Nietzsche's critique of religion is largely based on his critique of
Christianity.
Nietzsche says that in modern Europe, people are atheistic, even
though they don't realise it. People who say they are religious aren't
really and those who say they have moved on haven't actually moved on.
Certain people in society retain features of Christianity. For
example, socialists still believe in equality in all people. Others
still have pity for the poor and needy etc.
Nietzsche dislikes religion especially Christianity because it
encourages and promotes slave morality. Nietzsche says that we should
be striving towards master morality, but Christianity has the
completely opposite values to those of the master morality. For
example, religion wants us to be like slaves and give things up
instead of trying to be great.
He talks about a slave revolt in morality, which leads to the
dominance of slave values over master values. Christianity is that
slave revolt.
The problem for Nietzsche is the New Testament - the introduction of
Jesus. He thinks that linking the Old Testament with the New Testament
is very cheeky. They are two different books with complete different
ideas and so should not be linked together.
The Old Testament is full of power - Nietzsche likes that. But he
objects to the values of the New Testament that shouldn't be linked to
the Old Testament. They demote power.
He sees religion as intensely nihilistic - it's all about denying life
and being negative. Nietzsche feels that the New Testament is also
like that.
We have to go beyond this. If Christianity and Schopenhaur are based
on denying life ...
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...itique is that he views religion from
the outside, so doesn't this make it a one-sided story?
But obviously Nietzsche will think that his critique is one-sided. He
is a perspectivist. Why is a view from outside any less valid than a
view from inside?
Is the ladder of religious cruelty a complete account of religious
development. What about a sacrificing himself for humanity? This
doesn't get mentioned.
However we could say that Nietzsche rejects that because he obviously
doesn't believe in God and insofar as God is 'one of the suffering'.
This confirms Nietzsche's negative view of religion / Christianism.
Nietzsche said that religion shouldn't How can religion not be an
'end-in-itself' for religious believers?
A counter-argument to this would be to say that religion as an
instrument is not a religion.
...no way implies that Nietzsche is presenting the ideas of the Genealogy in bad faith; he certainly believes that they have some truth to them-but perhaps not to the extent that they are definitive. Thus, it is possible that Nietzsche, in writing his polemic, has other goals than the mere straightforward elucidation of a philosophical system. If this view is adopted, many of Nietzsche’s radical notions and unsupported assertions become easier to stomach. Of course, such a softening of the impact of Nietzsche’s claims may destroy the fundamental mind-opening project that lies at the heart of the book, since the shock of encountering such views is clearly essential to that project.
Nietzsche’s dramatis personae “…is different than the actor of this drama” (Science 241). The preparatory human being is one who sees the world as Nietzsche does, and so his characterization is Nietzsche, and people who he sees stick out from the rest of society. The preparatory human being is one that is fit for the transition that Nietzsche sees the world around him going through. This is the destruction of the belief in God. Nietzsche proposes that the belief has receded and questions how people will be able to cope with this (Science 181). Mentioned, also, by Nietzsche in The Gay Science is his view that monotheism stifles and directs the individual towards a normative sense of mora...
Friedrich Nietzsche was a brilliant and outspoken man who uses ideas of what he believe in what life is about. He did not believe in what is right and wrong because if who opposed the power. Nietzsche was against Democracy because how they depend on other people to make some different or change, while Nietzsche believe they should of just pick the ones that were gifted and talent to choose what to change. Nietzsche also does not believe in Aristocracy because how they depend on an individual person to create the rules or change those benefits for him. As you see Nietzsche did not like how they depend on one person to decide instead of each person to decide for himself for their own benefits.
However, Nietzsche’s idea of the powerful forcing their will on common people resonates with me. It is something we see in our modern society, wealthy people seem to have a higher influence over the average American. Examples of powerful people controlling others are found in politics, economy, media, and religion. Common people are lead to think in certain ways that the powerful need them to. Nietzsche said that people will only be equal as long as they are equal in force and talent, people who have a higher social group are more influential in decisions because average people look to them for information. The thing I do not agree with Nietzsche on his view as Christianity as a weakness because religion is a main cause of people’s decision
In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche discusses his views on Christianity, other philosophers, and authors of his time. Nietzsche’s main focus, however, is on Christianity and how its actions and views are means to an end. He uses eloquent diction that sometimes loses the reader (he makes up for his articulate word usage with elementary sentences which describe his views very efficiently) along with syntax which is very informal - for the time - to describe his views on subjects quite exquisitely. His logic is the logic which is always right; he never contradicts himself or makes a statement without support. Nietzsche’s use of rhetorical strategies [i.e. diction, syntax, and figures of speech] helps him to make his points and support them in a style which help him attain his underlying goal: to make the reader think.
There are two possible understandings of an experience underwritten by God; either that God was constant and static but our capacity to understand him was limited; or that God was dynamic and exhibited agency and so we could never have a static set of criteria to evaluate truth against. It seems most likely that Nietzsche considered God to be the former arguing that “[m...
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 priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.
