09/08/2023
Via Jim Palmer
After leaving religion, I began to investigate many different fields of knowledge and inquiry. During my religious years this was off limits because the only approved sources for spiritual knowledge or existential investigation were the Bible, and a list of approved commentaries and Christian books.
Philosophy was one of those areas of post-religion investigation. Philosophy is a gold mine for exploring existential matters outside the religious framework. Later in life, I taught philosophy and philosophy of religion classes. Someone who regularly came up was Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche was German, born into a family that was religious and Christian, which he would later denounce. His father was a Lutheran pastor and there had been hopes Friedrich would have followed in those same steps. For a season, Nietzsche pursued this course and studied theology academically, but ultimately abandoned his interests in religion. Consider how similar some of us are to Nietzsche in this regard:
Nietzsche was raised in religion;
had doubts;
deconstructed his beliefs;
underwent a process of deconversion;
became a critic of institutional Christianity and denounced orthodox Christian theology;
cultivated different avenues of spirituality through his humanness.
Any of this sound familiar?
Nietzsche had a great love of science and art, and of course, philosophical thought. But in his time, he was not known to the masses and considered a loose cannon by many. Yes, Nietzsche was a deep-thinking and brilliant individual. Freud said about him: “The degree of introspection achieved by Nietzsche had never been achieved by anyone, nor is it ever likely to be achieved again.” And yet, he was also just this guy in the 19th century – born to a preacher – trying to figure it out.
When covering brilliant thinkers of the past, don't put them on a pedestal or lose sight of the fact that they were human beings just like you and me, with their own struggles, fears, dreams, desires, difficulties, disappointments, tragedies and triumphs. In my investigation of Nietzsche, I not only appreciated his insights but I also came to love and understand him as a human being, and at times saw myself in him.
One of Nietzsche's notable contributions to philosophical thought was his statement, "God is dead."
In a nutshell, Nietzsche came to believe that religion and the idea of God as religion conceived of it, was one of the greatest obstacles to human beings achieving full self-actualization.
Nietzsche's point about the “death of God” is not meant to be taken literally, as though he believed that the God of Christianity existed and then died.
Nietzsche did not hold a belief in this God. He wrote, "The Christian conception of God is one of the most corrupt conceptions of God arrived at on earth." About the death of God, Nietzsche wrote, "The greatest recent event in history is that God is dead – the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable."
In regards to the history of popular philosophy, it is in the period of the enlightenment and the renaissance from the 17th century onwards in which the idea of understanding the world without the Christian God began to take place. With the ideas of Spinoza, Hume and Voltaire gathering momentum, the idea of making a rational explanation for why God does not exist was allowed to thrive and become popular in a post-medieval Europe.
Furthermore, with the revolution of science making waves through doctrines of heliocentrism and evolution, the path was paved for a world that no longer necessitated the need for the theistic God of the Christian religion.
The progress of science and the triumph of reason, took religion out at the knees, in Nietzsche’s estimation. He believed that God died in the hearts and minds of his own generation of modern men - killed by an indifference that was itself directly related to a pronounced cultural shift away from faith and towards rationalism and science.
Nietzsche also understood the dire ramifications of the idea that “God is dead.”
Nietzsche knew that the death of God would mean an existential crisis of epic proportions. Think about it: the origins of the universe, the basis of personal identity, the meaning and purpose of life, how to live, what happens when you die – all of this was based upon Western religion and the Christian construct of God. Take God away, and you’ve got nothing! A universe without God can quickly start to feel random, meaningless, empty, dreadful, lonely, directionless, pointless, purposeless, hopeless, terrifying. Virtually every shed of Western civilization was tied to the idea and belief in God. Kill off God, and there’s not much left!
What you end up with, and Nietzsche knew this, was Nihilism – the idea that nothing matters, life has no intrinsic meaning or value, all notions of “right” and “wrong” are pointless, and any single human or even our entire human species, is insignificant and inconsequential. Carl Jung wrote, “The religious myth is one of man’s greatest and most significant achievements, giving him the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe.”
These dynamic relates to virtually all deconstruction. Every person who has left their religion, deconstructed their belief-system, and disavowed their former theology, knows the impact of the "God is dead" reality. Most people attach their sense of self and identity to their religious persona. Their fundamental existential security is based upon their religious beliefs, which supply answers to all the big questions such as God, existence, purpose, and the afterlife. A person's religious group and sub-culture is also the hub of their relationships, community, social life and support system. When a person leaves religion, everything that "God" represented - identity, security, community - comes crashing to the ground. As Nietzsche put it, when a person comes to see that "the Christian God has become unbelievable", the fall-out of this realization is often volatile and destabilizing.
Do not let your heart be troubled. There's a way through this. Nietzsche found a way through it. Doing deconstruction counseling for the last 20 years, I have seen countless people work their way through this. For example, Christian theism isn't the only way to think about "God" or ultimate reality. In face, it might be the least defensible conceptual framework for "God". More on this later.
I hope this post inspires you to investigate different fields of knowledge and inquiry. This is one aspect of cultivating a "non-religious spirituality", which is one of the focal points of the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality. I'll put a l-ink in the comments.
Jim Palmer
