Quotes from "The Anti-Christ"

The following are two quotes from the 'The Anti-Christ' by F.W. Neitzsche, an athiest philosopher who opposed Christianity in his writtings.

My reason for posting them here is that it is my opinion that darkness often serves as a usefull backdrop against which to portray light. Darkness, by way of contrast, can excentuate light. I want to mention too that I do not recommend reading his writtings in general out of a sense of curiosity, or somehting else, because of how caustic and poisionous skepticism, criticism, and doubt can be to faith. I'm presenting a couple here for the sake of contrast, and because they seem altogether relevant to the cultural climate and prevailing trends in the world.

It is amazing that men can take enough out of a book they so thouroughly disbelieve to create their own fiction but not enough from it to acknowledge its own plain facts.

May God be glorified forever. Amen.

"--The thing that sets us apart is not that we are unable to find God, either in history, or in nature, or behind nature--but that we regard what has been honoured as God, not as "divine," but as pitiable, as absurd, as injurious; not as a mere error, but as a _crime against life_.... We deny that God is God.... If any one were to _show_ us this Christian God, we'd be still less inclined to believe in him."

- F.W. Neitzsche, The Anti-Christ

Psalm 109:3, 73:9
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4

"This saintly anarchist, who aroused the people of the abyss, the outcasts and "sinners," the Chandala of Judaism, to rise in revolt against the established order of things--and in language which, if the Gospels are to be credited, would get him sent to Siberia today--this man was certainly a political criminal, at least in so far as it was possible to be one in so_absurdly unpolitical_ a community. This is what brought him to the cross: the proof thereof is to be found in the inscription that was put upon the cross. He died for his _own_ sins--there is not the slightest ground for believing, no matter how often it is asserted, that he died for the sins of others."

- F.W. Neitzsche, The Anti-Christ

Luke 23:1-2, 18-25, John 19:19-22
Isaiah 53
1 Timothy 1:15

Who is this King of glory?

This was an interesting post and i thankyou that you for posting it.

My reason for posting them here is that it is my opinion that darkness often serves as a usefull backdrop against which to portray light. Darkness, by way of contrast, can excentuate light.

Yes brother thank you for this wonderful post. The other day I found myself doing some reading about women that were not godly women whatsoever. Some from BC times and some were very feministic. "In the army, the soldiers will study their opponent/enemy inside and out, why are Christians any different?" -Zac Poonen paraphrase

Interesting and encouraging responses, all of you, thank you!

StarofGod, "In the army, the soldiers will study their opponent/enemy inside and out, why are Christians any different?"

I remember meeting some Muslims on the street one afternoon, and they told me they spent all their time studying our Book so they could know how to answer it. I suspect that was somewhat of an exaggeration: they were'nt for instance, prepared to answer how God's Son is mentioned in the Old Testament(Proverbs 30:4). But I don't doubt they did study the Bible, for that purpose. I think this connects with something else in this thread - more on that in a moment.

Neil, "gotta love people with Jesus' Love, Who lives in us.

if that makes ME a "humanist", shake a fist Heavenward, because no greater Love than to go to that cruel Tree, Jesus did it for all...but i know you know this, amen"

I'm with you brother and I'll be a "humanist" with you in that as well.

Aaron, I think you made some excellent points. You are probably much more familiar with the his writtings than I am.

"If you look at the state churches in Germany and Switzerland at the time - mainline denominations taken up in the "innovations" of the higher critics, pushing German nationalism and imperialism, sold out to state power - it is quite possible that we would also use such strong language in the denunciation of their idea of God"

This is interesting. I have gotten the sense in skimming through things he wrote that his remarks are perhaps about the institutional Christianity of his day and the past?

