Christianity And Its Ultimate Role Essay, Research Paper

Two of the most important concepts of Nietzsche s were the possible origins of Christianity and the faith that surrounds it, whether or not it was valid or not. In the following arguments, it will hopefully be proven that both the origin is flawed and the intent behind it, i.e. faith, is just as skewed. Also a proof will be presented as to how this master scheme was orchestrated to achieve ultimate social power and control though a popular stimulus, religion.

Christianity came into existence in order to lighten the heart; but now it has first to burden the heart so as afterwards to be able to lighten it. Consequently it shall perish. This is a very powerful statement made by Nietzsche, however it holds to be quite true in may aspects. The only way to accept a savior is to first be in need of one, your heart must require something like a savior, hence it must be burdened. This yet is an odd concept, how must you accept something so harshly. Well as Nietzsche so eloquently portrays in his essays, the individual must be vulnerable, being at a pint in their life where they have nothing to turn to at all, except Christianity.

This as Nietzsche concludes will be the downfall of Christianity in the end. Something that is accepted so loosely upon desperation for help and understating cannot possibly achieve the full potential desired, instead it will perish. With all of this we can stem to the basic argument of Nietzsche, God is Dead! Only the ideal remains in society day, in this we find that we grasp and hold onto what ever pulls us out of the muck, and in Nietzsche s opinion his is what Christianity has evolved into. How can something that is dead be able to save us from our own despair? This is a possible flaw in Nietzsche s argument, never the less it remains strong.

After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave – a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. -And we- we still have to vanquish his shadow, too. According to Nietzsche this is exactly what Christianity has become, a shadow in a cave, and quite possibly this shadow has become the safe cool place to hide from the beating burning sun (life dilemmas) for individuals in our society. What has happened to society to promote such a radical change from a group of people who simply believed in God, to a mass of strangers who merely believe in this omnipotent being that can save us from all of the harsh realties of this world and all of our personal problems. This unfortunately is the downfall of Christianity, instead of depending and gathering the strong to re-enforce God, it is now a re-enforced from the weak.

In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God – today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous. – When in former times one had refuted the ‘proofs of the existence of God’ put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep. Here is a rather interesting perspective upon how Nietzsche feels towards the previous attempts to prove the lack of a God. Apparently he believes that he is the only one thus far able to sufficiently prove that there is in fact no God at all, this presents a rather interesting problem with the essays, how exactly can Nietzsche present his argument as the singular on the matter without loosing validity? Quite simply put, Nietzsche believes that the previous attempts are not complete, always leaving some sort of doubt, implying that his alone leaves no doubt at all. Though Nietzsche presents a good argument for the non-existence of god the previous statements made by him are, to say the least, arrogant.

Another interesting perspective upon this argument is the fact that ultimately Christianity is doomed. Whys is Christianity doomed? Well this is quite simple according to Nietzsche, for how can something based upon recruiting the weak in order to build a belief structure possibly hold up against all odds in the long run. Simply put, when one asks a weak minded individual to put forth his/her faith, if this faith is ever tested most probably it will falter ultimately causing the demise of Christianity. Instead of attempting to accomplish the better of the two, recruiting the strong minded in order to build a strong faith that when tested will hold long and fast, the weak are ultimately going to shame the faith.

If a persons or persons were hoping to attain an ultimate control mechanism, a mechanism in which an entire populous could be controlled by means of faith. Faith is an ultimate means to understand and control a persons is to tap into what they hold as all powerful. Powerful in the sense of being able, or so believing this ability exists, after all this is what is important, belief, the ability to change everything, to change ones life or even the world.

