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Ann Doshi's avatar

Many scholars of Nietzsche say what Nietzsche actually meant was, we have killed God and will reap the consequences.

It was a warning. Some scholars have suggested Nietzsche and his writings were co-opted by his sister and later the Nazis.

I have never read Nietzsche so probably should shut up!

I think you right when you say God was added in the 1950’s but I thought it was to the pledge of allegiance. And I have no idea when ‘In God We Trust’ was put on the money I know atheists tried to get it removed...

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Kevin Byrne's avatar

Your first sentence is Jordan Peterson's interpretation and he seems fond of Nietzsche. So he reads him closely. Second sentence is similar, I have heard that too. Obviously the "Ubermensch" of the Nazis was coopted from Nietzsche. You seem to have good ears for what I have also heard. For me, Nietzsche is too superiorly sarcastic. At least he argued that Kant was, in many ways, entirely obscure. But so were the rest of them --- Schopenhauer, Hegel etc. Germans are good chemists, engineers and soldiers. Then they turn around and pick "philosophers" who, like Kant, tell them that the world is "intrinsically unknowable" and they really only know their own "transcendent" minds, if and only if, they take the time to "peak around in there", which no one can do. Socrates proved that around 450 B.C.

Meanwhile, Germans were too incompetent to figure out why inflating their own money supply led to a hyperinflation [1923; wheel barrows full of money to buy a loaf of bread] and, then elected a goofy corporal with a twisted psyche to lead them out of their own mental darknesses. They were "odd" barbarians in Julius Caesar's time and, later, civilized barbarians --- in general of course. There are some "fun" and "good" Germans --- mostly at Oktoberfest, although some have told me that I am actually thinking about Danes, like Victor Borge!

You're right about the Pledge of Allegiance. The addition was in the updated Pledge of 1954. I don't know about American money. But I googled that too. "In God We Trust" is the American motto, replacing the Latin "E Pluribus Unum" [Out of Many, One] circa 1956.

Nice to hear from you. Thanks for correcting my goofy Canadian errors.

Kevin

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