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Friedrich Nietzsche

2007-04-05T07:28:43Z

Stills:

[[Image:nietzsche2.jpg|right|250px|thumb]]
'''Friedrich Nietzsche''' (1844-1900) was a [[Germany|German]] [[atheism|atheist]] philosopher whose work set a foundation the [[existentialism|existentialist]] movement of the 1900's.<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ Stanford's Biography on Nietzsche]</ref> Nietzsche was critical of religion in general, though especially Christianity, which he described as the "religion of pity."<ref>[http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Friedrich_Nietzsche/ Nietzsche Quotations]</ref> Nietzsche is famous for his statement that “God is dead.” Nietzsche instead urged a new kind of ethical development that would go beyond "Good" and "Evil." Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse in 1889, and spent the last ten years of his life unable to care for himself. During this time, his sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche took over his affairs, and worked to falsify and re-edit his writings in order to support her virulent Anti-Semitism (a view which Nietzsche consistently abhorred, and often mocked, during his lifetime). It was her distorted version of culled and mis-quoted statements which later provided an intellectual fig-leaf for the Nazi regime.

The Uebermensch (overhuman, superhuman) was a literary device used in his magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Overman was to be a new kind of being which would overcome resentment and affirm the Eternal Recurrence of the same

The statement "God is dead" is often taken out of context. Originally, it appeared in Nietzsche's "The Gay Science." The story was of a mad man entering a church in day light, a lantern held aloft in his hand, telling everyone that he was looking for God. They laughed at him asking if God was lost. He told them that he was looking because "God is Dead" and every church his tomb. The man was upset, going on about how the death of God meant the lose of all meaning, as though some one had wiped away the horizon and taken the back drop away from existence.

Nietzsche's father Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a [[Lutheran]] pastor.

In his first Papal Encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Charity/Love) [[Pope Benedict XVI]] quotes from Nietzche's ''Beyond Good and Evil'', taking very seriously Nietzsche's claim that the Church has poisoned ''eros'' (love) with dogma, and responding to it.

==References==
*[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ Entry on Nietzsche from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
*[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/ Entry on Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
*[https://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/index.html Nietzsche Chronicle]
*[http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/452786.html Nietzsche: The Problem of Autumn]
*[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=816224 "The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology"]
* [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html#_ftnref1 ''Deus Caritas Est'', from the Vatican website]
Thus Spake Zarasustra, Trans. R.J. Hollingdale
Thus Spake Zarasustra, Trans. Walter Kaufmann
The Gay Science, Trans. Walter Kaufmann

Adolf Hitler

2007-03-30T08:35:56Z

Stills:

'''Adolf Hitler''' was born April 20, 1889 in Branau Am Inn, Austria. He died April 30, 1945. His dictatorial rule of [[Germany]], which led to the deaths of millions before and during World War II, has placed him among history's most hated villains.

"Adolf Hitler or the incarnation of absolute evil; this is how future generations will remember the all-powerful Fuehrer of the criminal Third Reich. Compared with him, his peers [[Mussolini]] and [[Franco]] were novices. Under his hypnotic gaze, humanity crossed a threshold from which one could see the abyss. "Before Hitler, we thought we had sounded the depths of human nature," argues Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler." "He showed how much lower we could go, and that's what was so horrifying. It gets us wondering not just at the depths he showed us but whether there is worse to come. The power of Hitler was to confound the modernist notion that judgments about good and evil were little more than matters of taste, reflections of social class and power and status. Although some modern scholars drive past the notion of evil and instead explain Hitler's conduct as a reflection of his childhood and self-esteem issues, for most survivors of the 20th century he is confirmation of our instinctive sense that evil does exist. It moves among us; it leads us astray and deploys powerful, subtle weapons against even the sturdiest souls." [http://ronrosenbaum.pajamasmedia.com/2006/08/23/about_this_blogger.php]

[[Elie Wiesel]] wrote famously, and most eloquently about Hitler in 1998: "At the same time that he terrorized his adversaries, he knew how to please, impress and charm the very interlocutors from whom he wanted support. Diplomats and journalists insist as much on his charm as they do on his temper tantrums. The savior admired by his own as he dragged them into his madness, the Satan and exterminating angel feared and hated by all others, Hitler led his people to a shameful defeat without precedent. That his political and strategic ambitions have created a dividing line in the history of this turbulent and tormented century is undeniable: there is a before and an after. By the breadth of his crimes, which have attained a quasi-ontological dimension, he surpasses all his predecessors: as a result of Hitler, man is defined by what makes him inhuman. With Hitler at the head of a gigantic laboratory, life itself seems to have changed.

