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Examines Nietzsche's complex attitudes toward religion and his understanding of how particular religions and deities affect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual lives of their various proselytes and adherents.
"I have slain all gods-for the sake of morality!" - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Although often regarded as an atheist who did not take religion seriously, Nietzsche in fact thought deeply about the gods and how they functioned in the human psyche. The son of a Lutheran pastor who dropped theology in college after only one semester, Nietzsche was a profound religious thinker who devoted much of his writing to reevaluating the concept of god that prevailed in nineteenth-century Germany. As this volume demonstrates, Nietzsche sharply discerned between the positive and negative aspects of various gods, including the Christian God, the Jewish God (Yahweh), the Greek gods (especially Apollo and Dionysus), and the Buddha. The essays further touch upon Nietzsche's relationship to prominent religious thinkers of his time, as well as his influence on later religious thinkers, such as Martin Buber and Paul Tillich. Wide-ranging and diverse, Nietzsche and the Gods will be indispensable to our continuing understanding of Nietzsche's thought and to the broader study of philosophy and religion.
"This book offers an interesting variety of approaches to Nietzsche's relationships to various religious traditions." — James Winchester, Spelman College
"...replete with insights, demonstrating the richness, complexity, and continuing significance of Nietzsche's work. This volume is unique in gathering together analyses of the diverse ramifications of Nietzsche in regard to specific religious frameworks." — Rochelle L. Millen, Wittenberg University
Foreword:
John J. Stuhr
Preface:
Weaver Santaniello
Abbreviations
PART 1 Jewish God and Judaism
1. The Retroactive Confiscations of Judaism
Tim Murphy
2. Nietzsche and Buber: Eternal Recurrence of the same and the I-Thou relation
Edith Wyschogrod and Stephen L. Hood
PART 2 Greek Gods
3. Apollo and Dionysus: Nietzschean Expressions of the Sacred
Lawrence J. Hatab
4. Shining Apollo
John Sallis
5. Socrates as the Ugliest Murderer of God
Weaver Santaniello
PART 3 Buddhism
6. Nietzsche and Nirvana
Robert G. Morrison
7. Nietzsche and Zen Master Hakuin on the Roles of Emotion and Passion
Graham Parkes
PART 4 Christian God and Christianity
8. Nietzsche's Changing Relation to Christianity: Nietzsche as Christian, Atheist, and Antichrist
Thomas H. Brobjer
9. Life in the Shadow of Christ: Nietzsche on Pistis versus Gnosis
Jerry S. Clegg
10. The Escape from God
Paul Tillich
PART 5 Islam
11. Nietzsche, God, and Doomsday: The Consequences of Atheism
Henry Bayman
Select Bibliography
Contributors
Index