Nietzsche's style of writing was a deliberate stylistic choice meant to hide the meaning of his work and philosophy from those who would not be able to understand it, and through there misunderstanding would abuse it. This writing style was also meant to help support and give meaning to Nietzsche's arguments on the nature of language and how language is, at its root a metaphor describing an object that is disconnected from us. Nietzsche's work broke down language to its metaphorical roots and explored the nature of how our language is disconnected from the objective reality around us. Nietzsche uses the metaphorical roots of our language to show that words and language our fundamentally disconnected because of the subjective nature of language. Nietzsche shows these metaphorical roots by showing how simple words and phrases that we use in our everyday life are really disconnected or at least removed by the barrier of language. Language is a serious of metaphor's all describing how an object subjectively appears to the individual. No language can describe what it is like to "be" that object, nor properly describe what it is that makes the object what it is. All language can do is provide a vehicle through which man can communicate what he is subjectively experiencing and relate it via a metaphor to another individual who will only get a idea of what is being described rather than an actual concrete description.
Nietzsche informs the reader various times throughout the book that truth isn’t that important. This creates three different outlooks you can read into the book. The first is that Nietzsche is trying to depict to us what he thinks is true, giving us another outlook on truth and how to perceive it. The second option is that Nietzsche isn’t telling us what he believes and is being untruthful throughout the whole book because he has chosen untruth over truth which he had been asking philosophers why not untruth along. This tactic pressures the reader to make their own opinion and perceptions on the book instead of believing everything the author says. Then Nietzsche turns the tables and says to read the writings of a person as if it was a memoir and that if philosophers are truly influenced by their unconscious instincts then that is how we should read all of philosophy. This would allow the reader to search deeper into Nietzsche’s personal life and views to discover a third interpretation of the book. The truth of Beyond Good and Evil is really in the reader’s
Wagner’s newfound focus on redemption rather than overcoming, yes, would have upset Nietzsche. But as most can relate, seeing poppy boy bands remain on the top of the charts over true artists; Nietzsche in that what he considered to be Wagner’s weakest moment become his most shining, must have been infuriating for him. The wrath is not focused solely on Wagner however, but as well at the masses that gathered to worship at his alter; Wagner himself was a slave to Wagnerianism and European decadence. Nietzsche recalls a story of Goethe reflecting on what dangers romanticism the most, to which he though ““suffocating of the rumination of moral and religious absurdities.” In brief: Parsifal.” (EH, “The Case of Wagner, 3). The performance so intertwined with the symbolism of a moral-religious world that it distracts from its content. Nietzsche almost asks us to strip these connotations and motifs away to see what stands. In a non-Christian light, does Parsifal even exist? Deconstructed and without the pieces, the many props and abundant imagery, could the opera even be written? “The musician now becomes an actor” Nietzsche says of Wagner; more performer than composer. European decadence has burdened music by forcing it away from its focus on life to the escape from living.
“There are no truths,” states one. “Well, if so, then is your statement true?” asks another. This statement and following question go a long way in demonstrating the crucial problem that any investigator of Nietzsche’s conceptions of perspectivism and truth encounters. How can one who believes that one’s conception of truth depends on the perspective from which one writes (as Nietzsche seems to believe) also posit anything resembling a universal truth (as Nietzsche seems to present the will to power, eternal recurrence, and the Übermensch)? Given this idea that there is no truth outside of a perspective, a transcendent truth, how can a philosopher make any claims at all which are valid outside his personal perspective? This is the question that Maudemarie Clark declares Nietzsche commentators from Heidegger and Kaufmann to Derrida and even herself have been trying to answer. The sheer amount of material that has been written and continues to be written on this conundrum demonstrates that this question will not be satisfactorily resolved here, but I will try to show that a resolution can be found. And this resolution need not sacrifice Nietzsche’s idea of perspectivism for finding some “truth” in his philosophy, or vice versa. One, however, ought to look at Nietzsche’s philosophical “truths” not in a metaphysical manner but as, when taken collectively, the best way to live one’s life in the absence of an absolute truth.
Nietzsche argues that there are two ultimate types of morality. That's is ‘Master Morality' and ‘Slave morality'. He argues that Master morality weigh actions based on a scale of good or bad consequences, whereas ‘Slave Morality' weighs more on good and evil intentions. He is basically stating that slave morality values kindness, sympathy and humility and master morality values pride. Nietzsche believes that master morality is that of the strong-willed and criticizes the views the good is everything that is helpful and bad is everything harmful. He agrees that we the people are basing everything on the acceptance of
When reading Nietzsche, we can pick up from him that he was very educated often better than most philosophers. Or so he thought. Although he had a very poor outlook on his culture and everyday society, he had very strong opinions when it came to humans and their actions. He made strong assumptions whether people agreed with him or not. An assumption such as, he believed most philosophers and researchers were not as educated as he was, which we pick up in his writings. Nietzsche’s main goal in his essays are to educate those on morality. First, Nietzsche believed that specific words and human actions have evolved over time to things they were never intended to become. Nietzsche
Nietzsche believed this to be a form of nihilism because mankind valued precisely what was halting his advancement. With this in mind, Nietzsche began his bold movement towards the revaluation of all values.
The philosopher Nietzsche has been scrutinized for most of his work because he stood against the Christian faith. He believed that Christianity held people back from achieving a full life because it countered all the wants and needs of the human. He believed that slaves made up Christianity to replace the things that they could not receive. Sex, power and revenge were all out of range for a slaves so in return they made up Christianity to follow. Nietzsche’s greatest works however is what he describes as Übermensch or Superman. This “superman” is someone that has evolved even greater than any of today’s humans. He compares evolution from apes to humans and believes that the human isn’t done with evolution yet, instead is still growing and