Last night was the night of criticism and today was my day of reflection. I needed to find out the logic behind my actions and sure enough, my other bible was there to reason out with me: my own philosophical essays and my never failing pile of Nietzschean works. Blah blah blah say what you want about Nietzsche, your lack of understanding will discredit you the moment you open your mouth so do not even argue with me nor splash me with holy water just yet. His works has become a guidebook in my self awareness, which I could use more of quite frankly. Anyway, as I was pondering the reasons and repercussions of my essence as a human being, I came across a section of my writing based on good ol’Nietzsche: the never ending debate and censorship of the “God is Dead” and other related religious commentaries. Its a favorite topic of mine and I talk about it sporadically because its so controversial and I get plenty of ignorant hast-oriented interpretations to what my grandaddy Nietzsche has to say. Plus I like religious debate a lot, when I am able to talk about it, which isn’t often because its politically incorrect and you lose friends/acquaintances that way heheh. What I have is pretty much sections of epiphany and lines of questions that literally fell out of my head and into paper, so in re-reading it I had to make sense out of it over again. I have straightened out a line of reasoning and my stance on this and I want to share it. For those who know me well, I am quite the Christian, if it does not seem so it is because I do not impose my religious belief on others particularly on those who I know do not share the same belief system as mine. Yes, I am tolerant like that. Gosh I just know now that people will have strong reactions to my words… *sigh* How do I begin: as blunt and concise as possible? Yes.
God is dead and I am glad.
Before I am dragged by my Roman [[now catholic]] captors for crucifixion, let me explain. The whole premise with “God is Dead” is generally misunderstood. But before one can understand it, one must understand the genius behind it. Nietzsche is an aetheist and an anti-Christian but definitely not an ANTICHRIST. He does not believe that there is a supreme being puppetting our lives and actions, he is very much a Materialist Existentialist. The distinction is well defined despite of the facade of similarity in the nomenclature of those three terms that I threw at you. An aetheist is one who does not believe in the existence of a higher being. An anti-Christian is someone who do not have “affinity” to the Christian dogma and the stereotyped people involved, regardless of their religious belief. An antichrist is the one who will burn in hell. Just kidding! I have to make the mood lighter with whatever relief I can utilize hehe. An antichrist is someone who does believe in the existence of a man called Jesus who lived roughly 2000 years ago, but is against his essence due to various reasons, more often than not, religious. So the man did not believe that there is a God, did not like Christians and what Christianity stood for, but believed in Jesus Christ [[ ubermensch ]], get it? Moving on. For a man with such belief to write about a passage stating that we have killed God [[ which stood for the Christian religion by the way ]] asked for a quick glance over and generations of misinterpretation and condemnation. Go back and reassess the writing and you will find that its a social commentary about how the powergrasp of religion has declined, its open for interpretation whether its a good thing or not. And oddly I find it a good thing.
Its very much like the idea of anarchy, you remove the power of authority and all that they stand for and you will find a lawless society who will end up relying on their own conceived moral judgement as to how to function with others. With the decline of Christianity and the coercion associated with it, people are now free to make decisions as far as which faith they would like to believe in. See when one says “decline of Christianity,” it is immediately assumed to be synonymous to “moral decline.” This is a frustrating notion as the Christian morality is preconceived and prepackaged for us to grab as our own, obliterating the free will so adamantly established as a gift of God that makes us unique to other creatures. How can that be if were subjected to swallow a moral design passively to take as our own, which is not too different from your pet dog eating a particular dog food determined by you? Do not get me started on the controlling nature of Christianity from the conception of it! Thats for another time. Anyway, if moral decline is what society is worried about, then it is just unfortunate that we think so because it is just the fear of being left naked with no secure decision net to fall back on when it comes to moral dilemmas. Should I kill this person or not? If not, why? What is the basis of this decision? Without the moral system conveniently provided by the Christian church, we are alone in developing our own morals with a particular set of reasons and purposes concocted by no other but you. Nietzsche, I suppose is someone you may call a disillusioned Christian [[he was born into Christianity like myself]] as he was able to see through the rituals and false piety that the religion has put on, particularly during his time. Yet he was able to rise beyond this and say “ok, I am not a Paulist [[ the origin of all that condemning talk in the Christian Church ]], but I can admit that I believe in the man Jesus was.” Allow me to distinguish the two from each other: Paul is the father of the Roman Catholic church and pretty much did nothing but bitch about how were all going to burn in hell unless we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Of course he didn’t say it like that….. MY TONE was more subdued. Jesus, however had a different preaching altogether: he preached of love, acceptance, humility, faith, trust, rejection of falsehood imposed by authority, forgiveness, and walking on water. So when I say I am a Christian, I really mean I am a Jesus Christian, not a Paulist which is what Christianity as a religion has always been. I have reasoned with myself with what I innately believe in along with its repercussions in life at an early age. Why? Because I rejected authority. I refused to believe in everything handfed to me. Remaining a Christian is a conscious choice and believe that I have meticulously picked out which of its doctrines are most true to me and which are “eh.” And I was in 6th grade!!!
Hopefully with the advent of thinking outside religious boundaries, we will take advantage of this new freedom to choose a faith that we truly understand, not just because mommy and daddy said that we going to be. As a Christian, I am expected to preach the gospel of Christ but I cannot bring myself to, not because I am embarrassed, but because I do not want to impose a belief system to those who are not open to it or do not understand what it is to accept this. It would be nice if everyone chooses the same spiritual path I’ve taken but that is not ideal because it is my choice, not theirs. My logic is my own and really, much of it is only understood by myself. I am not your everyday Christian as I want something beyond a facade of following. What I want to see in the future is like I’ve mentioned, reminiscent of the anarchist ideology: People will constitute their own preference in spirituality, free of the social condemnation if it is not Christianity or any major religion, because they formulated their own reasoning for choosing so. What’s worse than not finding a spiritual path is following one under the guise of comprehension and fanaticism. The sanctity is killed. So if it takes the decline of Christianity [[or the Death of God in a societal context]] as a major religion in the country for our society to become more self aware of the choices that we make, then so be it. Let the Madman with his lantern come out again because the time is now.
<<edit 5.20.08>>
I forgot to mention that the magnificent thing about losing religions foothold in society is that when people finally find their choice of spirituality, their intentions are purer and they are likelier to stick with it. Less back sliding per se. It will be beautiful.
dolcevitaopium
