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WESTERN
Atheism in Suspicion
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Friedrich Nietzsche on the Death of God and cult of State
Thus spoke Zarathustra (1883)
translated by Walter Kaufmann (Viking: NY 1954/66)
But when Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to his heart: "Could it be possible?
This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God
is dead!"
12
Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners
died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to
esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth.
13
On the new idol
State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells
lies too; and this lie crawls out of its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."
That is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and love over
them: thus they served life.It is annihilators who set traps for the many and
call them "state" ...
All-too-many are born: for the superfluous the state was invented.Behold, how it
lures them, and ruminates!"On earth there is nothing greater than I: the ordering
finger of God am I"-thus roars the monster. ... Indeed, it detects you too, you
vanquishers of the old god. You have grown weary with fighting, and now your
weariness serves the new idol. With heroes and honorable men it would surround
itself, the new idol! ..."
p48-9
Upon the blessed isles
... Once one said God when one looked upon distant seas; but now I have taught
you to say: overman.God is a conjecture; but I desire that your
conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will. Could you create a god?
Then do not speak to me of any gods. But you could well create the overman.
...
God is a conjecture; but I desire that your conjectures should be limited by what
is thinkable. Could you think a god? ...
85-6
On priests
... They have "God" what was contrary to them and gave them pain; and verily,
there was much of the heroic in their adoration. And they did not know how to
love their god except by crucifying man.
... Of gaps was the spirit of these redeemers made up; but into every gap they
put their delusion, their stopgap, which they called God.
p92
Genealogy of Morals
on religion
all religions are, at bottom, systems of cruelty
p193
Beyond Good and Evil
Why atheism nowadays? 'The father' in God is thoroughly refuted; equally
so 'the judge,' 'the rewarder.' Also his 'free will': he does not hear--and even
if he did, he would not know how to help. The worst is that he seems incapable of
communicating himself clearly; is he uncertain? --This is what I have made out
(by questioning and listening at a variety of conversations) to be the cause of
the decline of European theism; it appears to me that though the religious
instinct is in vigorous growth,--it rejects the theistic satisfaction with
profound distrust.
no. 53
Ecce homo
The concept 'God' invented as the antithetical concept to life ... The concept
'the Beyond', 'real world' invented so as to deprive of value the only world
which exists ... The concept 'soul,' 'spirit,' finally even 'immortal soul,'
invented so as to despise the body, so as to make it sick ...
p133-4
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