I do believe that it was Nietzsche who said "God is dead". He also believed that Christianity was "Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life". This was due to another of his beliefs that Christianity serves as an ultimate example of the slave valuation as it promotes suffering and guilt and thus, devalues a person's life on Earth so that life after death may be inexperienced in an eternal paradise. Our "will to power", which is essentially our will to live, is suppressed and so we, and civilization, are ultimately hurt by organized religion.
However, Nietzsche also admitted that Christianity served a purpose. He claimed that it provided humanity with a meaning so as to make suffering endurable, but I think he is missing another purpose Christianity serves, which is a purpose most people tend to forget even today. I feel like Nietzsche and a lot of the critics of Christianity today hold this idea that the religion consists of only bible-hugging, born-again, fundamentalists. There are, most noticeably in the United States, tons of those people whose severe dedication to the words of "God" and the Bible have put Christianity, on the whole, in a bad light, which, at least to me, is understandable. However, I do believe that the morals that Christianity teaches, aside from how they are sometimes carried out and mutilated, are not ones to denounce. There are many people who are not fundamentalist Christians but who still believe that the basic teachings between right and wrong and how to be a better person even when it is most difficult to do so, should not be discounted. These teachings aren't about feeling guilt or necessarily enduring suffering in this life so that the next may be better. In fact, the point of these teachings is to make it so that one does not suffer as much and finds happiness in this life. I'm not sure if Nietzsche ever addressed this, but if he had asserted that Christianity's tendency to teach people how to be better, kinder human beings was part of the "nausea and disgust with life" that he accused Christianity of exerting, he would have been a much bolder and a much different figure than I originally thought he was.
"There are many people who are not fundamentalist Christians but who still believe that the basic teachings between right and wrong and how to be a better person even when it is most difficult to do so, should not be discounted. These teachings aren't about feeling guilt or necessarily enduring suffering in this life so that the next may be better. In fact, the point of these teachings is to make it so that one does not suffer as much and finds happiness in this life. I'm not sure if Nietzsche ever addressed this, but if he had asserted that Christianity's tendency to teach people how to be better, kinder human beings was part of the "nausea and disgust with life" that he accused Christianity of exerting, he would have been a much bolder and a much different figure than I originally thought he was."
ReplyDeleteHmm... I think Fred would say that this is EXACTLY what he means. Consider the eagle and the lamb section we read in class. To be good in this sense is to NOT BE LIKE YOU, the bad noble. You are EVIL. I do not rape and pillage like you do. I refrain from this, I am nice to people, I am kind. I LOVE PEOPLE. I am a lamb. You are evil because of what you do. And what does the Noble say--No, no you have it all wrong. I am good because I am capable of doing what I want. I LOVE YOU! I love all the great things I can do to you to make me stronger by taking your stuff for example. I am an eagle. You are weak/bad because you can't defend yourself. How can that be my fault? Its an absurd idea, don't you think?