Nietzsche On Religion

Existentialism is a philosophy that keys in on existence, freedom and choice. Although existentialist have some very different views on religion, they can put together the same common idea on the individual and the relationship between the individual and society. Their views altogether sum up the complete understanding of existentialism. Existentialists agree that society is dangerous and hampers the free will of the individual, though they each follow different paths of how free the individual should live.

Each existentialist has a common view on how society contradicts the way an individual should live. A question to this would be, how do you find your true self without having experiences with society? Existentialists agree that living

For example, when a cashier asks you if you would like to donate money to a certain charity, and you find yourself wanting to say no; however, you feel this guilt and your conscience that tells you what you are doing is shameful, because that is the expectation society puts on us. Another example is social media today, and how people try to copy other peoples trends and not do what they think is cool. If existentialist were alive today, they would agree that social media is a huge factor when it comes to society, and how it affects the individual from making his choices. Religion can also be another example of how society hampers the free will of the individual. In Medical Diagnosis, Soren Kierkegaard says, “And yet this is what they do in the religion sphere, whereby they really are cheating men out of what constitutes the significance of life, and helping people to waste life.” (Kierkegaard, Medical Diagnosis) Religion is

Sartre states, “Existence comes before essence - or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective.” Later in the text he says, “Man will only attain existence when he is what he purposes to be. Not, however, what he may wish to be.” (Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism) Here Sartre claims that you must find your true self through experiences in life; you cannot do so by wishing to be something that is not you. In society we tend to wish to be other people. Wishing to be something you are not is what Sartre explains not to do; instead, live every moment through experiences in life and find your true self. An example of this would be someone that says, “when I win the lottery I’m going to buy a huge house.” Sartre believes instead of wasting your time waiting for something that probably won’t happen, work towards it. In this situation Sartre would advise you to find a way to get the money, like get a job and work towards getting a big house, not sitting and hoping a few numbers on a ticket will win you a million bucks. The existentialist agree that when you live you decide what is good and bad for yourself, and put away what society portrays you to be. A quote that supports this is from The Grand Inquisitor where it states, “Thirsting for human love freely given, seeking to enable man, seduced, and