Religious Disposition

Question 1

What has caused misunderstanding of the Saint?

Answer 1

Faith in antithetical values

Question 2

How are the souls of the Saint and sinner viewed?

Answer 2

They have opposite moral value

Question 3

What kind of religion is a suicide of reason?

Answer 3

Original Christianity - arose in ‘a sceptical and free spirited southern world, which believed in reason and liberalism.

Question 4

What is sacrificed as a result of Christianity?

Answer 4

All freedom, all pride, all spiritual self confidence

Question 5

What are the three key stages of the great ladder of religious cruelty?

Answer 5

1. Sacrifice of prized possessions 2. Self-sacrifice 3. Sacrifice of God

Question 6

What will we worship, once God has been sacrificed?

Answer 6

Stone, stupidity, Gravity, fate, nothingness

Question 7

What has caused atheism?

Answer 7

The unintelligibility of God

Question 8

How is modern philosophy atheistic?

Answer 8

It attempts to disprove the Cartesian model of the soul

Question 9

Who has a talent for religion, and who is better suited to atheism?

Answer 9

Southern Europeans inherently religious, while atheism is more natural to Northern Europeans

Question 10

How would renunciation of faith be regarded in the south?

Answer 10

As a ‘revolt against the spirit of the race’

Question 11

What does Nietzsche say about Ancient Greek religion?

Answer 11

He claims that it was characterised by noble gratitude, but was trained with fear by the rabble

Question 12

What exactly is a slave revolt?

Answer 12

An inversion of values - slave’s traits become good, while master’s values become evil

Question 13

What best exemplifies the inversion of values?

Answer 13

The paradoxical formula of God on the cross

Question 14

In what way did the slaves become superior to their masters?

Answer 14

In a spiritual sense

Question 15

What is the primary cause of slave revolts?

Answer 15

Scepticism about suffering

Question 16

What is the true origin of religion

Answer 16

Fear of truth - piety the ultimate form of this

Question 17

Example of religious falsification

Answer 17

Loving others for the sake of God

Question 18

What viewpoint can be contrasted with the religious neurosis?

Answer 18

That of the ‘most world affirming man’, who would will eternal return…

Question 19

What are the 4 advantages of religion

Answer 19

Overcomes obstacles to ruling
Allows the ruling class to preserve themselves for higher things
Provides a route of refinement
Justifies suffering

Question 20

What are the 2 primary disadvantages of religion?

Answer 20

Religion has bred a herd animal

It has inverted noble values

Question 21

What has happened since values have been twisted?

Answer 21

The values of the best-formed species of human have been replaced with ‘doubt, pangs of conscience, and self-destruction’, thus fusing the higher man with unworldly asceticism.

Question 22

How does religion overcome obstacles to ruling ?

Answer 22

It creates a bind which unites the ruler and ruled; it allows the ruling class to control the conscience of the people.

Question 23

In what way does religion preserve the ruling class, allowing for a higher kind of leadership?

Answer 23

Rulers can retreat into solitary life, delegating power to subordinates, who will perform the ‘crude’ roles of ordinary leadership example of the Brahmins.

Question 24

How is religion a route of progression?

Answer 24

It is a tool for ‘breeding and education’. It allows members of the rabble to overcome their origin, by practising the self-control characteristic of the ascetic ideal.

Question 25

How does religion justify suffering?

Answer 25

It provides the lower classes with meaning and comfort. They are able to ‘bear the sight of themselves’. It beautifies their poverty.

Question 26

Explain the claim that religion has ‘bred a herd animal’.

Answer 26

Religion venerates those who ‘suffer from life as from an illness.’ As such, it has led to the degeneration of the human race, by ‘preserving too much of what ought to perish’.

Question 27

How does the ascetic ideal allow Slaves to bear suffering?

Answer 27

It gives meaning to their suffering, by providing outlets for their ‘resentment’ - first, aristocrats can be blamed for their suffering. Secondly, it condemns the body, instincts, desires - our suffering is our punishment for simply existing, for failing to transcend the physical world.

Question 28

Which dietetic requirements characterise the religious neurosis?

Answer 28

Solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence