Nietzsche And Religion Essay

1. Introduction.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19 th century German philosopher. The central theme of all his works contains elaborate description of morality and how one can lead a meaningful life without embracing the idea of God and Religion. According to Nietzsche, philosophy is not a critique of words by means of other words. The goal of Philosophy is to facilitate the emergence of the great individual who dedicates his life to selfovercoming.

This report gives an insight into some of the ideas professed by Nietzsche about

Religion, God and morals, by laying particular emphasis on the concept of the Death of

God. In this process, we shall also visit a few incidences from Nietzsche’s life that may have motivated

“Übermensch”

Through the publication of this “Human, all too human” and the “Gay Science”,

Nietzsche knew that he was distancing himself from the common temperament of the society. Hence, from this point on, he mostly sought solitude in the Alps of Switzerland –

A fact that had a deep influence on his next work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. This is the first work through which he starts to question common moral conventions, role of religion and the idea of God. The book is written through the eyes of a factionary sage

Zarathustra (Inspired by the historical Zoroaster), who initially leads a self-contained life in the Alps. Later, he descends from the mountains to spread his wisdom. In the process, he questions a few moral conventions and stresses on how one should make way for emergence of the great individual.In this book, he first introduces the terms “Higher man” and the “Overman”

(Übermensch). As mentioned previously, there are certain people in the society who recognize the absence of the basis of all values with the decline in belief in God, and set out to define their own set of moral values. These individuals are what Nietzsche refers

He says that herd morality is for a mediocre individual. In “Thus spoke

Zarathustra” he says “Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws”. He means that one may think that what he’s doing is right because the society accepts it. But just because the society accepts it, it shouldn’t make it right. One needs to have a deeper look into these issues. The higher man disregards herd morality and creates his own life affirming morality.

In the same book he gives a parable known as “On the Vision and the Riddle”. In this parable, Zarathustra (the sage) finds a young shepherd choking when passing by a field. He will be choking because a large snake is stuck in his mouth. Confused,

Zarathustra tries to help the person by pulling the snake out, in vain effort. Finally, he calls out to the shepherd telling him to bite the serpent’s head of. The shepherd does so, and then gets rid of all the pain and suffering. He then laughs. But then the laughter will no longer be of the shepherd he was a few moments ago, but someone entirely