Islamic philosophy, it is almost books of Islamic philosophy summarized.

As Nietzsche says, one should be more positive, not merely refute a theory but replace it. A theory that is more life-like and less life-despising, less God-like and instead more human-like. Why should we waste our times saying the Islamic view is wrong, it is simply life-denying. I read parts of Zarathustra, the part about the academic chairs of virtue summarizes it well, virtues that promote sleep, comfort and peace are a fallacy, life is not about sleep, comfort or peace. Perhaps the religious way of living aims at avoiding the feeling of misery and not overcoming misery, Nietzsche's philosophy however aims at overcoming misery, overcoming even humanity itself. "We are neither gods nor animals, we are something in between" so says the Islamic philosopher, but the Nietzchean philosopher would answer "We are animals and potential gods."

Haterd

"Ye are not too great to know of haterd and envy, then be great enough not to be ashamed of them" If someone is to know only one thing about the human race, it should be that we like to think of ourselves much better than we are, we are hypocrites and liars. A friend of mine claims to love me so much, for years we were friends, and he betrayed me the second he needed to. I thought this could be a flaw with my friend, but as the experience is being repeated over and over again, I came to know that humans are not yet capable of friendship, even less of love. Of course many people would disagree, with their great friends and their lovers, but let me tell them that: your great friends are only trying to imply the image of being great friends, and your lovers, well, they are much worse, they are merely following the oldest instinct in all animals. The fact that they hide it behind their so called friendship and love is pathetic. Believe me, I've known many people and expected so much of them. Trust me, do not expect friendship or love from anyone, expect only selfishness and deception.

When a person does something that is said by the common people to be good, it is because that person has no other choice but to do so. A mother has no choice but to rear her child and "love" it simply because an instinct in her that obligates her to do so, do you call that real love? Simply a desire and a lust in the body, our same old "will to power" at play. A girl who once said she loves me left when she found it best for her, if i should blame her it is because she was claiming to know what love is, and nothing more, but who is it who should be blamed, her for pretending to know what love is or me for believing it?

Perhaps I wanted to believe this, I needed love, and as that is not even possible to find, I could accept a fake one. Anyway, it's all the same, I now know what to expect, common interest is the best I can get. But why should I need others to love me? May be this evolved somewhere in the jungle where humans herded to be safer, but it's an insticnt that is no more useful, perhaps the time has come to stop deceiving ourselves, perhaps the time of fake love is gone, and I hope that the dawn of honesty, of acknowledging what we are has come, the "daybreak" shall be the time when we see ourselves, naked and pure.