godslanguage wrote:"Christian morality: does it not seem that one will has dominated Europe for eighteen centuries, the will to make of man a sublime abortion?
The Christian resolve to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."
Does anyone else completely disagree with this statement. Your opinions
Well, obviously Nietzsche thought he had a better way to run the railroad than what had been tried before.
What came from his philosophy carried out to its logical conclusion?
Does the name, Adolph Hitler, ring a bell? Hitler based much of his ideology of a Superman, or master race on Nietzche's thinking.
There is no question that many atrocities and abuses of power have taken place within the structure of the Church and its partnership in the past with state power. There is no doubt as well that where power exists institutionally, there will be those who seek to raise within the institution to wield it for their own benefits and hidden agendas.
Nietzsche posited that man is inherently good. He made the argument that when people teach, or assume the evil of men, then that in effect becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So logically, it would follow that the problem is not with man, but that society and religion are teaching and/or conditioning man (I'm using the term collectively, not gender specific), to there predetermined end.
I would argue that for all its flaws and past abuses, which I acknowledge, that the instution of the Church also brought about great good. It was the preservation of the classics primarily through the libraries of the Church Monestaries that alllowed the renaissance and ultimately the reformation to have a foundation upon which to build. Pure religion in the hands of people of good will and with right intentions has provided significant and at times primary support and initiation for hospitals, orphanages, education, political reform, the abolition of slavery, civil rights, etc.
Can it be argued as well that religious belief and institutions have been used improperly? Yes. That is undeniable. What is questionable is if the fault lay in the teachings and values of the institutions or if fallible men, oft times for their own purposes and by means inconsistent with their professed values were responsible.
Examine historically however what has taken place in societies and regimes where religious thought has been banned, and persecuted.
The most horiffic atrocities of the 20th century took place in the gulags, the pograms, the ethnic cleansings, the driving of churches underground, the killing fields etc. This was in the context of professed atheist states. Utopia, it was not. Apparently there is something common to man whether he moves in religious contexts or social contexts that gives rise to abuse of power. Maybe that says something to the assumption that man is inherently good.
The issue is what is the real nature of the heart of man? Insitutional abuses have to measured in the light of what restraint and positive events have occured as well.
When the goodness of man is presumed, and the restraints upon individual power removed, then unfortunately we have seen all to well what must inevitably occur. Lord Acton's maxim applies. "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."
Still, does going to hell then literally means "death"? Interesting because heaven is referred to as "new life" and hell as "death" but in reality we're immortal and we will live, thats sure (well as long as u believe in afterlife). So is this interpretation correct? is hell really death if we suffer there forever?