How did this Austrian without title or position manage to get himself elected head of a German nation renowned for its civilizing mission? How to explain the success of his cheap demagogy in the heart of a people so proud of having inherited the genius of a Wolfgang von Goethe and an Immanuel Kant?

Was there no resistance to his disastrous projects? There was. But it was too feeble, too weak and too late to succeed. German society had rallied behind him: the judicial, the educational, the industrial and the economic establishments gave him their support. Few politicians of this century have aroused, in their lifetime, such love and so much hate; few have inspired so much historical and psychological research after their death. Even today, works on his enigmatic personality and his cursed career are best sellers everywhere. Some are good, others are less good, but all seem to respond to an authentic curiosity on the part of a public haunted by memory and the desire to understand.

We think we know everything about the nefarious forces that shaped his destiny: his unhappy childhood, his frustrated adolescence; his artistic disappointments; his wound received on the front during World War I; his taste for spectacle, his constant disdain for social and military aristocracies; his relationship with [[Eva Braun]], who adored him; the cult of the very death he feared; his lack of scruples with regard to his former comrades of the SA, whom he had assassinated in 1934; his endless hatred of [[Jews]], whose survival enraged him — each and every phase of his official and private life has found its chroniclers, its biographers.

And yet. There are, in all these givens, elements that escape us. How did this unstable paranoid find it within himself to impose gigantic hope as an immutable ideal that motivated his nation almost until the end? Would he have come to power if Germany were not going through endless economic crises, or if the winners in 1918 had not imposed on it conditions that represented a national humiliation against which the German patriotic fiber could only revolt? ''We would be wrong to forget: Hitler came to power in January 1933 by the most legitimate means. His Nationalist Socialist Party won a majority in the parliamentary elections.'' The aging [[Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg]] had no choice but to allow him, at age 43, to form the new government, marking the end of the Weimar Republic. And the beginning of the Third Reich, which, according to Hitler, would last 1,000 years.

From that moment on, events cascaded. The burning of the [[Reichstag]] came only a little before the openings of the first concentration camps, established for members of the opposition. Fear descended on the country and squeezed it in a vise. Great writers, musicians and painters went into exile to France and the U.S. Jews with foresight emigrated toward Palestine. The air of Hitler's Germany was becoming more and more suffocating. Those who preferred to wait, thinking that the Nazi regime would not last, could not last, would regret it later, when it was too late.

The fact is that Hitler was beloved by his people — not the military, at least not in the beginning, but by the average Germans who pledged to him an affection, a tenderness and a fidelity that bordered on the irrational. It was idolatry on a national scale. One had to see the crowds who acclaimed him. And the women who were attracted to him. And the young who in his presence went into ecstasy. Did they not see the hateful mask that covered his face? Did they not divine the catastrophe he bore within himself?"[http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hitler.html]

==Birth and pre political life==

He was born in 1889 in [[Austria]]. His mother was his father's niece, and the incestuous relationship may have impacted development of Hitler's psychopathic nature. Later on Hitler became involved with his own niece, and this appears to have been a pattern in Hitler's family extending back several generations and explains Hitler's attitudes about intermarriage.

After leaving home he worked as an artisan painter. Hitler did not do particularly well in school, leaving formal education in 1905. Unable to settle to a regular job, he drifted. He wished to become an artist but was rejected from the Academy in Vienna. He immigrated to [[Germany]] and served as an enlisted soldier in the Imperial Bavarian Army in [[World War I]], and gained the rank of corporal. He won several awards for bravery, including the Iron Cross First Class.

