Nietzsche's View On The Existence Of God

Friedrich Nietzsche had a definite stand on the existence of God. He strongly believed and propagated that God was dead. The “death of God” often came up in several of Nietzsche’s philosophical contributions. It was often the backdrop which he used for describing human tendencies and carving pathways for human nature. “The best passage on God’s death is offered by Nietzsche in The Gay Science in section 125, entitled “The Madman”. There Nietzsche describes a man who enters the town market or bazaar and cries out loudly, “I seek God! I seek God!” He encounters a group of mocking atheists, who laugh at him until the Madman tells of God’s death. He proclaims: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves,
the murderers of all murderers?” (Cole)
Nietzsche stated that greedy human beings killed God.
But those same people keep using God’s name and his pseudo existence for their personal benefits. In the absence of such a divine figure, Nietzsche claimed that scope for nihilism exists. A nihilistic vacuum was left by the “death of God” and appropriate measures have to be taken to ensure that this vacuum is appropriately tapped and utilized. The best approach, according to him, is to abolish Christian beliefs and propaganda.
Nietzsche destroyed metaphysics and the traditions of Christianity. He was a philosopher of culture. He called himself the anti-Christ who would go beyond Christianity by usurping the name of Jesus Christ in the western world. He wanted to revive a different cultural orientation by confronting the traits of every person’s life. He criticized morality as well. Nietzsche believed that humans are animals and therefore should not be expected to construct moral values. Their judgment and values should come from the nature
within.
Nietzsche felt that Christian morals are nothing but disguised lies. Christianity only displays the inferior herd morals. It includes enslavement and herd mentality. The other, stronger moral of the warrior-like master should replace the degenerative herd one. The master morals are independent of a metaphysical being. Christianity was actually established and organized to take revenge upon the masters and the oppressors. The ideas of heaven and hell were incorporated to provide solace to the slaves. Nietzsche hoped that people would go beyond Christianity to create a world like that of the Romans (Owen).
Christianity also distinguished between good and evil. Good is based on pity for the weak. Master morality does not use good and evil but potent and impotent. Master morality can create the highest kind of human beings because humans have no intrinsic values (Finlay). Christianity prevents the development of creativity and genius because the weaker ones are jealous of the better beings. Beings and morality should not revolve around the soul, but around achievements. Artists and thinkers move beyond mediocrity only by ignoring the concepts of heaven and hell. All humans actually want to dominate to satisfy their own desires. To help accomplish this level of dominance, warriors have no conscience. Natural distinction should be strong versus weak and not good versus evil. Christianity became popular only because it preached the thinking of the weak. It allowed the weak to take revenge and prevent the strong from becoming stronger. But predatory behavior is natural and warriors have that. Humans have a natural desire to gain power and cause pain to others. The usual path is through dominance. Cruelty and dominance are thus the highest expressions of being human. Conscience is not natural to animals and so should not be expected from humans either. When a natural desire is prohibited, human start inflicting pain onto themselves and this self-inflicted pain is called conscience. This conscience deteriorated with the advent of priests. The priests and the warriors are both superior beings. Warriors have master morality and priests are their biggest enemies. The priests are the highest among the herds and they entice the inferior peasants and slaves to take their own revenge on the warriors by using mythological and Biblical references. Both priests and warriors share the will to power but express it differently. Priests sold the idea that suffering has meaning and this was the worst that could have happened to the world. It increased suffering infinitely by forcing the weaklings to take responsibility for their suffering. Here guilt entered through conscience and made the lives of the people even more miserable and unbearable. Nietzsche's approach to deal with the nihilistic vacuum has been direct. He wanted people to break away from their self-imposed misery. He made room for a new set of higher values and culture by doing away with Christianity’s dogmas (Finlay). He wanted all human beings to be warrior-like. They should be ruthless and brutal and look for satisfying their own desires above all.
I feel that the warrior in Nietzsche’s description could be used as a metaphor for people in today’s capitalistic mind-frame.
There is a similarity between Nietzsche and Machiavelli in the notion that they both highlight the need for self’s satisfaction. Nietzsche promotes the idea of acquiring more to reach the full potential as human beings. The warrior would want capitalism because it will always allow him to have more. Nietzsche would, thus, be pro-modernity along with Smith and Machiavelli, Deer and Marx would be against it. Nietzsche also sees in-authenticity as an innate nature. Going by Nietzsche’s description, money could be seen as a symbol of power, inequality and alienation. Nietzsche’s warrior would therefore want money if it helps attain his respective higher status. Nietzsche sees Christianity as the propaganda of the priests to manipulate the slaves and conscience as a self-inflicted pain. People become religious to stop others from attaining their highest
potential.
In conclusion, slave morality is inferior, dependent on a metaphysical being which enslaves it by promising to free it from other masters and oppressors. Thus, slave morality preaches religion by pitying the weaklings. Master morality, on the other hand, is for warriors and even artists to attain their full potential free of Christian dogmas. It allows genius and creativity to flow because it brings out the predatory nature of man to the surface. Master morality does not use good and evil but distinguishes between capability and incapability. Therefore, it can create the highest kind of human beings because humans have no intrinsic values and master morality is free of conscience. Humans have a natural desire to gain power and cause pain to others. The usual path is through dominance and this is the essence of master morality. For Nietzsche, salvation would, thus, come from letting go of mediocrity that Christianity promotes. By satisfying one’s own desires, one can reach his full potential of genius and creativity. Thus, master morality is the only way to salvation. I do not think Nietzsche’s ideas can be implemented in our daily lives. It asks people to be predatory and not feel guilty about it. I, personally, do not think that religion and being religious is necessary to attain salvation but salvation cannot be achieved without conscience either. The basic essence of being human is compassion and without compassion and conscience, the last remaining bits of humanity would come to an end. Even if religious affiliations are given up, I do not think conscience, as Nietzsche described, can be eliminated. In fact, conscience should not be eliminated.