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I mean, he was a poetic philosopher. Do you read poetry literally? Also, you can't just pluck quotes out of their context. Notice how he talks about pain, but d

I mean, he was a poetic philosopher. Do you read poetry literally? Also, you can't just pluck quotes out of their context. Notice how he talks about pain, but doesn't say things like "you should kill the weak." Inflicting pain in order to improve things is a necessity. Ever heard things like "pain is weakness leaving the body?" That's how he meant it. I'd like to remind you that even Jesus has been used to justify atrocities. It's not the words of men that justify things, it's the authority others give them and those who distort their words for their own purposes. Don't blame the messengers, blame yourself, blame us, blame our weaknesses for falling for the same thing over and over again.

btilly 8y ago
In other words, "Anyone who reads something into him that I don't like, doesn't understand him properly." Which is a well-known logical fallacy. Look up, "No true Scotsman." Back in the real world, people who read him, thought they understood him, and didn't agree with your interpretation, proceeded to literally kill people by the millions. Justifying it by what they understood him to be saying. I have no particular reason to trust your interpretation over theirs. And when it comes to my best judgment, I find him wrong again and again. So I don't really care which interpretation I'd find more palatable.
- eklavya 8y ago
  So if he wasn’t born, would those people still kill?
- BucketSort 7y ago
  My good fellow, I am merely suggesting that if you wish to critique his work, you should study it yourself -- which would be almost impossible now because you will just look for excuses to mold these works to your expectations of them. If you had told me you read his work and rejected it, then this would be a different discussion. We'd have to get into our conflicting interpretations. Right now, however, it just seems like you are dismissing him because the actions and critiques of others. Also, I don't really think this is an issue of "wrong" or "right." A philosophy of life is more in the domain of art than logic or the sciences. Is a painting wrong? Upon what ground do you critique a painting from? How one judges a philosophy of life is more a matter of the aesthetics of the vision than the correctness of it. I know you mean "wrong" in the sense that it disagrees with your view of life, but this obscures the fact that we are talking about aesthetics, not logical conclusions.

btilly 8y ago

In other words, "Anyone who reads something into him that I don't like, doesn't understand him properly." Which is a well-known logical fallacy. Look up, "No true Scotsman." Back in the real world, people who read him, thought they understood him, and didn't agree with your interpretation, proceeded to literally kill people by the millions. Justifying it by what they understood him to be saying. I have no particular reason to trust your interpretation over theirs. And when it comes to my best judgment, I find him wrong again and again. So I don't really care which interpretation I'd find more palatable.

eklavya 8y ago
So if he wasn’t born, would those people still kill?
BucketSort 7y ago
My good fellow, I am merely suggesting that if you wish to critique his work, you should study it yourself -- which would be almost impossible now because you will just look for excuses to mold these works to your expectations of them. If you had told me you read his work and rejected it, then this would be a different discussion. We'd have to get into our conflicting interpretations. Right now, however, it just seems like you are dismissing him because the actions and critiques of others. Also, I don't really think this is an issue of "wrong" or "right." A philosophy of life is more in the domain of art than logic or the sciences. Is a painting wrong? Upon what ground do you critique a painting from? How one judges a philosophy of life is more a matter of the aesthetics of the vision than the correctness of it. I know you mean "wrong" in the sense that it disagrees with your view of life, but this obscures the fact that we are talking about aesthetics, not logical conclusions.