Frederick may have gone, Zoe – I now notice he posted his ‘thing’ (not quite sure how to describe it) nearly four years ago.

Frederick Christiansen – I’m an atheist. I don’t believe gods exist.

I’m also not trying to clobber you in some sterile debate.

Despite the fact that those words come from a Bible I don’t believe in, I try, however imperfectly, to follow them. I’d be one heck of a hypocrite if I was to use these words uncharitably, as weapons against you.

I’m too busy trying to remediate my own many errors and faults to worry overmuch about anyone else’s, real or imagined. Nonetheless, may I please ask you to read that passage, and ask yourself whether your words of admonition to us were spoken charitably? For if not, I fear you’ve missed the point.

1 Corinthians 13 (KJV)

1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

Pope Francis I has made clear that atheists (and others outside the Church) who are ‘people of good will’ can find a path to heaven, through sincerity of heart and good works; his pronouncement on this matter is entirely consistent the (fundamentally biblical – see Matt. 25 : 31 – 46) teaching of the Church (see Lumen Gentium).

The Church also teaches us that every human person is possessed of intrinsic dignity that must be respected. Of course, we might disagree with someone and wish to express our disagreement in ‘colourful’ terms, but to lose sight of the core Christian values is to lose everything – including in proper recognition of our own dignity and maybe even our own salvation.

Sorry for the typos: longed instead of “longer” and hours instead of “ours”.

To answer your question : if you want to understand Nietzsche you will have to read all of it : his texts, his correspondence, the testimonies and his biographies. There are a lot of myths around him, like his syphylis, his “horse”-breakdown, that he did not want followers, He knew how to hide and how to lie.

Curt Janz biography is a good start. But one source is never enough.

As for the proof itself, maybe you will have to wait that I will write a book about Nietzsche…

Johann – Regarding Nietzsche’s sexuality, what would you have me read?

You should read better. The proof that Nietzsche was homosexual exists by his own words. Only you will have to look for it, if you care. I don’t care either about his sexual orientation, but his mental illness and his misogyny are consequences of that fact. By the way “his” syphilis is a myth. Nietzsche never longer for women sexually. He proposed a 2 years marriage to Louise Salomé, without sex, only for intellectual intercourses. He proposed marriage only once before in Geneva to a woman he encoutered only a few ours before. Not a sexual, nor an intellectual attraction. Just he needed someone to care about his home. His sister did just that for several months in Basel. And when a woman fell in love with him, he rebutted her.

It would have been difficult for Nietzsche to support the nazi movement, for that movement was created many years after his death. But Hitler was a good reader of Nietzsche and he understood him very well without needing a translator. Hitler not only understood what Nietzsche’s “great policy” was, but he started to apply it the hard way. Of course Hitler is an overman, just like Napoléon and Cesar Borgia, explicitely mentioned by Nietzsche as overmen. Other men considered as models by Nietzsche : Alexander the Great, Alcibiade, Julius Caesar… All men of power, most of them creators of an empire. Just what Hitler wanted to do, reducing to slavery the majority of the submitted populations, the “herd”. For Nietzsche there is no civilisation without slavery, without a cast of soldiers and a few geniuses free from work.

That is from the texts by Nietzsche. Now to try to guess, if Nietzsche would have still been alive during the 3rd Reich, what he would have thought is just to be intellectually dishonest. Dead people do not speak anymore. Nobody can contradict the fact that Hitler put into application several of Nietzsche’s “ideas”.

Normally, I don’t approve such hateful speech but I love irony and your condemnation of “useless carbon molecules” in the name of a personal God is just too good to pass up.