==The Beginning Of His Political Life==

After the war ended, Hitler's future seemed uncertain. There was much discontent among demobilized veterans because of the lack of employment. The German military had felt it had not been defeated, indeed the German Army stood on foreign soil when the Armistice was signed November 11, 1918 and not a square inch of German soul had been occupied. The Army felt they had done their job, and the nation had been "stabbed in the back" by a gang of traitors who sought to lay hands on the Fatherland. The "myth" that Germany had been defeated was the "big lie" Hitler spoke of as repeating often enough people will begin to believe it.

Many returning Army units remained intact, despite no longer directly under command of the German Army because of limitations set upon it by the Treaty of Versailles. The situation was highly politicized, and it appears Hitler was sent to spy originally upon a small splinter group called National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) were he found only a shell of an organization, but a willing audience to hear him talk. By 1921 he became leader of the group. With terrible economic conditions and rapid inflation, support for Hitler’s party grew. By 1923, the Nazi’s had 56,000 members and many more supporters.

==Beer Hall Putsch==
Germany in 1923 was marked by social and political unrest caused by hyperinflation. In this time Hitler was able convince [[Erich Ludendorff]], an accomplished general and leader of the German forces in the first World War, to join him in a coup d'etat (''Putsch'' in German). When Hitler learned that the nationalist Prime Minister of Bavaria was giving a speech to 3000 officials in one of Munich's biggest beer halls, he ordered his paratroopers to surround the building. Hitler went into building and took the prime minister hostage, in an attempt to convince him to join Hitler's coup against Berlin, and to become member in his new administration. The Bavarian prime minister agreed under pressure, but informed later that night the nation via radio, that he did not support Hitler.

The next morning, 9 November 1923, Hitler and Ludendorff were marching with approximately 2000 partly armed supporters through Munich in a show of strength. They were stopped by Bavarian armed and police forces. In the ensuing fight at least 14 Nazi supporters, three police men, were killed, and hundreds wounded. Ludendorff handed himself over to the authorities, while Hitler fled soon after the fighting began. Hitler was arrested a few days later at a friends house, were had been in hiding since the failed coup. Ludendorff was acquitted from all charges, while Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison. In Landsberg prison Hitler wrote his book ''[[Mein Kampf]]''. He was already released in 1924, after one year of prison.<ref>http://history1900s.about.com/cs/thirdreich/a/beerhallputsch_2.htm</ref><ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/putsch2.htm</ref>

==Path to Power==
In the early 1930 Germany was in a permanent political and constitutional crisis. This was caused by rising unemployment during the great depression, combined with frustration about the perceived injustice imposed on Germany by the Versailles treaty, street violence between various pro and anti-democratic militias, and an inability of the democratic parties to cooperate. This resulted in a rise of both ends of the political spectrum; [[communists]] on one side and [[Nazi| national socialist]] on the other. The national socialist were also simply known as ''Hitler movement''.

In the first election of 1932 communists and national socialist together won the majority of seats in the Reichstag. This means that the anti-democratic forces outnumbered the democratic forces. In a second election that year, the national socialists lost ground, but the democratic forces were still unable to form a functioning government. After a series of minority cabinets former Chancellor van Papen convinced President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to Chancellor in a coalition government with the national conservative party. Van Papen expected the nation would recognize Hitler to be a fraud within a few months in government. The national socialist celebrated the ''Machtergreifung'' (''seizure of power'' in German) on January 30, 1933, with massive marches through Berlin. Two days later new elections for parliament were announced for March.[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/named.htm]

== Consolidation of Power ==
In the lead up to the 1933 election oppression and harassment of political opponents increased. On February 27, 1933, six day before the Reichstag election, the Dutch National and communist Marinus van der Lubbe was caught setting the Reichstag on fire. While the exact events surrounding this event are still contended, it was blamed on a communist conspiracy. President Hindenburg signed the Reichtag Fire decree the next day, which increased Hitlers powers and gave him the opportunity to arrest political opponents, among them elected members of parliament.[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm] [http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/reichstagsbrand/index.html]

In the election the national socialist failed to win a majority, but the newly formed Reichstag voted in favor of an Enabling Act, giving the national socialist government the power to enact new laws without interference from parliament or constitution. In the summer of 1933 the Nazi government declared first the communist and social democratic party illegal, briefly afterwards all other parties. At the end of the year the Reichstag cast officially into law that Germany was a one-party-state.

