Favourite Atheist Philosopher/Writer

[JimC]

You can't beat Nietzsche on Christian morality.

As he castigates them, a certain definite tinge of fascism appears...

[Sean Hayden]

Oh, it's far from pretty. But if I could only have as a favorite philosopher or writer those who never get it wrong or go off the deep end, then I'd have no favorites at all.

[Hermit]

You can't beat Nietzsche on Christian morality.

As he castigates them, a certain definite tinge of fascism appears...

Definite tinge of fascism? Can you actually cite an example or are you just repeating crap you heard others say or write?

[JimC]

Only in a very general sense, I suppose. The qualities he favoured tended to be macho - man and superman, not superwoman...

I was careful not to say that he was a fascist, simply that the bits and pieces of his writings that I have read have a flavour of some of the posturing bravado of the European right of his day...

[laklak]

Old white German dude. Of fucking course he was a Nazi. We need to BAN him! Burn his fucking books! Tear down his statues! Rename any street, building, or whatever named after him! Expunge his racist old white ass from history! Anyone reading Nietzsche should immediately be sent to the re-education camps and forced to color pictures of oppressed black people and play with non-gender specific puppies until they learn to behave properly. Fuck it, kill ALL the old white dudes. Just fucking erase them.

[Hermit]

Only in a very general sense, I suppose. The qualities he favoured tended to be macho - man and superman, not superwoman...

You clearly have either not read any of his writings, or you have not understood a word of it. What fascists conceptualised as Übermensch has not even a remote semblance to what Nietzsche meant with it. The Nazis conceptualised the word in genetic, racist terms, the philosopher in terms of anti-Christianity. In fact, Nietzsche explicitly opposed both antisemitism and nationalism, and especially German nationalism. He insisted that he was a pure-blooded Pole, that anything good about Germany is due to the Poles and that if he had his way he'd have all antisemites shot.

I don't expect you to read Also sprach Zarathustra or any of its poor translations, but to save you from further embarrassing yourself on the topic I suggest you read the Wikipedia's shortish articles titled Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Übermensch.

I was careful not to say that he was a fascist, simply that the bits and pieces of his writings that I have read have a flavour of some of the posturing bravado of the European right of his day...

Considering that Mussolini was 17 years old and the founding of the first fascist party lay 15 years in the future when Nietzsche died in 1900, there may not have been any of the posturing bravado of the European right of his day. Not unless you classify sabre rattling royalists as such.

[pErvinalia]

I spake Thus Spake Zarathustra once...

[Sean Hayden]

Yeah Jim, ya fucking dumbass.

[Jason]

I spake Thus Spake Zarathustra once...

That's like... a zen koan.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah Jim, ya fucking dumbass.

[Sean Hayden]

[Brian Peacock]

Dennet is good, but I've gone right off Harris since he lost his pretty boy looks and went all naturalistic fallacy.

[Sean Hayden]

I've never enjoyed Harris. I read The Moral Landscape and hated it. I think I might have mentioned that here at the time. Dennett's universal acid is good stuff.

[Brian Peacock]

Twas The Moral Landscape which broke Harris for me too. He surged to the top of the mountain but came off on the first corner of the descent.

[JimC]

I've never enjoyed Harris. I read The Moral Landscape and hated it. I think I might have mentioned that here at the time. Dennett's universal acid is good stuff.

The Moral Landscape seemed to be a very confused book, full of contradictions...