How Did Nietzsche's View Of Religion

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher well known for his ideas and the death of God. Yet what does he imply when he says that God is Dead? It does not mean he is an atheist; he already went on record as a man who believes in God. Rather, he is saying that there is one, but that the idea of God no longer exists today. All the while, Thomas Hobbes believed that God does exist and is used by humans to guide them through life by exploiting their fears. Nietzsche believes that religion was created by the less fortunate in order to eventually, in the afterlife, attain the same greatness as those with money and power. As a result, morals in religion from Nietzsche’s perspective was created to inhibit the lower classes from becoming too great.

Reason tells us that the universe was created by a greater power because it is so vast and indescribable, God must have made it. He writes, “Man observed how one event hath been produced by another, and remembered in them antecedence and consequence; and when he cannot assure himself of the true causes of things, he supposes causes of them, either such as his own fancy suggested, or trusted to the authority of other men.” Hobbes believes that there is one true religion, and that is Christianity, hence those that do not follow are supporting false reason. As a result of this thinking, man constructed false pagan religions in order to explain why unfortunate phenomena occur on to him on earth. If one understands why the gods punish them, then they know how to better appease them and avoid misfortune in the future. It is my belief though, that whether or not he actually believes in other religions, they all use the same logic to avoid potential mishaps. It is not the brand of religion that makes man more right or wrong, but his use of it to avoid punishment that guides him to a safer life.

In reading Hobbes I was forced to recall my previous knowledge of him and the concept of a Leviathan. I believe Hobbes is misconstruing the concepts of fear and power by saying that fear was created by men in order to save lives. If man fears something will happen to him, he will avoid that consequence in order to keep himself and those

The contradicting nature of his writings proved more difficult that the straight forward Hobbes. In Nietzsche’s opinion, if a person is sinful, or finds misfortune, it I because he feels this way mentally, not necessarily because God wishes it on him. As I stated earlier, God itself is dead, but the ideas live on. He states that sinfulness in man is based not a fact, but his interpretation. With this in mind, religion no longer binds man, but if he feels ‘guilty’, ’sinful’, or misfortune, it does not mean that he is right in feeling this way, but simply that that is what he chooses to feel for himself in a particular situation. During the witch trials Nietzsche proposed that those who passed judgement on the so called witches had no doubt that they were dealing with guilty persons. He even goes far enough to say that those being punished had no doubt that they were guilty. Yet were they truly witches? – I think not. According to Nietzsche, the feelings man have are simply what they perceive at that given moment. I believe he is saying that religion is what people make of it based on their situation. The extent of one’s mind is the sole limitation on how it effects life and belief