After all political opponents had been neutralised and in order to gain support from the German military, Hitler turned his attention to a key group which had catapulted the Nazi's into power--the stormtroopers (SA) under Ernst Roehm. The German military viewed an armed and trained paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party as a challenge to their power. It was a well known within the Nazi establishment that Roehm was gay, and it was now used against him to discredit him. Heinrich Himmler of the SS, Hitler's personal body guards at the time, was tasked with reigning the SA in. In the so-called ''Night of Long Knives'' the entire top of the SA was executed. This marked the eclipse of the SA as within the Nazi Party, and the rise of the SS as the dominant force. Although hestitant at first, Hitler agreed to have Ernst Roehm executed, a friend and associate since their time in Landsberg prison.[http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/nsdap/Rohm.html] [http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/roehm/index.html]

After President Hindenburgs death in 1934, Hitler received also all presidential powers and was declared ''Führer und Reichskanzler'' (leader and chancellor). This was approved in August 1934 by 84% of the votes in a nationwide plebiscite.

=="Final Solution" / Holocaust==

'''The Night of Broken Glass:'''

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Europe was implemented by a government of a modern Western state to exterminate people of Jewish ancestry throughout Germany and all its occupied territories. Approximately six million people of all ages--men, women and children, were systematically murdered under a policy directed by Adolf Hitler. Other groups of "undesirables" and "asocials" were also targeted and killed.[http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm]

November 9, 1938, an event occurred which revealed the true nature of Hitler's regime to the world and also marked the beginning of deadly radicalization of Nazi policy concerning the Jews. For some months so-called moderate anti-Semites within the Nazi hierarchy had been losing ground to those favoring extreme measures such as the immediate removal of Jews from Germany. The removal of the first big group of Jews in late October 1938 sparked a chain of events resulting in the ''Night of Broken Glass'', a massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout Greater Germany.

On October 27, about 17,000 Jews of Polish origin, including over 2,000 children, were abruptly expelled from Germany on orders of Reinhard Heydrich, second-in-command of the SS. The Grynszpan family from the city of Hanover were among the Jews forcibly transported in railroad cars then dumped at the Polish border as unwanted persons. Polish border authorities at first denied them permission to enter. The Jews thus ended up in a kind of no-man's-land between the German and Polish borders. The Grynszpan mention is not important on the face, but their 17-year-old son Herschel does. He had gone to Paris for safekeeping at the age of 15 to stay with his uncle who worked there as a tailor. Up hearing about his families plight, he became increasingly depressed and enraged. Driven half-mad with sorrow and anger over all that was happening, Herschel decided to commit a radical act of violence to draw the world's attention to the plight of the Jews. On Monday morning, November 7, he walked into a Paris gun shop and purchased a 6.35-caliber revolver along with a box of 25 bullets. When the shop owner asked why he wanted the gun, Herschel answered that he sometimes carried large amounts of money for his father and needed the protection.

==July 20, 1944==
On July 20, 1944, officers of the German Wehrmacht succeeded in planting a bomb in Hitler's secret headquarters in East Prussia which exploded, killing three and injuring Hitler.

In the aftermath and up until the final days of the War approximately 5,000 people, mostly German officers, were executed for treason, disloyalty, or suspected of not offering fanatical resistance to fight to the end.

==Marriage==
He married [[Eva Braun]], on 29 April 1945 in Berlin.

