Now this thread will go somewhere.
Whether you admire (which I do) or loath Nietzsche there can be little disputing that, if he was nothing else, he was bold. Few have had the testicular fortitude to take the stands Nietzsche championed in the face of established moral authority, religious orthodoxy, and the prevailing sensibilities of the state. And there has been no such thing as an easy ride for his readers. Nietzsche challenges his readers to collaboratively sojourn with him on his various "thought experiments" and iconoclastic re-valuations of status quo assumption. The conclusions the reader is left with at the end of that journey tends to reflect as much about the reader's own biography as the message intended by Nietzsche. As a consequence, Nietzsche stands as perhaps one of the most misunderstood, inconsistently interpreted, and widely maligned social thinkers and philosophers of all time (not that he much cared).
Understanding the Anti-Christ as it was intended by Nietzsche may be best done by following the train of his thinking chronologically through his preceding works that build upon the basic premises set forth in his first work, Birth of Tragedy. For no where is the occasion for distorted interpretation and vilification greater than Nietzsche's late work, the Anti-Christ. Of course, Nietzsche invites much of this on himself beginning with his incendiary title and a text laced with in-your-face passages such as:
"Principle of `Christian love:' it wants to be well paid..."
"A certain sense of cruelty toward oneself and others is Christian; hatred of those who think differently; the will to persecute."
"Hatred of mind, of pride, courage, freedom, libertinage of mind is Christian; hatred of the senses, of the joy of the senses, of joy in general is Christian..."
"...the concepts `Beyond,' `Last Judgement,' `immortality of the soul,' the `soul' itself: they are instruments of torture, they are forms of systematic cruelty by virtue of which the priest has become master, stays master..."
"That strange and sick world to which the Gospels introduce us-a world like that of a Russian novel, in which the refuse of society, neurosis and `childlike' idiocy seem to make a rendezvous..."
"`Faith' has been at all times...only a cloak, a pretext, a screen, behind which the instincts played their game-a shrewd blindness to the dominance of certain instincts..." (I.e., "ressentiment"- resentment/envy/revenge)
"There are only bad instincts in the New Testament, there is not even the courage for these bad instincts. Everything in it is cowardice, everything is self-deception and closing one's eyes to oneself..."
"Paul was the greatest of all apostles of revenge..."
"The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct-all that is salutary, all that is life-furthering, all that holds a guarantee of the future in the instincts henceforth excites mistrust..."
"One must not let oneself be misled: they say `Judge not!' but they send to Hell everything that stands in their way. By allowing God to judge they themselves judge; by glorifying God they glorify themselves..."
"...their life of humility appears to be a duty, as humility it is one more proof of piety...Ah this humble, chaste, compassionate mode of mendaciousness...The reality is that here the most conscious arrogance of the elect is posing as modesty: one has placed oneself, the `community,' the `good and just,' once and for all on one side, on the side of `truth'-and the rest, `the world,' on the other...That has been the most fateful kind of megalomania that has ever existed on earth; little abortions of bigots and liars began to lay claim to the concepts "God,' `truth,' `light,' `spirit,' `love,' `wisdom,' `life' as if these were synomyms of themselves so as to divide themselves off from the `world..."
Should a devout Christian find these lines offensive? Naturally most no doubt have and will. But like Kierkegaard's critiques on "Christiandom" (which Nietzsche probably had not read), the Anti-Christ stands as a strong challenge that reflects what for many critically-minded individuals uninitiated to a Christian way of life are genuine stumbling blocks. Faith, it is assumed, must be predicated upon some personalized substance that extends beyond mere cultural obedience and lazy conformity. In the wake of a historical record that has been drenched in blood, repression, and cruelty, what exactly is the personal relevance of Jesus? A ticket to eternal life while holding onto a sense of comfortable superiority and entitlement in the interim? What about the moral teachings of Jesus? Have they ever truly been at the foundation of Christian institutions or have they been co-opted and contorted to alienate individuals from a deeper level of personal understanding that leads to morality that serves life?
There are two insidious tendencies in the human condition that Nietzsche sees as undermining healthy growth: fear and laziness. Nietzsche singles out the common practice of Christiandom to the extent that it manifests and propagates fear of becoming and the dulling effects of complacency. Nietzsche was an admirer of Jesus' bold vision and his courage to take a stand but he rejected his divinity and the religion built around him ("There has been only one Christian-he died on a cross"). Unlike his influential predecessor Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was not a nihilist. If Nietzsche "philosophized with a hammer" to sound out established idols and shibboleths, and when warranted, shatter them, it was to clear the way for what was more immediate and urgent to the human condition. That for Nietzsche, as illustrated poetically in Thus Spake Zarathustra, was to be fully alive now, learn to love fate, and to take full charge of all of one's senses, talents, and instincts and to bring them to bear creatively. Morality must develop from within the abundance of a life lived boldly, not from a repressive external system of coercion and reward.
