Nietzsche's Critique of Judeo-Christian Values

Throughout his writings, Nietzsche aims to inform his readers that we as humans can only reach our potential by following our passions and ignoring the flawed ideals of the church. Under the doctrine of the church’s morality, innate passions of its followers must be abolished in order to become proper Christians. By destroying the inner passions of its followers, the church is doing a great disfavor by using morality to rule out nature from their lives.

Vanishree Gandhi Godard’s Breathless 4. In a world where there are no ultimate reasons for action, how does Michel find freedom to act and to live creatively? Why does Patricia, who shares Michel’s nihilistic world-view, draw the opposite conclusion from it? Why is she only capable of negative freedom expressed as

In the first essay of On The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche states clearly his stand that "Beyond Good and Evil... does not mean "Beyond Good and Bad"" (Nietzsche, page 143). Nietzsche makes the distinction between good/bad, and good/evil, by delineating the central idea that what is good and evil generally

“As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.” Nietzsche was one of the first modern philosophers to rebel against rationalism and when World War I came about, the revolution against religion truly became a legitimate statement. Friedrich Nietzsche strongly believed that many of those that practiced religion were led to the acceptance of slave morality. Religion had always played a fundamental role in society as it sets strict boundaries and standards of what is morally correct and incorrect. However, Nietzsche claims 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. In Nietzsche’s

An Analysis of Nietzsche’s Madman Allegory in The Gay Science Nietzsche's madman allegory represents the current moral situation of society during his time--a growing belief that God does not exist, a movement away from religious values. Nietzsche does not mean literally that God has been murdered, but because mankind created God, we also have the ability to kill God. In Nietzsche’s point of view, mankind created God by also creating a belief in God. By saying that mankind ‘murdered’ God, Nietzsche is proposing that we no longer believe in Him. With the grounding that religion provided in the past, Nietzsche fears that mankind will be left without purpose and virtues to lead them to do the correct thing. The ‘light,’ in Nietzsche’s allegory is belief in God; for this paper, light is a focus because of the implications that follow when there is none. With no light, everything previously known about moral beliefs and the world is overturned. Nietzsche proposes that instead of God guiding people (because people no longer believe in Him), people can follow their own virtues, such as courage, faith in oneself, and patience for the future.

Nazi Uprising: A Focus on Christianity’s Role During the Nazi German era, which took place from 1933 until 1945, Christianity played a very important role in the rise of Hitler’s regime. The Christian churches greatly influenced not only the formation of the Nazi regime, but also the German folk. The most influential churches were the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. Even though Christianity itself faced a state of decline in the early 1930s, the higher clergy of the Christian churches in Germany still managed to make a significant impact. The amount of influence that the churches exerted can be measured not only through the impact of their resistance towards the Nazis, but conversely through the resistance carried out by

At this juncture Nietzsche puts forth the creditor/debtor relationship as an analogy to the relationship between citizen and state after the latter’s establishment. According to this analogy the citizen and state have entered into an agreement in which the state promises various advantages of civilization, which are numerous and profound, in return for obedience on the part of the citizen. When a citizen disobeys, the state’s punishment is meted out with the cruel anger of an aggrieved creditor (2.9).

In summary, Eckart suggests that it was the religious zealotry by which the German church taught the population that planted the initial seeds of the Holocaust . Throughout the recorded history of the church it has been the religious zealotry that was taught to various populations that has been the cause of numerous bloody conflicts and acts of inhumane cruelty. From the Crusades to the Salem witch hunts and various other historical incidences it has been religious zealotry, the Christian feeling of spiritual superiority and the claims of the church to possess the only sure means of forgiveness, grace and salvation that such incidents happened in the first place.

“Nietzsche on Judeo-Christian Morality” In Nietzsche’s aphorisms 90-95 and 146-162 he attacks what he believes to be the fundamental basis of the “slave” morality prevalent in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as other religions and societies. From the beginning, he distinguishes the two different types of moralities he believes to

‹The last comment implies that the Jews are responsible for the oppression of the "free spirits" of mankind, and with that sentence, Nietzsche certainly appears to hold a grudge. (There are cross-references to other potentially anti-Semitic passages, but they have been edited out of the Morgan text.)

Examining Nietzsche’s Genealogical Work Nietzsche asserts that Judeo-Christianity is founded on a revolt of the noble race. The Jews are uncanny and creative in their invention of slave morality, as they establish Judeo-Christianity as a ressentiment of master morality. Slave morality poses as a danger to humanity because it negates life and promotes the herd mentality. We have the task of examining Nietzsche’s genealogical work, and determining whether its historical claim of the origin of morality is true. Nietzsche’s genealogical work does not include scholarly references to support his claim that Christianity is both philosophically and historically false. However, Nietzsche provides reasons that are logically valid and sound for thinking that Judeo-Christianity poses as a danger to humanity.

They both see the values of society as being a result of and necessary for civilization, rather than natural phenomena. Both theorists see guilt as stemming from a restriction of humanity’s natural urges, Nietzsche believing that it was a tool used by the priests to control the masses. Freud on the other hand thought it developed from a repression of humanity’s aggression towards one another. Equally, Freud and Nietzsche show a similar disdain for religion, the former seeing it as a delusional, infantile way to limit the pain and suffering that existence brings with it and the latter, due to what he sees as the transvaluation of values that the Judeo-Christian religions have brought about and the perceived cultural inaction that stems from this. As well as this, Nietzsche disliked the apparent inherited debt that comes with Christianity and the obligated guilt from Christ’s

During the late 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche examined the history of morals in his Genealogy of Morals. In his work, Nietzsche reveals the origin of morality, and he goes further to tear down the basis of Christianity and Kant’s Moral Law to show that there is a plurality of conflicting morals in society. Max Weber, who was a philosopher greatly influenced by Nietzsche, writes further on the plurality declaring that there is a polytheism that is the result of many conflicting values. Weber concludes that there is no science of ethics after Nietzsche, so there is no way to determine the “correct” value system. There is currently polytheism and a plurality of values that will not be resolved because all values are valid despite them conflicting

Nietzsche: Moving Beyond Good and Evil We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing

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).