==Death==
Hitler apparently committed suicide in an air-raid shelter in Berlin on April 30, 1945, after the Allied forces had invaded Germany, and as the Russian Army was entering Berlin. [http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/adolfhitler.html]

[[Category:Political Biographies]]

==Religion==
My Feeling as a christian points me to my lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, summed men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In Boundless love as a christian and as a man i read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood ofvipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish Posion...as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

--Adolph Hitler, 12 April 1922
Taken from Norman H. Baynes ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922 - Agust 1939. Vol. 1 of 2 oo 19-20. Oxford University press, 1942.

==References==
<references/>

==Sources==
*[http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.htmlA Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler, His Life and Legend], Walter C. Langer, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D.C.
Norman H. Baynes ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922 - Agust 1939. Vol. 1 of 2 oo 19-20. Oxford University press, 1942.

Friedrich Nietzsche

2007-03-30T08:28:01Z

Stills:

'''Friedrich Nietzsche''' (1844-1900) was a [[Germany|German]] [[atheism|atheist]] philosopher whose work set a foundation the [[existentialism|existentialist]] movement of the 1900's.<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ Stanford's Biography on Nietzsche]</ref> Nietzsche was critical of religion in general, though especially Christianity, which he described as the "religion of pity."<ref>[http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Friedrich_Nietzsche/ Nietzsche Quotations]</ref> Nietzsche is famous for his statement that “God is dead.” Nietzsche instead urged a new kind of ethical development that would go beyond "Good" and "Evil." Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse in 1889, and spent the last ten years of his life unable to care for himself. During this time, his sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche took over his affairs, and worked to falsify and re-edit his writings in order to support her virulent Anti-Semitism (a view which Nietzsche consistently abhorred, and often mocked, during his lifetime). It was her distorted version of culled and mis-quoted statements which later provided an intellectual fig-leaf for the Nazi regime.

The Uebermensch (overman, superman) was a literary device used in his magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Overman was to be a new kind of being which would overcome resentment and affirm the Eternal Recurrence of the same

The statement "God is dead" is often taken out of context. Originally, it appeared in Nietzsche's "The Gay Science." The story was of a mad man entering a church in day light, a lantern held aloft in his hand, telling everyone that he was looking for God. They laughed at him asking if God was lost. He told them that he was looking because "God is Dead" and every church his tomb. The man was upset, going on about how the death of God meant the lose of all meaning, as though some one had wiped away the horizon and taken the back drop away from existence.

Nietzsche's father Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a [[Lutheran]] pastor.

In his first Papal Encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Charity/Love) [[Pope Benedict XVI]] quotes from Nietzche's ''Beyond Good and Evil'', taking very seriously Nietzsche's claim that the Church has poisoned ''eros'' (love) with dogma, and responding to it.

==References==
*[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ Entry on Nietzsche from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
*[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/ Entry on Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
*[https://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/index.html Nietzsche Chronicle]
*[http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/452786.html Nietzsche: The Problem of Autumn]
*[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=816224 "The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology"]
* [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html#_ftnref1 ''Deus Caritas Est'', from the Vatican website]
Thus Spake Zarasustra, Trans. R.J. Hollingdale
Thus Spake Zarasustra, Trans. Walter Kaufmann
The Gay Science, Trans. Walter Kaufmann

Talk:Morality

2007-03-30T08:19:55Z

Stills: New page: I would truly like to see someone that knows what it means saying that "A man marrying another man is a Moral action." There is no positive morality that would apply here, only immorality...

I would truly like to see someone that knows what it means saying that "A man marrying another man is a Moral action." There is no positive morality that would apply here, only immorality and amorality. The same goes for heterosexual marriages. The only exception i can think of is the utilitarian principal, where that which brings the most happiness (if the two guys want to marry and would be happy doing so they not only ought, but should and must preform said action). That said, this is the worst overview of morality I've ever seen. --[[User:Stills|Stills]] 04:19, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Morality

2007-03-30T08:16:52Z

Stills:

Morality is a system of values placed upon certain actions and opinions. An example would be that some people think that the marriage of a man to another man is moral based on the principles of utilitarianism. However, others think that such a thing is immoral. Some people believe that marriage of any sort is amoral(without morality). Therefore, these people would have differing moral codes.

