Post by José on Oct 22, 2015 18:22:15 GMT
Nietzsche and Christianity
I would imagine that an idea that was conjured up by humans wouldn’t take too long to eventually fade away. Once we start questioning a thought or idea, we don’t stop until we find some truth or just base our trust on faith alone. Christianity seems to fall in the later. Christianity is not the only religion that falls in this category of ideas, conjured up by humans, there are many more. According to Professor Lane, “The fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Scientologist each have differing ideologies, but what they share in common is that they are each believers and it is the act of believing (and not necessarily what is believed) that is the motivating force.”
Because we place so much trust in one religion, it is easy to eventually fall out of trust as well. According to professor Lane, Meaning Equivalence provides that a “meaning is better than no meaning,” provided it is in our best interest.
Christianity asks us to believe a story, of a man finding a heterosexual couple, of every animal species and fitting them on a boat seems a bit outdated. According to Nietzsche, Christianity is an antiquity, “how horridly all this wafts over us, as from the grave of the ancient past! Are we to believe that such things are still believed?”
In general most people like to do good. We know the difference between good and bad. However when we start comparing our actions to that of a greater being, we will never win. This greater being is always perfect and can never compare to our actions. This greater being: God. According to Nietzsche, if we compare our actions to other individuals and not to this greater being, then we wouldn’t have such a guilty conscience. Our actions would be evenly distributed.
These actions of guilt or sins, is what drives us to our faith. We run to it for salvation or at least a cure for the recent actions. Once we have temporarily cleansed our souls we our guilt-free and own the world! Until it happens again, and we are back on the same roller coaster.
According to Nietzsche, being a Christian was a way of life. Which had a set of rules or morals to which to live by. Not necessarily a faith but a ‘way of life.’ Nietzsche also included, “Take away one idea and put a genuine reality in its place--and the whole of Christianity crumbles to nothingness!”
Freud, said religion was nothing more than an Oceanic feeling, in the early stages of ego-feelings. According to him we have a need for religion. This need for religion then, is nothing more than a feeling, which really is just energy. According to Freud, “this feeling is not simply carried on from childhood days but is kept alive perpetually by the fear of what the superior power of fate will bring. I could not point to any need in childhood so strong as that for a father’s protection.”
Once Christianity is broken down into pieces or Reductionism, we realize that it has lost its original meaning. Professor Lane on Reductionism, “Yet this does not mean that reductionism is bad, it just means that reductionism is quite useful in the right domain…Reduce too much and we lose. Don’t reduce and we inflate too much.” When considering the ideologies and theories behind Christianity we realize that they give a false hope. Many who feel lost or empty run to faith for help, not that that is bad. But don’t judge others who are not empty or do not feel lost. In Nietzsche’s Human all too Human he says, “Thus a certain false psychology, a certain kind of fantasy in interpreting motives and experiences, is the necessary prerequisite for becoming a Christian and experiencing the need for redemption. With the insight into this aberration of reason and imagination, one ceases to be a Christian.”
I would imagine that an idea that was conjured up by humans wouldn’t take too long to eventually fade away. Once we start questioning a thought or idea, we don’t stop until we find some truth or just base our trust on faith alone. Christianity seems to fall in the later. Christianity is not the only religion that falls in this category of ideas, conjured up by humans, there are many more. According to Professor Lane, “The fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Scientologist each have differing ideologies, but what they share in common is that they are each believers and it is the act of believing (and not necessarily what is believed) that is the motivating force.”
Because we place so much trust in one religion, it is easy to eventually fall out of trust as well. According to professor Lane, Meaning Equivalence provides that a “meaning is better than no meaning,” provided it is in our best interest.
Christianity asks us to believe a story, of a man finding a heterosexual couple, of every animal species and fitting them on a boat seems a bit outdated. According to Nietzsche, Christianity is an antiquity, “how horridly all this wafts over us, as from the grave of the ancient past! Are we to believe that such things are still believed?”
In general most people like to do good. We know the difference between good and bad. However when we start comparing our actions to that of a greater being, we will never win. This greater being is always perfect and can never compare to our actions. This greater being: God. According to Nietzsche, if we compare our actions to other individuals and not to this greater being, then we wouldn’t have such a guilty conscience. Our actions would be evenly distributed.
These actions of guilt or sins, is what drives us to our faith. We run to it for salvation or at least a cure for the recent actions. Once we have temporarily cleansed our souls we our guilt-free and own the world! Until it happens again, and we are back on the same roller coaster.
According to Nietzsche, being a Christian was a way of life. Which had a set of rules or morals to which to live by. Not necessarily a faith but a ‘way of life.’ Nietzsche also included, “Take away one idea and put a genuine reality in its place--and the whole of Christianity crumbles to nothingness!”
Freud, said religion was nothing more than an Oceanic feeling, in the early stages of ego-feelings. According to him we have a need for religion. This need for religion then, is nothing more than a feeling, which really is just energy. According to Freud, “this feeling is not simply carried on from childhood days but is kept alive perpetually by the fear of what the superior power of fate will bring. I could not point to any need in childhood so strong as that for a father’s protection.”
Once Christianity is broken down into pieces or Reductionism, we realize that it has lost its original meaning. Professor Lane on Reductionism, “Yet this does not mean that reductionism is bad, it just means that reductionism is quite useful in the right domain…Reduce too much and we lose. Don’t reduce and we inflate too much.” When considering the ideologies and theories behind Christianity we realize that they give a false hope. Many who feel lost or empty run to faith for help, not that that is bad. But don’t judge others who are not empty or do not feel lost. In Nietzsche’s Human all too Human he says, “Thus a certain false psychology, a certain kind of fantasy in interpreting motives and experiences, is the necessary prerequisite for becoming a Christian and experiencing the need for redemption. With the insight into this aberration of reason and imagination, one ceases to be a Christian.”