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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Machine Man' and 'The Will to Power (notebooks)'

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7 ideas

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 1. God
The concept of 'God' represents a turning away from life, and a critique of life [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The concept 'God' represents a turning away from life, a critique of life, even a contempt for it.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §141)
     A reaction: Clearly Nietzsche has the same view of Platonism, and any view which aspires to 'higher' things, and views humans as being potentially divine (even Aristotle's dream of pure 'contemplation').
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world; however, he is not the figure of a man, and is the creator of the universe.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.72
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality
Those who have abandoned God cling that much more firmly to the faith in morality [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Those who have abandoned God cling that much more firmly to the faith in morality.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §018)
     A reaction: A nice remark. The interesting implication is that theists do NOT cling so strongly to morality (perhaps because they hope for mercy, or ultimate justice).
The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: One can find no other starting point or origin for justice except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common nature; for everything like this must have that starting point, if we are going to say anything at all about good and bad things.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: [in lost 'On Gods' bk 3] This appears to offer two starting points, in the mind of Zeus, and in nature, though since nature is presumed to be rational the two may run together. Is Zeus the embodiment, or the unconscious source, or the maker of decrees?
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy.
Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing! The "beyond" is absolutely necessary if faith in morality is to be maintained.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §253)
     A reaction: It strikes me that Nietzsche is self-evidently wrong. We must ask why people hang on to moral absolutes after they lose religious faith. Nietzsche seems to think it is a comfort blanket. But he admits the contractarian origins of morality.
Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53