Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 20:17:25 -0700
From: Steve Callihan <callihan-AT-callihan.seanet.com>
Subject: RE: Re. God, grammar and green rabbits


At 10:09 PM 8/3/98 -0400, Sean Saraq wrote:

>It's problematic. God dead as a doornail? Much as I would like to
>believe it, I don't see it. "Have I made myself understood? Dionysus
>versus the Crucified!" That Nietzsche returned again and again to this
>question suggests to me it is not settled (certainly not for those of us
>in the herd, anyhow!)
>
>I don't really have a fixed opinion on this - I am open to being
>convinced! - but it seems to me Nietzsche was very amenable to a sort of
>neo-paganism early in his career, and arguably at the end as well.It
>certainly would not be the witless hocus-pocus that is labelled "new
>age" today, but I'm not convinced the case is closed.
>
>ss

Well, it seems to me the question is whether Nietzsche proposes Dionysus as
a "god" in the same sense as the now "dead" monoto-theistic deity was
regarded. I don't think there can be any doubt of the answer: NO. That
doesn't mean that "Dionysus" cannot be a valuable and even life promoting
symbolism. (And I doubt further whether Nietzsche would want the slobbering
masses to get their grubby little fingers on D. I dare say that in order to
purify the place, all "believers" would have to be thrown out of the church.)

Now, by the "death" of God, Nietzsche it seems to me does not mean that you
have a God that once was that no longer is. Rather what he really means is
that  a belief in a god that never was has been rendered insupportable by
the very virtue such a belief originally sprouted: will to truth.

Best,

Steve C. 



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