Some biologists argue that morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution. They see social behaviors displayed by some primates as the precursors of human morality. They cite examples such as rhesus monkeys which, when given a chance to get food by pulling a chain that delivers a shock to another monkey, have been known to starve themselves for a considerable time.<ref> "Primates and Philosophers" by Frans de Waal</ref>

Dr Frans de Waal argues that primates are social animals, and must constrain their behavior in order to live in a group. He maintains that these constraints have shaped behaviors from which human morality has emerged. He does not assert that chimpanzees are moral, but argues that emotional bases that can be observed among primates are the foundation for the evolution of human morality.

He points to the display of both empathy and self-awareness among apes, and asserts that human morality begins with a similar concern for others and the understanding of social rules about the treatment of others. <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=84f902c89c5a9173&ex=1332043200&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink]</ref>

== References ==
<references/>

Morality

2007-03-30T08:10:07Z

Stills:

Morality is a system of values placed upon certain actions and opinions. An example would be that some people think that the marriage of a man to another man is moral. However, others think that such a thing is immoral. Some people believe that marriage of any sort is amoral(without morality). Therefore, these people would have differing moral codes.

Some biologists argue that morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution. They see social behaviors displayed by some primates as the precursors of human morality. They cite examples such as rhesus monkeys which, when given a chance to get food by pulling a chain that delivers a shock to another monkey, have been known to starve themselves for a considerable time.<ref> "Primates and Philosophers" by Frans de Waal</ref>

Dr Frans de Waal argues that primates are social animals, and must constrain their behavior in order to live in a group. He maintains that these constraints have shaped behaviors from which human morality has emerged. He does not assert that chimpanzees are moral, but argues that emotional bases that can be observed among primates are the foundation for the evolution of human morality.

He points to the display of both empathy and self-awareness among apes, and asserts that human morality begins with a similar concern for others and the understanding of social rules about the treatment of others. <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=84f902c89c5a9173&ex=1332043200&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink]</ref>

== References ==
<references/>

User:Stills

2007-03-13T03:08:53Z

Stills:

Stills is the online handle of a published philosopher and atheist.

He does not represent every atheist.

Atheism

2007-03-13T02:55:55Z

Stills:

Atheism is disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a [[God|god]] or gods, or any supernatural entity.

Some Atheists are tied with [[Secular Humanism]]. Popularly-known Atheists include [[Stephen Hawking]], [[Albert Einstein]], [[Stephen Jay Gould]], [[Carl Sagan]], [[Richard Dawkins]], [[William Borden]] and [[Sam Harris]].

== Atheist morality ==

Many atheists base their [[moral code]] upon [[emotion]], [[experience]] and empirically derived ethics, such as those promoted by secular humanism. Atheists hold that neither the [[Bible]], nor the [[Koran]], nor the [[Torah]], nor any religious text can be our only source of morality. This claim is made as all religious texts contain, and often ascribe to God, extremely immoral acts such as the Israelites driving out heathen nations from Canaan (i.e. [[ethnic cleansing]]), the stoning of homosexuals and adulterers to death, and the institution of slavery.

Atheists often subscribe to the secular humanist idea that it is far more ethical to do what is right because you believe that it is right, rather than because you fear divine punishment or desire divine reward. One example is illustrated in the following quote from [[Albert Einstein]]:

:“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death”.

A modern example is the absurdity with which we view Islamic suicide bombers acting on a desire for 72 virgins in the afterlife. Atheism condemns this desire, along with other religious desires for exclusive reward (and the punishment of others) such as are found in all religious texts.

== Origins ==

It is difficult to trace the origins of atheism as a result of the incomplete historic record. It is known that ancient Greece produced a theory of materialism as early as the 5th century BCE. The materialist world view was essentially mathematical and had no room for gods{{fact}}.

