Nietzsche does not level his charges at the philosophical justification for god, his basis for evaluation of Christianity is psychology, and his charge that Christianity produces 'sick' people. His description of Christianity brings a number of contentious value judgements:

1. The Jesus teaching was vastly different to Paul's. Traditionally this would not have been conceived of, but today a number of scholars would hold not only that Jesus teaching of the Kingdom of God uses a different terminology to Paul's teaching of the Resurrection, but that they actually teach things, eg Paul taught of a future state of redemption while Jesus taught of no future state, that eternal life was now.
2. That Christianity is a teaching of the poor and sick, a teaching based on resentment and a pulling down of all that is great and noble in man. Because of the vast divergence of Christianity this needs a lot more 'unfolding'. Nietzsche could cite cases of Christians closing down Baths, or burning libraries but can he also account for Michaelangelo and Pascal ?
3. Nietzsche claims that Christianity favours the masses, and is responsible for the doctrine of the equal rights of man, but this was a result of the Enlightenment: Thomas Pain, Mary Woolstonecraft, etc were not representative of the views of the church. Nietzsche seems to get these problems by a conceptual difficulty: how do you relate a body of thought to a certain culture ? We can't have Christianity as a machine that churns out certain types of people, but on the other hand it can't be ignored. The solution is to see Christianity as not having an essence which must appear in all Christians, but having a dynamic within which certain traits are dominant.

   Thus I can concede that nowadays certain groups of politicised Christians will justify human rights from a theological argument, but I can't see how historically the established Christianity fought for the oppressed. What needs to be included within a critique of western culture are the various systems of thought, not least of which is the ever recurring neo-platonic/aristotlian dialectic, in addition to which a new set of experiences needs a new discourse to articulate it, even though that discourse steals from discourses of the past. It is more likely that democracy comes from Greece than Jerusalem, but to identify the origin of a set of values the historical conjuncture has to be investigated.

4. That Christianity 'grows out of' Judaism. Of course this is a traditional Christian claim, that Jesus fulfils all the prophecies for the Jewish messiah, that his criticisms of the Pharisees, Saducees and Torah were all valid, etc. With Nietzsche the claim is inverted- Judaism was good, Christianity is better becomes Judaism was bad, Christianity is worse. His evaluation of Judaism, like his attitude to all non-Christian forms of religion, is partly ambiguous, but he certainly likes it a lot less than most other religions he refers to (eg Islam, Buddhism etc).

Having identified these three problems for Nietzsche, what are we to make of attempts to replace Christianity ? Nietzsche claimed that he might live at the time of the last Christian; clearly he didn't believe that all forms of Christian practise would die out overnight, but more likely that the knowledge required to live in the 20th century would be incompatible with Christian belief, yet people would still lie to themselves about this contradiction. It is a pre-condition of Post-Modernism that the subject must hold compartmentalised viewpoints, unable or uninterested in uniting them. In using the symbol 'Christian' or 'Believer in God' as a self-referent, what are we attempting to communicate (to ourselves) ?

To answer this question it will be useful to look at particular cases:

1. The religious radical. The Christian CND supporter, or the Christian Socialist, or the Christian Pacifist or the Christian fighting for freedom for third world peoples all conceive of God as a God of justice, which grounds their critique in an objective moral order, whereby they have both a justification for their political actions and a set of values for fighting 'evil' (appeal to public conscience, dissemination of information, symbolic actions, possibly holy wars in the case of S. America).
2. The religious conservative. Finding that they cannot understand the modern world, religious conservatism seeks to stop change. The problem arises with the split between the elite and the masses (which has existed for centuries in the west), and the responsibility the masses are now expected to have in ordering the world, means that there exists an elite culture that the masses now have access to, but which they fail to understand, but yet which they feel they must have an attitude towards. The attitude invariably taken is thus one of hostility to the unknown. Ignorance of modern thought, ignorance of contemporary history, ignorance of modern art, ignorance of other races, ignorance of alternative sexual preferences all meet with a feeling of isolation and uncertainty in the conservative. The need to label and dispense with the 'modern' is given satisfaction in religious conservatism: a small vocabulary in which it is possible to confront the huge unknown and 'make sense' of it in terms of their own reactions. They FEEL it to be evil/alien/immoral and thus a discourse that confirms that initial reaction, that says that it REALLY IS LIKE THAT,

... and that a 'silent majority' think like they do, indeed that God (reality) agrees with them fulfils a very deep need. Two other points:

