Nietzsche's Controversial Claims

A few days ago, we started focusing on various selections from a philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche made many different controversial claims and seemed to have logical answers (or so he thought) as to why he believed in those claims. Among his claims that “God is dead” and “Sum, ergo cogito; cogito, ergo sum” (Still I live, still I think; I must still live, for I must still think”), the reasoning for these claims are not explicitly in the statements.

For example, in his claim that God is dead, he is referring to the fact that creators in this world only exist because of the growth in the belief in them from generation to generation. When that belief halts or changes into the belief of something or someone else, then that particular “God” as creator will cease to exist because the powerful force driving his image, solely the belief, is gone. There is nothing else pertinent to a creator’s existence except for the belief in him/her, and any slight change in that will yield a metaphorical “death” of one God to the “birth” of another.

His second claim is much less controversial than the first. Latin for “Still I live, still I think; I must still live, for I must still think”, this saying has been around for centuries. Nietzsche expressed this in response to his plans for the New Year. He believed that you should become who you are, focusing on your particular strengths, errors, and aims. Nietzsche also believed in “amor fati”, which directly translates into the “love of fate”. He believed that everything happened for a reason and that any who lives in fear of what might happen can never truly say that they have lived at all. Those who live dangerously will have the greatest enjoyment from their existence, and I can’t help but feel like his train of thought is completely in tuned with hedonistic forms of thought.