Morality as Anti Nature
Essay by review • November 22, 2010 • Essay • 833 Words (4 Pages) • 1,274 Views
Morality as Anti Nature
Nietzsche has many reasons for despising Christianity: he feels
that it points out the wrong values for mankind, a weakness, and false
morality. As a religion, Nietzsche felt Christianity is adverse to truth-
seeking and scientific question; it replaced these values with blind
belief. Nietzsche's atheism is somewhat unusual, in that he takes the
non-existence of God as a given, not thinking twice about the proof of
God. The possible reality of a god is most of the time ignored as a
ridiculous notion by Nietzsche. In his writing he seems mush more
interested to analyze the philosophical and psychological foundations
of religious belief.
There are several key Christian ideas that Nietzsche dislikes in
particular. Nietzsche tries to separate each concept and criticize each
in turn. In Christianity it is said that, "each person has an immortal
soul and that all such souls are equal in the eyes of God are mainly
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interesting, and derive their power by appealing both to the anti-
aristocratic sentiment of the lower classes, as well as to individual
egos and their fear of death". Furthermore it is mention by Jesus that,
"the Christian soul serves a multifold purpose: as the locus for the
transcendence of all earthly behavior, the vehicle into the beyond of
heaven's immortality, and the grand equalizer by which the lowest
criminal has the same worth in God's eyes as the greatest king or
hero". The Christian soul is then maintained or purified by following
the codes of Christian morality, which emphasizes negative
enforcement of the moral code through fear, sin, guilt, or positive
enforcement by endorsing behaviors such pity, hope, love. While it is
easy for most to see the negative effects of sin and guilt, it is much
more difficult to see the mistakes behind love and hope.
Nietzsche concentrates his attack on these moral concepts.
Nietzsche mentions: "Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity
stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it
has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel
pity". He also mentions: "What is more harmful than any vice? Active
pity for all the failures and all the weak: Christianity". Next, Nietzsche
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criticizes Christian hope as a problem: "Those who suffer must be
sustained by a hope that can never be contradicted by any reality or
be disposed by any fulfillmentÐ'--a hope for the beyond'' One of the
most important concepts, love, is so-called by Nietzsche to be used by
Christian thought as a tool to influence there people. Nietzsche hate is
very personal towards Jesus and his people. He seems to be hurt by
the entire Christian system.
Nietzsche also believed Christianity to be deeply anti-scientific,
since much of it is based on obscuring. At the heart of Christianity is
an invisible, purely metaphysical god, a prime mover, an omnipresent
and omniscient deity with the power to exist or interfere in every
earthly process:
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