In Nietzsche’s parable, “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, the removal of Christianity’s moral constraints is displayed as being a worthy cause, undertaken by the brave and intelligent man who casts off the elementary beliefs of the past. While in other writings Nietzsche did seem to understand the horrible ramifications this impacting change would have on the world, he certainly makes a colorful scene of the “religious” man being tossed over the tightrope of time, only to be delivered by the atheist who explains that there is no heaven or hell. Currently, men such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have latched onto this thinking, and in some ways taken atheistic philosophy even further along a reckless path.
I bring this up in order to be reasonable. The modern atheistic posture says that religion is the root cause of all humanity’s problems, and therefore if we could somehow remove religion, man could find himself in a glorious new world without oppression and hardship (forgive the over-generalization; though it is accurate). This viewpoint becomes even more disturbing when one recognizes not only its utter bankruptcy, but the way in which our youth are indoctrinated to believe in its lies.
Nietzsche proposed that Christianity, more than anything else, had crippled the human potential. He taught that it was a system that hindered our achievements with the useless restraint of morality, and wished for the death of religious thought so that mankind could be allowed to push further into the unknown, without being weighed down by a belief in God. He thought that no powerful society could be built on ideas of humility, service, meekness, and peace. In other words, he saw Christianity as self-debasing. If you read his works, the mood reveals the obvious thrust of his message. In a work called “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, the picture is given of the glorious death of the “religious man.” Zarathustra comes upon the symbolized religious man, who is caught in the last moments of death. As Zarathustra, portrayed as the “enlightened” liberator, begins speaking to this dying man, he informs him that there in no heaven or hell. In striking terms, Zarathustra “enlightens” the man to the fact that this life is all there is, and to hope in God or heaven is to limit the mind, or constrain it and dwarf the intellect. The dying religious man thanks Zarathustra for liberating him, and here it is portrayed that religion is something which holds mankind hostage. The mood and pointedness of Nietzsche’s writing is clear: educate the people, let them know that the main obstruction to human progress is the Christian, and once we get the Christian out of the way, God will be obsolete. Only then, Nietzsche contends, can we progress further into our evolutionary future. He thought that once civilization accomplished the removal of Christianity, the “superman” would emerge, and men could realize power within themselves, unseen by previous generations.
While years ago atheists could perhaps claim that, if only they led the world, it would become a better place; today that claim can clearly be seen as false. The Nazi regime and the contemporary experiments led by Stalin expose the fact that atheism is not the savior Harris and others propose it to be. Reasonably, the thinking person can observe the status of the world, and see that we are not in need of such a bankrupt system of thought, which robs us ultimately of any meaning, purpose, direction, or hope. Clearly, Nietzsche was incorrect in his assertion that belief in God was the problem with society. I will always and openly concede that many have misused and twisted religion (and Christianity in particular) into what is was never meant to be. However, this new march of atheism takes us to an end that provides no answers for the most intrinsic questions of life.
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