Nietzsche and atheism.

[FONT=Verdana]These quotes, taken from On the Genealogy of Morals, present a very interested question for us anti-theists and atheists. Basically, Nietzsche is directing the general critique of atheism at itself. His conclusion is that atheism suffers from the same fundamental problem as religion - faith in truth. The difference is that theists qualify truth as a metaphysical, supernatural, god, while atheists qualify it as that which is determined through the scientific method.

Read below, and discuss.

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[FONT=Verdana][FONT=Garamond]These people who say no today, these outsiders, these people who are determined on one point, their demand for intellectual probity, these hard, strong, abstemious, heroic spirits, who constitute the honour of our age, all these pale atheists, anti-Christians, immoralists, nihilists, these sceptics, ephectics, hectics of the spirit (collectively they are all hectic in some sense or other), the last idealists of knowledge, the only ones in whom intellectual conscience lives and takes on human form nowadays— they really do believe that they are as free as possible from the ascetic ideal, these “free, very free spirits,” and yet I am revealing to them what they cannot see for themselves—for they are standing too close to themselves—this ascetic ideal is also their very own ideal. They themselves represent it today. Perhaps they are the only ones who do. They themselves are its most spiritual offspring, the furthest advanced of its troops and its crowd of scouts, its most awkward, most delicate, most incomprehensibly seductive form. If I am any kind of solver of puzzles, then I want to be that with this statement! . . . They are not free spirits—not by any stretch—for they still believe in the truth.[/FONT][/FONT]

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[FONT=Garamond]Our faith in science rests on something which is still a metaphysical belief—even we knowledgeable people of today, we godless and anti-metaphysical people—we, too, still take our fire from that blaze kindled by a thousand years of old belief, that faith in Christianity, which was also Plato’s belief, that God is the truth, that the truth is divine. . . . But how can we do that, if this very claim is constantly getting more and more difficult to believe, if nothing reveals itself as divine any more, unless it’s error, blindness, lies—if even God manifests himself as our longest lasting lie?”[/FONT]

[FONT=Garamond]People should examine the oldest and the most recent philosophers on this question. They all lack an awareness of the problem of the extent to which the will to truth itself first needs some justification—here is a hole in every philosophy. How does that come about? It’s because the ascetic ideal up to this point has been master of all philosophies, because truth has been established as being, as god, as the highest authority itself, because truth was not allowed to be problematic. Do you understand this “allowed”?—From the moment when the belief in the god of the ascetic ideal is denied, there is also a new problem: the problem of the value of truth.—The will to truth requires a critique—let us identify our own work with that requirement—for once to place in question, as an experiment, the value of truth.[/FONT]

- August

in answer to nietzche's quotes. yes we have faith in science and truth but it is a different faith and we need another word for it cuz it's not faith at all, we are willing to reject our beliefs upon discovery of new evidence, we have a constantly evolving belief system based on the world we perceive, NOT superstition and doctrine.

I believe he is speaking more of faith in a system of thought - the system of the scientific method.

It's interesting that the secular apology for religion, and even the religious defense of itself, uses Nietzche as their intellectual foundation, if his work can even be called that. Nietzche simply concedes religion's main argument, which is that God and the Truth are one, just as God, and the Good are one, and the by basing those ideals on a diety, one can "ground" them objectively. He, like the religious, fail to see that a Diety offers no objective standard for truth,or morality, because by being a conscious intentional entity, God is by definition an arbitrator whose "truthiness" and moral standards are entirely subjective to his will. So far as our scientists know, the fundamental constants of the universe do not change, and if these laws were to change just a fraction then everything would be destroyed, but God is reported to have suspended these laws on several occasions throughout history and throughout anthropology. God may order "do no murder" be carved into stone, and then order his chosen people to commit genocide. It's entirely arbitrary, and not even attempt at objectively grounding standards of truth and goodness.