1. The apocalyptic part of religious conservatism recognises that we cannot turn back the clock, that its aims are unrealisable, but justifies them on the basis that the world is about to end (or may be about to end) and therefore it is not necessary to be realistic, or aim for the achievable, or worry about any bad consequences of our actions. It soothes the fear of impotence.
2. Why does religious conservatism contain two groups who should be able to adapt to change: youth and ex-radicals ? Although each case would have to be individually examined, it is generally the case that certain people are confident and able when given specific tasks, but are anxious when the 'rules' are not clearly defined, where the result is open ended, or not quantifiable. This is where a fundamentalism (and not just conservative fundamentalism) has its appeal because it does not contain any difficult, open-ended questions left unresolved. For someone who has little routine, order or structure to their lives, fundamentalism may offer a simple solution.
3. The religious artist. TS Eliot, Blake, Wordsworth, Renaissance artists etc all use religious themes to express themselves, can artists ever express the world truly, can they leave the world as they find it ? This is too large a subject to enter into, the only point I would make is that artists must look at any 'object' (or pre-objects or abjects etc) in an artistic manner and hence be concerned with balance, grain, form etc and not necessarily with truth. Unless Nietzsche is against any sort of allegory or metaphor (re: Zarathrustra, obviously not) he cannot oppose the simple use of religion by art but can only object on grounds such as the use to which the art is put. In cases such as Pascal, Nietzsche argues that Christianity spoilt Pascal, that he would have been even better without it. This seems rather speculative and not really important for the main case Nietzsche is putting.

   What are we to make of Nietzsche's 'Anti-Christ' ? It isn't simply a matter of pointing out that all 'small-bigots' aren't Christians, we have to look at whether there is a sick-bloodline running through the Christian psyche, and if Christian thought/belief is responsible for this.

   The crux of Nietzsche's argument that must be recognised before a clear assessment can begin is how he defines Christianity. With something so big it is easy to counter any example of sickness with one of health. Where can the meaning of Christianity be found ? An attempt could be made to list certain 'facts' about Christianity and then see how the pros and cons balance. For example, There IS a shallowness of thought which accepts simplistic solutions and explanations, or rather is not concerned with finding a solution as much as reinforcing a prejudice. Christianity's exclusivist claims result in a bigoted mentality, IF no other relativising beliefs are present. The world of first century Israel was light years away from the pragmatic world of Rome, any attempt to 'live it' today with any seriousness leaves the believer cocooned from reality. etc etc However Nietzsche's method is more sweeping. He looks at Christianity on the basis of World-History. When did the course of World-History change

   and what part did Christianity play in that change ? Nietzsche is able to identify at least four 'moments':

   1. The Fall of the Roman Empire, and the ancient world. The Ancient World had the basis for thousands of years of progress. The foundations had been laid for Art, Science, Government and Wealth to progress, yet they were all destroyed. The reason is the 'worm' of Christianity which weakened the Empire and allowed it to be sacked.
   2. The Civilisation of the Moors was another attempt of health, beauty, and culture to re-establish itself, but was again defeated by the Christian Crusaders.
   3. The Renaissance was an effort from within to overthrow Christianity and re-establish the ancient world of art, civilisation, philosophy, and nobility. The establishment of Caesar Borgia as Pope was the replacing of the Christian sickness with Life. However Luther and Protestantism again turned the West back to decadent mediocrity.
   4. Our current age is again one in which the West is attempting to throw off Christianity and restore Life: the attempts at science, art etc are still poisoned by Christian influences (Nietzsche identifies Socialism as the main enemy, the attempt to stir up the mediocre masses rather than let the elite rule).

   The 'success' of Christianity Nietzsche credits to Paul. He says that the vision Paul saw was of nihilism: placing the meaning of life outside life. It was this ability to render life meaningless that made Christianity able to feed off the other cultic mystery religions of the time and wield them together into a political, powerful whole, to mobilise the sick into power.

   Nietzsche's attitude to religion is interesting, in that he not only sounds very religious (eg Zarathrustra) and seems to give a lot of importance to whether people are religious or not, but that his idea of a perfect society seems to have religions in it (eg Islam, Renaissance Catholicism, Imperial Rome). He divides society into the masses, who have rights, but not the same rights as the elite. They have the right to work, to be craftsmen, artists etc, but the fact that they are mediocre means that they will be happy to be mediocre. Does part of this mediocre life style include a religion of sorts ?

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   Nietzsche's Labyrinth
   The AntiChrist by Friedrich Nietzsche
   Nietzsche's attack on Christianity in the 'Anti-Christ'
   Existentialism and Nietzche by Katharena Eiermann
   The Pillars of Unbelief � Nietzsche
   Nietzsche's Evaluation of Christian Ethics by Douglas Groothuis
   

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   Nietzsche's Critique of Religion

   November 21, 1995

   Modern Christian civilization, Nietzsche declared, is sick and must be overcome. Much of On the Genealogy of Morals is devoted to an etiology of the modern sickness, and the cause is said to be two-fold. There has always been the seething resentment of the "herd," the base, the powerless mass. By itself this resentment is not sickness; it becomes so through the ministrations of the priests, who manage the resentment by turning it inward.

