Philosophy: the Stranger - Essay Example

Thus, the individuals should have the right to lead their life out of their own choice without having bars and limitations from the outer world; almost the same doctrine has been articulated by Nietzsche. Eminent German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) ridicules over blind imitation of religious beliefs without analyzing their validity and significance in life. He vehemently censures the principles the purported religious dogmatism insists upon imposing and implementing moral values on humans with the promise of reward in the world Hereinafter.

He lays stress upon seeking truth and knowledge as the vital things to explore the natural and social phenomena existing in the environment to recognize and search out the true concept of God. He cites Greek philosophers and declares few of them as the torch-bearers as well as carriers of wisdom and reality in respect of searching out proper evidence for the realities regarding different natural phenomena as well as the existence of God. Nietzsche is of the view that all the ideas that haunt human mind, related to good or evil, are not sent from the Lord, as there is no God according to him, nor from a higher moral law, since there is no such higher law.

(Thomas & Thomas, 1971) On the contrary, these ideas, he states, have developed through the evolution of human mind. The greatest recent event—that God is dead”, that the belief in Christian God has ceased to be believable--- is even now beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe. (Book V 1887 343: quoted in Porter, 1997: 620) By this, he does not mean that God Himself has ceased to exist; rather, he submits to state that the ambiguous concept of God, presented in Judeo-Christian traditions, have no place in reality anymore.

Nietzsche also cites a fictitious madman busy in searching out the god who cannot be explored because of the vague notions and hazy interpretations made by some theologians out of their traditional beliefs. All our ideas regarding good and evil has neither come from God. Nor from moral law; on the other hand, all the ideas are the outcome of cultivation process human brain has experienced after a long and continuous struggle of comprehending with the natural and social phenomena existing all around it.

He argues that the actual good people were the kings and warriors who dominated over others by dint of their physical strength. But the weak and frail persons gave the idea of moral law to rule over the strong men. The weak individuals drew out laws on the basis of their intellect and declared these laws as the word of some Supreme Being named God. Hence, condemns the madman’s concept of God. “Have you not heard of that madman, Nietzsche states, “who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace, and cried incessantly, “I seek God!

, I seek God.”” (Aphorism, 125) The aphorism serves as a great satire on the hypocrisy and faithlessness of the so called torch-bearers of ethics and morality. The same can be witnessed in Camus’s protagonist Meursault in the play under-analysis. The title of the play is absolutely apposite one according to the character of the protagonist Meurs