Friedrich Nietzsche has cultivated many rational reasons why Christianity is a disease on society. A couple of which include: 1) he believes that Christianity is a religion of pity, and 2) it stands in opposition of intellectual growth.
“What is good? – All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.” (p.125, l. 26)
Rationally it can be safely stated that the majority of the population accept Christianity as being good, it can also be stated that religion is controlling.
“Pity is practical nihilism. To say it again, this depressive and contagious instinct thwarts those instincts bent on preserving and enhancing the value of life: both as a multiplier of misery and as a conservator of everything miserable it is one of the chief instruments for the advancement of decadence” (p. 128, l. 26)
Christianity and its collective interpretation looks down upon the desires of human beings, causing them to pity themselves and feel sorrow because of their natural instincts. As in the previous quote what is good is what heightens feeling and energy; since self-pity is a depressive activity to participate in, it can be said that self-pitying oneself is bad, therefore to Nietzsche Christianity is not good.
“Christianity, the typical Christian condition, ‘faith’, has to be a form of sickness, every straightforward, honest, scientific road to knowledge has to be repudiated by the Church as a forbidden road. Even to doubt is a sin”
As previously stated in Pauline’s post, Christianity supports that which is weak. Maybe because science is so straightforward, has proof, and is such a strong subject to argue against, the institution of Christianity is against it. Another reason may be is that they fear that the public might view science as being right, and begin to believe in science rather than the church; listening to scientists, rather than preachers. The fact that the institution of Christianity forbids intellectual growth only will lead people to it (remember the forbidden fruit?). Anyway, leaving people in a state of ignorance is what Nietzsche is saying the institution of Christianity wants.
Even though there are these dissenting traits of Christianity that Nietzsche chooses to focus on, there is also a humanitarian side that he fails to accept. (p.196) Nietzsche seems to understand the faults in Christianity, as well as many other worldly religions and people throughout this book. Even though Nietzsche has rationally developed countless numbers of logical proofs on how the institution of Christianity is bad, it seems as if he only recognized the bad and chosen to exploit them.
Yes. As Nietszche states, in Christianity, "neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point" (137). Thus, science, proofs, or verifications, are all very foreign to religion since religion operates with concepts such as God, soul, ego, spirit, will, repentance... or in Nietzsche's words, "imaginary causes" in a fictional world.
ReplyDeleteI believe a lot of the arguments in the book originate from the fact that religion lies so far away from actuality. Thus, if one follows this theory, one can easily say that whoever is religious, is religious because he suffers from actuality and wishes to deviate from it. Like Nietzsche says, "this entire fictional world has its roots in hatred of the natural (-actuality! -)" (137). And this is one aspect of why he thinks religion detains progress of humankind.
“…scientific road to knowledge has to be repudiated by the Church as a forbidden road. Even to doubt is a sin:” If one may not Doubt then his intellectual freedom is taken away. In order to progress in knowledge one must have the freedom of revising ones views of the world. But religion dictates what the status of the world absolutely is; this hinders historical progress and restricts one from seeing the world from a different perspective. Religion takes away mans power for intellectual growth.
ReplyDelete