Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche.
I don't know whether if Nietzsche had lived at this age, would he have said the same thing. If I had a time machine and had travelled back to the past and met him, I doubt I would have any answer to give to him either.
But what he said didn't just come out of nowhere. There was a culture in which he was steeped in, a culture where people considered Christianity a heritage to which they were born into. Much like the race to which they were born into. All that was radical about Christianity was gone or reinterpreted away.
At that time, under the weight of a biblical criticism that denied the miraculous, Christianity became what we now call in modern days, religion. It became a source of myth and bedtime stories and a charter of personal morality. Talk about God, spirituality and eternal life were just 'upper story' experiences.
If that is what Christianity is perceived to be at that time, then it comes to no surprise that Nietsche said what he said, including the famous, 'God is dead'.
Christianity as a system of thought which encourages an 'escape' into 'heaven' will suffer at the hands of Nietsche's peircing thought. If he compares Christianity to a gentleman's drink, a social thing, then somewhere, Christ has been mystified, made into a ghost and relegated to an Platonic eternal.
Or in the worse form, either Christianity dulls us from real world problems or becomes a prison. Neitsche was reacting against this prison of morality that a Christian heritage had build into European culture, a morality without a reason, a morality that made people into hypocrites, a man less a man because he was hiding. Neitsche claimed that he was hiding from his inherent freedom.
When a person like Neitzsche says the things he says, he is not philosophizing from the standpoint of a scholar, but a participant in life. He is afloat in life, looking upon it from within, feeling the 'newness of freedom' from being saved from a repressive Christianity and finding only the human will as a definen's of humanness. It is a wintry position to be in, one feels uncomfortable but needs to move on from here.
There are many consequences of Neitszche's thinking, but one particularly stands out. Because he is reasoning as a participant in life, concepts that he critques he reduces it as manifestations of social concepts. For instance: morally good ---> a product of resentment, guilt ----> denial of natural inclinations, punishment ----> contractual satisfaction of creditor and debtor, clergy ----> a group of weak people dominating weaker people for the illusion of power.
This style of reasoning is very influential and persuasive today. It is used in black studies, literary studies, post-colonial studies and history. The usual targets of attack are: the government, religion, homophobia, metaphysics, etc. This 'reductionism' preys of our sense of security and fear of betrayal. Ultimately the objective of this reasoning is to force the agenda of change rather than to truly understand. It is not sociology as such although it concerns itself with society but the concern is with change-not change with a direction towards, but change from. It is a message of salvation for the secular man.
