22729
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The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus]
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Full Idea:
Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena.
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From:
report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20
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A reaction:
The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul).
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14832
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The Sermon on the Mount is vanity - praying to one part of oneself, and demonising the rest [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
This shattering of oneself, this scorn of one's own nature, is actually a high degree of vanity. The whole morality of the Sermon on the Mount belongs here; in ascetic morality man prays to one part of himself as a god, and has to diabolify the rest.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 137)
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A reaction:
This seems to be the core of Nietzsche's objection to Christian teaching - that it doesn't provide a direction of life for the whole human being. The modern rejection of religions agrees with Nietzsche, especially in disputes over the place of sex.
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14837
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Christ seems warm hearted, and suppressed intellect in favour of the intellectually weak [Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
Christ, whom we like to imagine as having the warmest of hearts, furthered men's stupidity, took the side of the intellectually weak, and kept the greatest intellect from being produced: and this was consistent.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235)
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A reaction:
Thomas Aquinas was a stupendous intellect. The surest way to be swept forward on a wave of popularity is to find some reason why the uneducated are superior to the educated.
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