Nietzsche and The Psalms, 9-1-2010

 I wish I had my copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra. As I read Psalms, my find fastens on Nietzsche's exhortation that God is dead.

So many of the Psalms question whether God has deserted Israel. Reading Psalms 78, 88, and 89 seem particularly on point. Against this I will point to 98, 99, and 100; which give me other thoughts.

I do not know if my thoughts about Nietzsche and Christianity are shared by anyone else. I think his tone matches that of a lover about a rejected lover; that, like Hamlet's mother, he complains too much. He knows Christianity better than many of its adherents. See his Ecce Homo and The Anti-Christ for what Nietzsche knows of Christianity.

Does Nietzsche differ from others seeing an empty faith? I think not, but I do not have his exact words in front of me. Religion can be more than an empty faith, but it may take an American to see that fact. Nietzsche could still rail that faith creates an illusion, but what if that illusion brings out the best in humanity? I recall Nietzsche's argument against Pascal's Wager, but was that not a faith that was empty, in that it tried to be reasonable.

God dies from the lack of faith. That is all I truly got from Nietzsche. I cannot go much further than suggest reading William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. James writes of a Will to Believe. We need to think on what we believe - and if we believe just for the sake of fitting onto society. Then, living out one's religious faith is not an empty faith. We need to wait on judgment day for resolving the question of religious belief as an illusion is an illusion created for worldly survival.

sch