Nietzsche’s Attitude to Religion
Introduction
The German philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche is one of the greatest thinkers of the humanity, who inspired school of thoughts, philosophers, psychologists or writers in their work. His philosophy includes remarks to various social, political, economic or religious aspects. Regarding Nietzsche’s religious philosophies, the most prolific are those regarding the Christianity. This research paper proposes to capture a qualitative analysis of Nietzsche’s attitude to religion, with a specific focus on Christianity.
Body – Literature Review
According to Nietzsche’s perception, there are various attitudes on religion, depending on the social status. As such, the rulers see religion as a strategic approach to conquering and dominating others, in an organized manner; the one who ascend to the ruling class see the advantages of promoting the religious (especially Christian) values, in an efficient formulation of the principles of mass manipulation (Nietzsche, 2007, p. 106); the masses are encouraged to accept their low position, embrace their sufferings and people are tolerating their existence hoping for the better after – life. Because Christianity promises that the Kingdom of Heaven will belong to those who are suffering, who are living in poverty, who are dominated and ruled by others, who are ridiculed and taunted in their current existence.
Explaining his perceptions about the distinct attitudes to religion, Nietzsche elaborates on his own attitude to religion. He believes that in his time (the time of the industrial revolution, 19th century), people were too much preoccupied with their own existence for thinking about religion and this drove them to atheism. However, in their atheism, they were more religious than they thought, because they were not only embracing the religious (Christian) values, but practicing them, making them a part of their existence, enrooted in their personalities. As such, the majority would live ruled by others, playing by the rules, accepting their fate, the hardships of life and while working hard for assuring their existence, they would deepen themselves in a nihilism, shaped in an “eternal recurrence” (Nietzsche, 2005, p. 192), where everything stays the same and nothing ever changes in the universe.
Nietzsche criticizes the believers, the ones who have faith and for the sake of religion and of what the Christianity promotes are renouncing their will, their freedom, their pride, the self – confidence of spirit, living an austere life for pursuing the after – life, considering such ideal the “absurdissimum, in the form of which ‘faith’ comes to it” (Nietzsche, 2005, p. 45).
D’Souza observes that Nietzsche is a supporter of Darwinism, accepting it as true, but although Nietzsche agrees with Darwin’s evolutionism theory, he manifests a different view upon atheism. While both Darwin and Nietzsche are promoters of the idea of the survival of the fittest, Nietzsche considers Darwin’s interpretation of this idea, which is that the fittest is the one who survives through raw force, as inappropriate and grotesque, militating for the cultural supremacy as a way of reaching the condition of “ubermesch or ‘overman’” (D’Souza, 2007, p. 27).
As he praised culture in all its forms, art, thinking or science, Nietzsche disapproved religion especially Christianity precisely for what it was promising: a better after – life, while sacrificing the gifts of life in the current existence. The philosopher viewed Christianity as being hostile to life (D’Souza, 2007, p. 27).
Because Nietzsche believed in the evolutionism theory, praising the culture, social position and the natural instinct to subdue the others, where the overman or the greater man would crash the masses and the inferior ones through various mechanisms, he was against religion and against Christianity especially, because it promoted the “slave morality, designed for losers” (D’Souza, 2007, p. 27).
Nietzsche’s attitude against religion goes up into the point where he considers that religion promotes what is good, positive and beautiful as bad, negative and ugly and the other way around, observing that people, considered saints, are sacrificing their freedom, their right to enjoy the happiness of life in the company of others, enjoying the miracle of life, for living an ascetic life, practicing sexual abstinence and renouncing every pleasure that life has to offer. As such, Christianity considers that people are born in sin and all their existence is a sin, for which they have to repent throughout their existence, by praising God and asking for forgiveness. This destroys and intoxicate the values of nature, the values of humanity and it shows that Christianity prefers weakness to strength herd mentality to individual intelligence original thinking, or fabricated morality to honesty (Al – Sharif, 2006, p. 2; Nietzsche, 2000, p. 100). Because he considers that Christian morality promotes a “willful ignorance” that lead to enslaving the believers to a faith for a better life in the future if they suffer in the present, Nietzsche develops a resentment for this religion (Schacht, 1994, p. 328).
Christianity views human in its essence as sinful and it praises the pitiful as a virtue, which corrupts people by promulgating the concept of pity, which weakens the human condition, leading to decadence, making the individual a “herd animal”, enslaved to faith, to a constructed believe, based on instigated values, not reasoned ideas and to hope, which Nietzsche considers “the worst of the evils”, because it lures people into aiming for a better existence in another life, which the philosopher considers as deceiving (Al – Sharif, 2006, pp. 2 - 4).
Returning to pity, Christianity promotes this value as the essence of this religious confession and believers have to know and to express pity as a demonstration of their faith, but Nietzsche disregards this Christian value. Stating that “Christianity is the religion of pity” he views pity as depressive and opposing to the attitudes that promote life (Saugstad, 2000, para 6).
