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Christianity and Nihilism

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ExistencePrecedesEssence

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Hey guys, long time no see.

I was reading some stuff the other day, and some guy quoted Nietzsche as saying 'Christians-and other nihilists-...'.

Is it true that Christians are nihilists?

SoS
Nietzsche believed christianity to be the religion of the weak and pitiful. He found them equal to nihilists in terms of disgust.
 
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ExistencePrecedesEssence

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Does that mean they are?
I don't know. Nietzsche was incredibly hate-filled towards christianity so it's rather hard to get an unbiased account of his opinion.

He found christendom to be the main reason why the superman or the 'perfect man' had not come to power. To him the downfall of christianity would spew forth from it a new age of reconstruction-the transvaluation of all values. He found the nihilism that would occur with the downfall of christendom to be necessary for the superman to gain power-the will towards power, if you would.
 
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SonOfSophroniscus

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I don't know. Nietzsche was incredibly hate-filled towards christianity so it's rather hard to get an unbiased account of his opinion.

He found christendom to be the main reason why the superman or the 'perfect man' had not come to power. To him the downfall of christianity would spew forth from it a new age of reconstruction-the transvaluation of all values. He found the nihilism that would occur with the downfall of christendom to be necessary for the superman to gain power-the will towards power, if you would.
Oh. His classification of a 'complete nihilist' goes something along the lines of someone who 'believes that this world ought not to exist'. I was assuming that Christians fall into this category because many will this world away, in favour of the hereafter?
 
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Oh. His classification of a 'complete nihilist' goes something along the lines of someone who 'believes that this world ought not to exist'. I was assuming that Christians fall into this category because many will this world away, in favour of the hereafter?
Indeed, he classifed nihilism as an outcrop that hid inside of christianity. Do you understand?
 
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Not really : /
To Nietzsche christianity was the greatest decadence to western culture. To him it was the rise of christendom that toppled the tranquil roman empire. It was christianities simple message of pity and hope that caused the middle ages, that ended the greatness of the renaissance:

Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This "progress" is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The European of today, in his essential worth, falls far below the European of the Renaissance; the process of evolution does not necessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening.

In his opinion, christianity had waged war on the greater power that existed within the greater men in exchange for equality to the weak and pitiful. Thus he called it the religion of pity.

He found that because if this hindering of the bettering of man that christianity produced, it created an almost insistent plague upon humanity, and only in its downfall could the better of man be reached. In this downfall the transvaluation of our ethics, morals, and values was required(thus his statement of 'god is dead'), and this would be a time of complete nihilism and anarchy. Through that age of reevaluation the superman would take charge and recreate the human race, making the pitiful and weak that christianity defended their servants.
 
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He thought the only true christian was the one who died on the cross. He didn't begrudge Jesus, but he did disagree with christianity in what Jesus suggested. To him Jesus was showing people how to live, not trying to redeem them. He found Paul to be one of the biggest imbeciles ever. In one case he actually called Jesus an idiot in his novel The AntiChrist(though it is speculated he was making a reference to the naive protaganist of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot).
 
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Was he right that Christianity, being a crystallisation of the instinct for revenge 'par excellence', killed Christ?
Personally, i haven't delved deep enough into his more expressive hates for christianity. I suggest reading his novel "The Antichrist"-which gives his opinions in a nutshell.

I'm almost positive he believed christians sucked off Jesus' message, and twisted it away from its originality towards a more Jewish superficial metaphysic-and Nietzsche despised metaphysics.
 
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WarEagle

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Hey guys, long time no see.

I was reading some stuff the other day, and some guy quoted Nietzsche as saying 'Christians-and other nihilists-...'.

Is it true that Christians are nihilists?

SoS

No. Just the opposite, in fact.

Nihilism teaches that there is no purpose in life, no objective truth and no hope.

Christians believe very strongly in each of these things.
 
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No. Just the opposite, in fact.

Nihilism teaches that there is no purpose in life, no objective truth and no hope.

Christians believe very strongly in each of these things.
You must not of read Nietzsche.
 
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I "of" read Nietzsche and nothing he says changes the fact that Christians are not nihilists.
Idk, depends upon what you put nihilism into context.

There would be contenders that would argue against you. Just remember that.

As for me, i'll keep with studying. My opinion is not Nietzsches.
 
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SonOfSophroniscus

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No. Just the opposite, in fact.

Nihilism teaches that there is no purpose in life, no objective truth and no hope.

Christians believe very strongly in each of these things.
You seem to suppose that there do not exist different types of nihilist.
 
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