Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self preservative instincts of sound life; it has corrupted even the faculties of those natures that are intellectually most vigorous, by representing the highest intellectual values as sinful, as misleading, as full of temptation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nietzsche critiques Christianity for uplifting weakness and suppressing strong instincts.
In this quote, Nietzsche expresses his belief that Christianity has positioned itself as a protector of the weak and downtrodden, which he argues is detrimental to human flourishing. He suggests that this moral framework corrupts robust intellectual faculties by labeling the pursuit of knowledge and strength as sinful, thus fostering an antagonistic relationship between the values of life and religious ideals.
Themes
ChristianityWeaknessIntellectMoralityStrength
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on the moral implications of religion in society.
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Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.
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Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.
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The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
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