Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
All religions bear traces of the fact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human race - before it had learned the obligations to speak the truth. Not one of them makes it the duty of its god to be truthful and understandable in his communications.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nietzsche critiques the intellectual development of humanity in relation to religion, suggesting that religions were formed during a time of lack of understanding about truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote discusses the origins of religions, highlighting that they emerged during a time when humanity was not yet mature enough to fully comprehend the concept of truth. He points out that none of these religions impose a duty on their gods to be truthful or clear in their messages, which reflects a broader critique of religious doctrine and its relationship with human understanding. Nietzsche's assertion challenges the notion of divine communication, suggesting that it lacks the obligation of clarity and honesty expected from human interactions.
Themes
ReligionTruthIntellectual MaturityCommunicationPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical debate, one could use this quote to illustrate the limitations of religious teachings.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Similar quotes
Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
David HumeRead
For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.
Wernher Von BraunRead
That this individual life of all of us is not something limited in its temporal expression to the life that now we experience, follows from the very fact that here nothing final or individual is found expressed.
Josiah RoyceRead
Any system which says, This is a rotten world, wait for the next, give up, do nothing, succumb--that may be the basic Lie and if we participate in believing it and acting (or rather not acting) on it we involve ourselves in the Lie and suffer dreadfully... which only reinforces that particular Lie.
Philip K. DickRead
It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.
Thomas AquinasRead
Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.
Stephen KingRead