"Evolution does not result in any "ought" at all, either positive or negative"
I did not say anything about evolution advancing an "ought". I said that "understanding evolution does not suggest that humanity ought to pursue internecine slaughter and elimination." As far as I know, evolution is not a sentient process of mind and therefore it cannot hold values--certainly not in the sense of our limited understanding.
"Therefore people are ethically free to do whatever they find advantageous"
Because people are free to do whatever they find advantageous does not translate into freedom from causal consequence nor from the ethical mores and standards of the particular family and tribe they belong to. If people were not free to act, it would be feckless to speak about ethical choice or value--and accountability and responsibility would be mere pretense.
"Interestingly Darwin did not come home with passionate conclusions regarding sharks..."
I have not read the origin for years but I don't recall that he studied sharks so I do not share your interest in why (or if) he had passionate conclusions about them.
"His humanitarian WHAT? Another case of trying to sneak Transcendence into a godless world"
The author could very well have meant the meaning in Webster's in common usage, to wit:
"5 a : the moral and emotional nature of human beings"
Or he could be a devout Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Catholic. In neither case would he be sneaking anything into anyplace. Your comment is truly nonsensical.
"You want to keep the ethical guidelines you happen to like at the moment but then claim no such transcendent ethics exist the very moment that they begin to encroach on your own lifestyle"
Babble.
"Sleeping with unmarried Women etc etc."
LOL! Time for another flood! The way they clutch and pant is just so sickening. So Unnatural!
“I noticed that you did not address Nietzsche”
Address WHAT about Nietzsche? You made a couple of ridiculous and inchoate slurs about Darwin and Nietzsche. I can only say so many things in one post. Certainly, nothing you said about either of then required any defense.
“Nietzsche took Darwin to his logical conclusion“
That is mindless dribble. There is absolutely nothing that connects the science of Darwin with the philosophy of Nietzsche. As a matter of fact-- Nietzsche thought rather little of Darwin and he despised social Darwinism which was one spin-off contrived by some from his observations of variation and adaptation.
The Germans used the bible and Nietzsche in both world wars, but this does not mean that either Nietzshe or Augustine approved of either war. You are just tossing out thoughtless garbage hoping it will fall into the mouths of sheep so they can chew endlessly on moldy rot while staring mindlessly with dead eyes at the fence.
Darwin was a natural scientist. Nietzsche was a philosopher, poet, and prophet. They thought and worked in disparate arenas and their respective paths have no theoretical moral commonality whatsoever. The fact that they both lived compassionate and faultless lives does not tie their writings together no more than the writings of Dickens are a “logical conclusion” to Sir Walter Scott simply because they both had money problems and suffered and endured under unbridled pride to save their dignity at immense cost to their health.
The thing Nietzshe would have despised most was the Nazi sheep conforming and acting with mindlessness. He sought to overcome mindlessness and the pretense of higher authority and the worship of imaginary worlds and beings. He exalted the individual. He praised independence and great thought. He believed in the dance of life. He knew that God was essentially dead because superstition was yielding to knowledge. He urged humanity to find life and abundance rather than another and another and yet another superstitious crutch to comfort fear, smallness, and loneliness before the universe. He urged us to become the universe, to recognize our vitality, and to exercise both our passion and our will.
The simple fact of the matter is (and I can encapsulate his philosophy in these few brief words): HE URGED US TO GET OFF OUR KNEES AND TO WALK UPRIGHT.
Nietzche was tenderhearted and compassionate. He spent much of his life roaming from place to place--in both physical and emotional pain from a lifetime of poor health. To equate his moral exuberance for individual joy and independence with the mindlessness which he most despised is to expose a baseless rancor, and an utter disregard for truth and fair comment.
Darwin recognized that the biological universe was evolving through variation and natural selection. These scientific facts were (to many people) a final proof of the superstitious nature of Christianity...and of all the others. But Darwin was not a moral philosopher and created no moral system out of these facts. Nor did Nietzsche rely upon the facts of variation and natural selection to construct his ideas of the individual overcoming himself by attaining a higher level of joy and meaning. Essentially, Nietzsche preached the fundamental value of seeking all that one could be in the REAL world rather than exulting in sin and failure--shame, self reproach, and disgust. The slavish worship of invented Gods and worlds was an admission of a failure to live; a failure to dance and to leap with the passion and exuberance of a being free from self hate--and beyond the claws of pitiful beasts with paper teeth and butter claws.
If you wish to accuse Nietzsche of despising Christianity as a contemptuous superstition which robbed individuals of dignity, will, and value--you would be correct. He saw that such a crutch was antithetical to an age of science and could only subject the individual to similar “Messiahs” in the social and political realms--thus disgracing the very idea of life and throwing away ones gift of individual will and freedom. So accuse him of what is truthful. There is no need to invent lies and inanities. There is no benefit to you in creating false and absurd associations. Many great thinkers (Jung, Hesse, et al) were indebted to Nietzsche for his profound humanity and his prophetic vision.
The last thing in the world Nietzsche valued was the socialistic ideals of conformity and obedience to authority and order. He believed in a merging of the reason, the passion, and the will. The desired end was NOT power for the state--but freedom of the individual: freedom from tyranny of rulers, and freedom to love and value the self--not some imaginary shepherd speaking through the mouths of cunning charlatans.
Nietzsche takes nothing of his philosophy from Hitler (Nietzsche was months from dying when the baby Hitler was just out of the womb). So for you to pillory Nietzsche on the basis of anybody who may have appropriated or misappropriated his thought (people who ranged from Hitler to Jung to Hesse to Heidegger--and to thousands of others great and small) is to bathe your “argument” in absurdity. The vast majority of people influenced by Nietzsche are people of high moral standing and respect in the world! So much for that!
On the other hand…if we wish to see who Hitler was quoting we have it recorded in his own hand and in the witness and writings of numerous people. |