== The Problem of Evil==

A central argument against religious belief in all powerful entities ('gods') is the problem of evil. First identified by the philosopher and materialist Epicurus (341-270 BCE), this problem points out the difficulty created by the mere existence of evil:

:Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
:Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent.
:Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
:Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

A number of responses to this logical paradox have been put forth including those which assert human ignorance as the culprit, the concept of free will and the specific writings in some faiths which discuss the co-existence of good and evil (such as the book of Job in the Christian and Jewish faiths).[http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-log.htm]

== Atheism and Agnosticism ==

Atheism and agnosticism are logically distinct concepts. Whilst atheist reject the existence of a god or gods, agnostics do not do so. [[Richard Dawkins]] has contrasted the two positions as follows:

:“There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can’t prove that there aren’t any, so shouldn’t we be agnostic with respect to fairies?”.

==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Religion]]

Adolf Hitler

2007-03-13T02:40:42Z

Stills:

[[Image:Adolf_hitler.gif|thumb|right|200px|Adolf Hitler]]
'''Adolf Hitler''' was a [[Germany|German]] dictator, born in [[Austria]] (which he later attempted to unify with Germany), in the 1930s and 1940s.

Hitler was a great orator who made the people of Germany believe that he could lead them out of their economic problems. He also inspired a strong sense of nationalism and racism in the German people. He was the dictator of Germany, and brought an end to the Weimar Republic. He led Germany into [[World War II]], and was responsible for the deaths of millions of [[Jew]]s, many disabled persons and [[homosexual]]s, along with many other groups, through the so-called "final solution".

His antisemitism was often justified because of the concept of "Christian Love."
[[Category:Biographies]]

Friedrich Nietzsche

2007-03-13T02:36:19Z

Stills:

'''Friedrich Nietzsche''' (1844-1900) was a [[Germany|German]] [[atheism|atheist]] philosopher whose work set a foundation the [[existentialism]] movement of the 1900's.<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ Stanford's Biography on Nietzsche]</ref> Nietzsche was critical of religion in general, though especially Christianity, which he described as the "religion of pity."<ref>[http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Friedrich_Nietzsche/ Nietzsche Quotations]</ref> Nietzsche is famous for his statement that “God is dead.” Nietzsche criticized Western democracy, preferring instead rule by elitist groups who could become almost superhuman through effort and courage. Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse (probably brought on by syphilis) in 1889, and spent the last ten years of his life unable to care for himself. His sister, an anti-Semite and Nazi supporter, began editing many of his works during this time, simply excising portions that did not fit with Nazi ideology. Hitler began promoting a seriously altered version of Nietzsche's social philosophy after [[World War I]] based largely on these changes, seeking to encourage fascist self-esteem in the German people. Nietzsche himself was not an anti-Semite, however, and would have criticized fascism and Nazi Germany just as strongly as Western democracy.

The statement "God is dead" is often taken out of context. Originally, it appeared in Nietzsche's "The Gay Science." The story was of a mad man entering a church in day light, a lantern held aloft in his hand, telling everyone that he was looking for God. They laughed at him asking if God was lost. He told them that he was looking because "God is Dead" and every church his tomb. The man was upset, going on about how the death of God meant the lose of all meaning, as though some one had wiped away the horizon and taken the back drop away from existence.

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Gravitation

2007-03-13T02:20:34Z

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'''The Theory of Gravitation''' is a phenomenon, unexplained by science, which attracts all objects within the [[universe]] to each other <ref>New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition</ref>. In past physics it has been explained by [[Albert Einstein| Albert Einstein's]] [[general theory of relativity]]. Before general relativity, gravitation was described by [[Issac Newton | Issac Newton's]] [[law of universal gravitation]], which is still useful in most situations. Both of these have more recently been shown to be incongruent with current revelation in quantum theory.

One must take into account that gravity is only a theory. It is far more likely, in light of recent scientific developments from leading national laboratories ([[Fermi National Laboratory]] for example) that gravity is actually a result of supernatural forces pulling human beings closer to hell.

Gravitation is responsible for the formation of the [[earth]] and [[sun]], the [[stars]] and the [[planets]].

== References ==
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Gravity is a "scientific" word meaning "Bring you closer to hell". The only reason we haven't gotten pulled into the fiery pits of hell is that there is dirt covering hell. Jesus wants us to repent and honor the dirt that keeps Satan from pulling us in.