In the third essay in the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche presents a new perspective on what he believes the origins of Christianity are. In his words: “When one looks for the beginnings of Christianity in the Roman world, one finds associations for mutual aid, associations for the poor, for the sick, for burial, evolved among the lowest strata of society, in which this major remedy for depression, petty pleasure by mutual helpfulness, was consciously employed: perhaps this was something new in those days, a real discovery? The will to mutual aid to the formation of a herd, to community to congregation, called up in this way is bound to lead to fresh and far more fundamental outbursts of that will to power which it has, even if only to a small extent, aroused: the formation of a herd is a significant victory and advance in the struggle against depression” (135). Hence it can be assumed that Nietzsche is saying that the driven priest can finally take control of a struggling herd for his own gain or of the gain of the church as a whole. Exactly how the origin of Christianity came about is quite uncertain as far as philosophy goes. Nietzsche believes that the church, or Christianity, is nothing but a fa ade for a certain type of people, enabling them to gain a control over the weak , this in turn makes religion to be nothing more than an empire. The only problem with all of this is how exactly one is to go about proving such a theory, for in all aspects this argument attacks the very base of the populations primary structure of what they believe life to be. Bringing this up in a new light only accomplishes tension, regardless of the relevance of some of Nietzsche s arguments. Nietzsche continues to tell us about how exactly the strong have tendency to separate, and that how to weak tend to herd in groups for the support of each other in order to relieve their so called depression they feel towards life. The role of the ascetic priest (Christianity) is the “general muting of the feeling of life, mechanical activity, the petty pleasure, above all ‘love of one’s neighbor’, herd organization, the awakening of the communal feeling of power through which the individual’s discontent with himself is drowned in his pleasure in the prosperity of community – these are, by modern standards, his innocent means in the struggle with displeasure” (136). One of Nietzsche s fundamental contentions was that traditional values had lost their power in the lives of individuals. He expressed this often with the declaration that “God is dead.” Nietzsche was convinced that traditional values represented a “slave morality, a morality created by weak and resentful individuals who encouraged such behavior as gentleness and kindness because the behavior served their interests. Nietzsche claimed that new values could be created to replace the traditional ones, and his discussion of the possibility led to his concept of the overman or superman. This slave morality presents a new interesting concept that invokes a closer look, through the new aspects of the tyrannical taking advantage of the weak by using something that most hold dear, religion, as a front to portray kindness and benevolence, is amazing, though even more so is the fact the meek would invent upon themselves a morality to help themselves along in this process, this perhaps is a little ridiculous.

Quite interestingly, Nietzsche believes that Christianity is nothing more than a way to alleviate the pain of depression that all individuals feel on a daily basis. Along these lines he assumes that with such a powerful belief in ones life that this gives a person or and individual a reason for to go on in life, to keep going instead of attempting to live with this new found pain.

The whole idea of control from the strong unto the weak over a moral issue is a little weak, but founded in many ways. Historically this argument is proven time and time again. For instance, during the time of Constantinople, the Church had the largest, strongest standing army in existence, what is to be said about this? The church is supposed to be a place of reverence, not of forcing the beliefs of the strong (Christianity) unto others by brut force. Unfortunately this was not the case, when ever a group of people or villagers attempted to create a new idea against the church the strong demanded them to recant what had been done otherwise the whole village would be slaughtered, consequently this happened on many occasions. This stopped until Martin Luther posted the 95 Thesis , this changed everything. Hopefully this gave the individual new thought, an original thought.

Nietzsche believes that the origin of Christianity came from the overwhelming belief that the individual was bad and needed a path to follow, this path was laid forth by the strong with the use of Christianity, and they helped along the meek. Though this belief is a bit strenuous this is true to some extent. We have also discussed the evolution of Christianity, and the reasons that it is nothing more than a facade for the weak to try and gain control of their depraved lives, having no real impact at all but to fool them. Consequently it can be seen through the above writing that Nietzsche has sufficiently proved that the demise of the institution known as Christianity is imminent. If the only way to introduce Christianity into someone s heart is to burden it before you may lighten it then what is doomed to happen once again somewhere down the line is to once again lay down a burden upon the light.

Ultimately a question must be proposed, a question which shakes the very foundation of our society, Is this belief structure in which we live, in which we breath true to its myth, or only as true as those who created for their own means of controlling a spiraling species from its own self-demise? In either case it can obviously be seen the religion, i.e. Christianity, is the ultimate control structure for use with the populous, one can only hope that the intent is honorable.