Nietzsche considers that Christianity praises the self – humiliation, self – annihilation, self – destruction, imposing a tyranny, but despite this, he is not against religion for installing this tyranny upon its followers, because people are free to accept or reject everything that it is proposed to them. The philosopher is against Christianity because it acts like a dogma, instituting various and subjective directions, which all have the same end: of limiting the perspectives, or narrowing people’s minds, of not letting them think free, for themselves, but directing them on what to think and up to what point (Nehamas, 1985, p. 48).
The philosopher explains that Christianity implies self – humiliation, self – mockery and self – mutilation, because it promotes a resentment for human body, considering it the vehicle for pleasures and sins, which deprives the soul and like this it shudders the chances for the soul to reach the Kingdom of Heaven. This implicitly indicates that the Christian morality instigates the “hatred of courage. Freedom and pride as well as the hatred of the senses, sensual joy and happiness” (Al – Sharif, 2006, p. 3).
Christianity implies a “tyranny against ‘nature’ and also against reason [imposing a] tyranny of rhyme and rhythm” (Nietzsche, 2008, p. 69). The rhyme and rhythm are metaphorical representations of self – renunciation, for acting in a puppet – show organized and conducted by Christian morals. The followers of Christianity are directed towards following the prospects of this religion and have no liberty for abating from these norms, respecting them word by word, like one respects the rhyme and rhythm of a poetry.
Besides the fact that it institutes a tyranny and it imposes the dogma of rhyme and rhythm, Christianity is also unrealistic, and so are its moral values, as Nietzsche considers, because it promotes the irrationality, as the believers are encouraged to believe without researching and thinking without reasoning (Al – Sharif, 2006, p. 2).
Christianity is so entrenched in its own values, in order to capture believers body and soul, determining them not to deviate from God’s word, so that it instigates a hatred filling for those who dare to think, to reason for themselves, to question God’s word. As such, Al – Sharif (2006, p. 2) observes that Nietzsche criticizes Christianity precisely because of its specificity to show the believers what to believe, not allowing them to make use of their gift from nature – their free – will. Whoever uses this and thinks for himself is against Christianity. Whoever has a different view that the ones imposed by Christianity is considered immoral because it does not stand to the uniformity and equality that this religion is aiming to achieve.
But as D’Souza observes, Nietzsche disagrees with the idea of equality, considering that humans’ natural instinct is to dominate others, hence, to create a hierarchy, opposed to the uniformity praised by Christianity (2007, p. 27) and to the moral values that praise the losers (2007, p. 27).
As a naturalist, Nietzsche considered nature above everything and believed that man is an evolved animal, having individual capacities different from one another, and also the free will to judge and reason for himself and this is why he thought that the learning of the Christianity are against naturalism (Saugstad, 2000, para 3).
However, as discussed in the beginning of this essay, he observed that people were living in a nihilism era, where they were too preoccupied to think about God and Christianity, but where, in fact, practicing the Christian values mechanically, without noticing, as they enslaved themselves to accepting the difficulties of life, of thinking as others want them to think, without making use of their free – will. This nuances that although “God is dead” (Nietzsche, 2001, p. 120), His learning are entrenched in the social culture and transmitted from generation to generation. As Carl Gustav Jung observes regarding the Christian condition which seemed to have been lost in Nietzsche’s time, “the Christian imagery is abolished, yet the psychological fact of Christianity remains” (1988, p. 1515) and this is why people were still slaves of the Christian values, although mechanically.
Nietzsche also observes that in fact Christianity is the religion of the priests and it promotes the values of the church (Saugstad, 2000, para 5). In this way, he condemns the priests for telling the people how to live their life, for instigating the feeling of guilt for being born through sin and for sensing the carnal desires, which are natural and specific to every animal, and to man also, which, as it was stated above, it is an evolved animal.
What is to be observed from Nietzsche’s philosophy is that he condemns Christianity, but not God. Even through his words “God is dead. God Remains dead. And we have killed him” (Nietzsche, 2001, p. 120), the philosopher accepts that although God is dead he once was alive, therefore he does not neglect the idea of God ever existing. The fact that he states that “we have killed him” indicates a feeling of guilt. But Nietzsche disregards the guilt and he does not support the idea of sin, as his philosophy suggests. This is why, as Cox (year, p. 17) observes, Nietzsche’s words refer to a change that occurred in the attitude towards religion and it indicates “the beginning of a self - overcoming of the foundational structures of European thought”.
Conclusion
Being considered a naturalist philosopher, as he considered that there is nothing more to nature, Nietzsche sustained the Darwinist theory of man’s evolutionism and of the survival of the fittest. In this context, he contested Christianity, which acted on a dogmatic direction of telling people what, how and up to when to think, limiting their mind and restraining their reasoning. This research paper indicated that Nietzsche is against Christianity because it devaluates the natural gift of humanity: the pleasure, the beauty, the happiness and it promotes its own values: pity, repent, renouncing the self and all the gifts from nature, considering this a losers’ path, that believers follow with the hope of a better after – life. Nietzsche is skeptic about religion in general, but when it comes to Christianity he considers it unnatural and immoral, as it deprives people from their free – will, enslaving them into a constant feeling of guilt for being born out of sin and self – mockery as the any pleasures are considered sins.
References
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