He says for instance in one place:

"Under Christianity the instincts of the subjugated and the oppressed come to the fore: it is only those who are at the bottom who seek their salvation in it. Here the prevailing pastime, the favourite remedy for boredom is the discussion of sin, self-criticism, the inquisition of conscience; here the emotion produced by power (called “God”) is pumped up (by prayer); here the highest good is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as “grace.” Here, too, open dealing is lacking; concealment and the darkened room are Christian. Here body is despised and hygiene is denounced as sensual; the church even ranges itself against cleanliness (—the first Christian order after the banishment of the Moors closed the public baths, of which there were 270 in Cordova alone). Christian, too, is a certain cruelty toward one’s self and toward others; hatred of unbelievers; the will to persecute. Sombre and disquieting ideas are in the foreground; the most esteemed states of [Page 73] mind, bearing the most respectable names, are epileptoid; the diet is so regulated as to engender morbid symptoms and over-stimulate the nerves. Christian, again, is all deadly enmity to the rulers of the earth, to the “aristocratic”—along with a sort of secret rivalry with them (—one resigns one’s “body” to them; one wants only one’s “soul”...). And Christian is all hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage, of freedom, of intellectual libertinage; Christian is all hatred of the senses, of joy in the senses, of joy in general...."

His observations are on the one hand descriptive of various practices of Christianity in history and a mixture of somethings that are true but severely dishonest of pure Christian liberty, ethic, and practice in general. He seems willing to offer criticism of the worst practices of Christians without distinguishing them from the teachings of Christ and the Apostles in the Bible. I do recall him being more fair however to protestants elsewhere. Then again, he does object to Christian virtue in plain and no uncertain terms:

"The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it. What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity...."

Astounding for a man who says in his last work, Ecco Hommo(the phrase translated in our KJV as 'behold the man':

"it is my opinion that I am too full of malice to believe even in myself'"

Maybe that is one reason why he could make Christ the personification of his own philosophy, as you suggested, and on the other hand so thouroughly overlook Christ as THE PERSON of Power in His actual Work as it is described in the Bible: because he viewed weakness of anykind as evil?

God's greatest act of strength was in the weakness of the Cross, in restraining and turning His wrath upon His Son, instead of on us. That fierce, overpowering strength, was demonstrated in its restratint. God touches the mountains, and they but smoke, and are not blown to a billion bits of atoms and scattered across the Universe.

This leads me back to what StarofGod mentioned about people in an Army studying their adversary, and how those Muslims I met could study the Bible, but miss many things:

the thought came to mind that you can't possibly seek to understand someone in honesty by stetching our your hands to put them around their neck.

You don't want to hear someone you are trying to choke!

Thanks again all for your thoughts!

Hi again everyone.

If I could, one more thing...

"...he essentially defined the secular mindset in Europe and America to this day"

Neitsche said that a man loses power when he pities. He says that Christianity has waged a war to the death against what he calls, 'the higher type of man', and has "put all the deepest instincts of this type under its ban", that we have called 'the strong man' a typical reprobate.

His ideal man, he says, should be cultivated, should be willed, should be bred, as a guarantee of the future:

"This more valuable type has appeared often enough in the past: but always as a happy accident, as an exception, never as deliberately willed. Very often it has been precisely the most feared; hitherto it has been almost the terror of terrors"

Yesturday I saw two men putting on padding and other clothes and gear as they were preparing to be human targets for a paintball gallery. They were being presented as targets for people to shoot at. As I looked at them both I was struck by how fierce they looked, and how much they looked as though they were anticipating the 'game'.

I have no way of knowing it of course, but I honestly thought I could have been look at Romans from 2000 years ago. Or what the soldiers may have looked like that scourged Christ.

I notice that same look more and more all the time.

Hi aaron, and thank you for your thoughts a well.

I thought of a few things more to mention if I could?

"To his own mind, he had expended himself for the sake of humanity, attempting to free it from its philosophical bondage, as Moses had Israel from Egypt and Luther had the protestant church from Rome. But he was ridiculed in his own day and misunderstood now by most."

Some thoughts and ideas that enter this world are the products of the human mind. But other's come from beyond. They are spiritual in origin.

That Neitzsche opposed Christ and the doctrines of the Church and also saw himself or his ideas as a potential liberator for mankind, places him in a seperate category from the philosopher in general. Opposition to Christ and substitution for Christ, is anti-christ in a literal sense of the word.

His central ideas do not seem original either.

It was Satan that first suggested to Adam and Eve to excercise their 'will-to-power' in order to gain happiness, as though God was depriving them of something that could make them happy by excluding a certain tree: and his enticement to them was...that they could be as God.

They too could go 'beyond good and evil', they could be like God, and choose for themselves what was good, or what was evil, in their own eyes. That is the essence of Satanic philosophy, no matter if the terms good and evil are discarded or not.

The title for the work was literally appropriate.