Nietzsche’s Challenge to Christianity Series (2)
October 26th 2007 00:57
Next discourse ‘The madman’, follows in a similar vein. Nietzsche tells the tale of a maniac running about yelling: ‘Where is God? We have killed him…God is dead! God remains dead’. Obviously, questions about the immortality of God are raised here. The following sentence emphatically qualifies the point Nietzsche is making: ‘What festivals of atonement, what holy games we will have to invent for ourselves’ (Williams 2001: 120)? The key word is ‘invent’. Nietzsche is stating the Christian faith, its belief system and moral code, is a mere invention of man.
The final coup de grace to Christian morality in Gay Science would have to be the discourse under the heading: Morality as a problem. ‘…that popular superstition of Christian Europe…that what is characteristic of morality is selflessness, self-denial, self-sacrifice or sympathy and compassion (Williams 2001: 203). To paraphrase the following section from Gay Science: Christians make the mistake of assuming the aforementioned characteristics are consensual worldwide, or conversely, that different races have different moral codes, and by this infer no morality is binding—except of course God’s. ‘Thou shalt…’ the precursor of all the Commandments is ‘overgrown’ with moral ‘weeds of error’ (Williams 2001: 203). Nietzsche again qualifies by using the comparison of the way a sick person would ponder medicines scientific value, compared to the pondering of an old woman on the value of medicine. In other words, using God’s Commandments as a moral-code for living life is like using water as a cure for cancer—of no discernible value.
(Cont)
The final coup de grace to Christian morality in Gay Science would have to be the discourse under the heading: Morality as a problem. ‘…that popular superstition of Christian Europe…that what is characteristic of morality is selflessness, self-denial, self-sacrifice or sympathy and compassion (Williams 2001: 203). To paraphrase the following section from Gay Science: Christians make the mistake of assuming the aforementioned characteristics are consensual worldwide, or conversely, that different races have different moral codes, and by this infer no morality is binding—except of course God’s. ‘Thou shalt…’ the precursor of all the Commandments is ‘overgrown’ with moral ‘weeds of error’ (Williams 2001: 203). Nietzsche again qualifies by using the comparison of the way a sick person would ponder medicines scientific value, compared to the pondering of an old woman on the value of medicine. In other words, using God’s Commandments as a moral-code for living life is like using water as a cure for cancer—of no discernible value.
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