Ubermensch even though they were already in it. Nietzsche does not
prescribe an ideal world; there is no Platonic Philosopher King, no invisible
power of markets, no naturally arising morality within people as part of
nature, no objective for social advancement. Only stark unblinking
temporalized reality. He dares people to see the truth, although he knows
that most people will be incapable of this as they will be unable to shed their
imbedded slave mentalities, and their timidity bred of fear.
Together with the Danish Soren Kierkegaard, he is considered to be a
founder of the school of philosophy known as existentialism. The online
Oxford Dictionaries defines existentialism as “a philosophical theory or
approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free
and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of
the will.” Sounds like a view espoused by most atheists I know, if they have
the bravery to take it to its logical conclusion, so please continue reading.
The case study
When I was in law school, my criminal law professor taught about 1/3 of the
entire class from just one case, Regina v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14
QBD 273 DC. The case was about whether men on a raft were guilty of
murder if they killed and ate their fellow shipmate in order to save their own
lives. In my own poor way, I want to emulate that feat here by pointing out
some key issues arising from a single situation. I hope it works for you.
First, let us imagine a world without religion. There is no hell to punish us
after death, no god to trouble our lives in the present, and no heavenly
reward in the future. No karma, no rebirths, no one with the universe and no
law of man. There is only yourself and the earth. What you can experience is
paramount, what is incapable of experience is mere fancy, a fiction of
cognition and imagination. To look at it from an evolutionary perspective,
each behavior that we retained must have a beneficial consequence for the
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