Analysis Of Nietzsche's Argument On Christianity

     For thousands of years the Bible has represented the foundation for one of the largest religions in existence, Christianity. “The Book” affects millions of people’s lives. The creation of morals makes the biggest impacts on individuals and society. Morals are hinted at throughout “The Book”, but are clearly stated in Matthew’s gospel. These morals are written in a series called the Beatitudes. Through morals, laws are created and society is given guidelines, most people see this in a positive manner. Friederich Nietzsche, a philosopher from the late 1800’s, views religion as a cult made for weak minded simpletons who need something to carry them through life. Nietzsche is often viewed as

Nietzsche is widely known as a critic of religion. In fact, he talks in depth about morality in regards to religion in his essays about the genealogy of morals. But the problem is not within religion itself or within morals. The problem is involved in the combination of the two to create society’s understanding of morality through a very religious lens. In fact, Nietzsche has criticism for almost any set of morals constructed by a group of individuals and meant to be applied to society as a whole. True morality, according to Nietzsche, requires a separation from these group dynamic views of morality- or at least a sincere look into where they originated and why they persist- and a movement towards a more introverted, and intrinsically personalized understanding of what morals mean in spite of the fact that “the normative force to which every member of society is exposed, in the form of obligations, codes of behavior, and other moral rules and guidelines, is disproportionally high” (Korfmacher 6).

Christianity had become the enemy of life and nature and the church has stifled its followers by turning them into closed minded and weak humans. Nietzsche ultimately believed that religion creates a concept of anti-natural morality which damages our development as humans quite

Christianity takes a gander at life as a journey towards what is going to be left after death, and we should live in a good path on earth and not confer any wrongdoings to accomplish this purported the hereafter.

“ You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left it open to us. He did not intend to.” (Lewis 78.) In Mere Christianity, Lewis talks about the silliness of accepting Jesus as another great moral teacher. According to Lewis, we must all make a choice to call Jesus liar, lunatic, or Lord.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due

Nietzsche strongest argument was that, “Human nature is always driven by “the will to power””, but religion will tell one otherwise, saying that one should forbid their bad desires. Nietzsche is quite critical in particular towards Christianity since it was stated as the religion of slaves and pity by Nietzsche, caused by limiting one’s personal development since they were too obsessed with the treasures of the afterlife. Having said that, Nietzsche also referred to Buddhism as the nihilistic and the “desire for nothingness” religion, however he does praise certain aspects of the Buddhist teaching in comparison to Jesus’. Last but foremost, Nietzsche proves Socrates death to be at the hands of the acceptance of slave morality. For those who practice religion are guaranteed to fall as a slave rather than to become their own master due to all the restriction and standards set up by God. I simply do agree with Nietzsche due to all the evidence connecting back to each and every religion and philosophers. One must strive to reach and achieve their desire in order to be satisfied with one’s life. As people say, “no pain, no gain”, therefore one must live through all the suffering to accomplish greatness in their lives and make the most out of the given life. One can conclude, the practice of religion led many to the acceptance of slave

In the Anti-Christ, Nietzsche has addressed several religions in effort to counter Christianity. A religion he has used countable times is Buddhism, however his knowledge of Buddhism may have been incomplete. His understanding of Buddhism was based on a nineteenth century European society. With the current western understanding of Buddhism, he may not have labeled it life denying or nihilistic. Nietzsche did not fairly compare Buddhism with Christianity because he was lacking facts and was merely trying to undermine Christianity in order to affirm his philosophies.

To begin, in chapter 15 of God and Evil the author talks about, “evil as evidence for Christianity” he talks about the evidence for his claim. Evil pointing to the existence of a good God, evil pointing to the truth of Christianity, and then he closes with a summary. This is an interesting chapter to read.

In an Argument against abolishing Christianity, we have Jonathan Swift, who informs his reader that he is not supporting “true Christianity” as he called it, but instead nominal Christianity. However, while he appears to be arguing in favour of abolishing Christianity, we know from previous readings that Jonathan Swift, could not possibly be in favour of such a thing. As a result, we have Swift who appears to be arguing for the abolishment of Christianity, however he also gives an argument to the contrary. An argument Swift, sets forth is that by abolishing Christianity, people would be free to work on Sundays, and as previously stated by Swift, people do not attend Sunday service anyway, and those that do just do so to flaunt their new attire

In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche emphasizes that the Christian Church is a false idol. He dares to say, “..God to be an enemy of life..” and, “Life ends where the ‘kingdom of God’ begins..” because he believes that Christian morality is against life itself (Idols, 23). The reason for this is because Nietzsche believes that, “to have to fight against the instincts- this is the formula for decadence: so long as the life is ascendant, happiness equals instinct” which simply means that if one goes against instincts, or an intuitive way of carrying ones life, then as a consequence it will lead to the degeneration of society and intellect while if life is on the rise, happiness must be equivalent to following ones’ instinct (Idols, 15). Because of his belief it is understood that Nietzsche wants one to embrace their instincts. Nietzsche states that a life in which

What Nietzsche means by religion being “anti-Nature” is that the set of moral laws set by religion goes against human instinct and against life. He feels that a set moral code makes humans hostile and cease to live life to the fullness. He also feels that the moral code is corrupted by priests and legislators. Nietzsche also argues that stupidity in uncontrolled passions may have been the reason for the preventative moral code.

In Simply Christian chapters 1-4 there are many high points to view in these few chapters. Chapter one, putting the world to rights, covers by talking justice in the chapter and shows examples by Adolf Hitler involved with the Holocaust. It covers three ideas of ‘’ We can say if we like…Only a dream, dream of a different world all together, and reason we have these dreams.

Nietzsche sees Christianity not as the cause but as a mistake one made originally by Socrates “Socrates was a misunderstanding: the entire morality of improvement, the Christian included has been a misunderstanding…” He sees peoples interpretation of Socrates as a mistake, a misunderstanding of his motives, Nietzsche believes him to be a false prophet of sorts leading humanity down a darker path.

3). In his most basic claims, Nietzsche implicitly negates the possibility of a “disinterested” or “objective” truth. He would not urge so definitively for an affirmation of reality, if he held out for the possibility of fantasy or god. The ‘innocence of becoming’ is a clear example of how Nietzsche, for all intents and purposes, “debunk[‘s]” the relevance of claims made by traditional authorities. In essence, Nietzsche basically nullifies the relevance of societal hierarchy. Not only this, but the further claims made by such a society regarding morality and philosophical thinking, are seen to be – at best – gullible and naïve. The ‘innocence of becoming’ refers to even the lowest classes of society finding power in their status. In lieu of accepting that we are completely alone in the world, Nietzsche asserts that we have a constant need to blame others for our state. It is simply much easier to do than to accept that everything we do has no genuine or reaching consequences. While the ‘innocence of becoming’ is not necessarily an innocent process as those we choose to blame are usually blameless, it is fair to say that we are innocent of it; much like the ‘will to power’ it also works through self-deception. Evidently we are able to commit to life affirmation by essentially taking no responsibility for our weakness. Christianity itself is closely connected with the ‘becoming’ process as in its