   Civilization itself sets the stage for the disease. In civil society, individual humans are confined and their the exercise of their wills repressed. Like a wild beast in a cage, a civilized human hurls himself at the walls in a frenzy of self-destruction. Thus arises bad conscience in its natural form. In its religious form, bad conscience becomes much more: it becomes guilt.

   Society as a whole finds itself indebted for what it has to its ancestors. As civilization becomes more powerful, the ancestors are made into powerful gods, to whom the debt is even greater. The Christian God is the most powerful of all, and the debt owed that God is the greatest. It is so great that it cannot be discharged by any action, any sacrifice. Redemption comes only through grace, which is granted only through God's will, which might be turned by the intercession of the priest. Thus the human being is a sinner and the priest is his greatest hope.

   The values of the priest are ascetic values. The priestly virtues of poverty, chastity, obedience are all forms of self-denial. Shortly we shall see how they are said by Nietzsche to give meaning to the life of the masses. But first we will turn our attention to the meaning of ascetic values for the philosopher.

   It was Socrates who invented the type of the philosopher: "theoretical man," one whose entire being is devoted to thought. The activity of the philosopher is the discharge of his power, and it is to be enhanced in any way possible. Asceticism, self-denial, is the effective means to philosophical thinking. All philosophers up to his time that Nietzsche marked as great -- Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Schopenhauer -- were unmarried. One could not even imagine them married. "A married philosopher belongs in comedy, that is my proposition -- and as for that exception, Socrates -- the malicious Socrates, it would seem, married ironically, just to demonstrate this proposition" (On the Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, section 7). A philosopher gives up the possibility of fame, fortune, sensuality for the prize of enhancing the fundamental activity which makes him what he is.

   The ascetic priest generalizes self-denial to a repudiation of the natural world as a whole. He begins with a general disgust with life, which holds nothing but pain and suffering. Moreover, this miserable condition is meaningless. One response to this situation (that of Buddhism and Schopenhauer) is to attempt to give up willing altogether. But the ascetic priest repudiates this way out, instead giving life a purpose.

   Suffering has a meaning after all: it is the sufferer who brings it upon himself! The response is for the sufferer to turn against himself, to deny himself, to adopt ascetic ideals. "'I suffer: someone must be to blame for it' -- thus thinks every sickly sheep. But his shepherd, the ascetic priest, tells him: 'Quite so, my sheep! someone must be to blame for it: but you youself are this someone, you alone are to blame for it -- you alone are to blame for yourself!'" (On the Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, Section 15). In this way, resentment is turned inward and the herd is rendered harmless. Self-punishment for one's own guilt is the most effective regulator at all, and at the same time, it gives a meaning to life.

   Thus Nietzsche condemned Christianity as a movement led by sick men whose aim was to infect everyone else. It is a religion of resentment, at its very beginning blaming the Jews for the death of its founder. Its stance toward life, toward everything sensual, is one of hostility. It must tame every natural instinct, just as it tamed the barbarian tribes of the north (thus accomplishing what the Roman Empire could not). Hegel had stated that this taming process was necessary to bring forth the genius of the German people, but to Nietzsche all that resulted was the loss of all that was noble in them.

   In this respect, Christianity is far different from the older religion of the East, Buddhism, which grew out of an already-mature culture. Far from needing to be tamed, the ancient Indians were overly civilized, with the result that they were hyper-sensitive to pain. They sought release from pain by slipping gently into nothingness, by giving up the will.

   Nietzsche also distinguished Christianity from the teachings of Jesus Christ. The message of the Christ was one of glad tidings, that heaven is to be found in how one lives. It is not by following the law, not through redemption from sin, but only through a benevolent disposition, which might best be summarized in the commandment to love one's neighbor as one's self. "The 'kingdom of Heaven' is a condition of the heart -- not sometihng that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death'" (The Anti-Christ, section 34).

   Christian doctrine, however, is little concerned with the glad tidings, Nietzsche went on. After the death of Jesus, it turned in the opposite direction, to become a religion of hatred. This began by Jesus's followers blaming the Jews for putting their leader to death. But it could not be the whole story, for God had to have permitted the event to occur. "And now an absurd problem came up: 'How could God have permitted that?' For this question the deranged reason of the little community found a downright terrifingly absurd anser: God gave his Son for the forgiveness of sins, as a sacrifice" (The Anti-Christ, section 41). Guilt, which played no part in the glad tidings of Jesus, took center stage once again. Nietzsche accused the disciples, Paul in particular, of having gone on to falsify the history of Christianity, for example by putting words of vengeance in the mouth of Jesus.

   Christianity had its battles with secular civilizations of Greece and Rome, with the northern barbarians, and it emerged victorious. The last battle was fought by Luther against the re-emergence of noble values in the Renaissance. Thus Nietzsche was uncompromisingly anti-Christian, for Christianity was the most potent force against those values which he prized most highly. It is a life-and-death struggle that may someday be won, but in the present day is more difficult than ever. "I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind" (The Anti-Christ, section 62).

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