Hocus Pocus (Week 4 Post 5)

Nietzsche had great admiration for Christianity that served its originalpurpose- to elevate the weak and ailing populous. He was fond of sincere, piousChristians and had respect for the founder of Christianity but harbored illfeelings and animosity toward St. Paul and others who corrupted the originalintent of Christianity and turned it from hope for the lowly into a universalreligion that made war on aristocratic values. Nietzsche argued for theabandonment of the purely moral view of life. He believed that weakness andtimidity should no longer be considered values and that we should rekindle ourtrust in instincts. He called for a renunciation of "the whole hocus pocus" ofdogmatic religion and believed that we should do away with the falsearistocracies of politicians and priests.Nietzsche criticizes herd morality, evident in many religions, especially inChristianity. We have created our own notions of good and evil, things worthy ofheaven or damned to hell and turned it from opinion to fact. Religion also takesthe responsibility for much of life and its occurrences out of the hands of theindividual and blames it on the heavens instead, even claiming that this code ofgood and evil was ordained and enforced by a supreme ruler. At some point inearly history we stopped taking responsibility for our own moral judgments.