GOD AS A POISON AND THE ANTIDOTE

(This entry is in the same vein as another one, in the Religion section, titled The Second Coming Of God. [It was posted on my blog on January 16^th, 2011, as part of my mega-entry And When She Was Good, She Was Horrid.] But this one is specifically addressing Nietzsche’s criticism of God and Christian morality in Ecce Homo, Why I Am A Destiny, Section 8:

“The concept of God was invented as a counter concept of life: everything harmful, poisonous, slanderous, the whole hostility unto death against life is synthesized in this concept in a gruesome unity!”
I hope that by now the reader can easily figure out why an entry like this shows up in the Wishful Thinking section. My preoccupation with the “usefulness” of God as the absolute standard in developing a common moral and juridical ground for the vast multiplicity of world cultures, is already rampant in this section, and the discussion continues here. I am however giving my reader a clue, why this entry is not about my quarrel with Nietzsche with regard to his disrespectful treatment of God in the passage quoted above, which I don’t mind at all. In so far as my intent goes, the sting is in the tail! Which means, look for the solution in the last paragraph of this entry, where Nietzsche’s comparison of God to poison is interpreted… homoeopathically. [As a matter of fact, in the revised version of this entry, this homoeopathic idea is now running throughout it all, for clearer effect.])

As I am developing my thinking on the philosophical concept of God, I suspect that Nietzsche is tempted to see God as a concept of religious indoctrination only, the “opiate of the masses” of sorts, in other words, an awfully potent poison, and, in such a capacity, a legitimate object of criticism. Those of us who are sincerely religious ought to join Nietzsche in his condemnation of such practices of all religious cults and established religions which abuse religion for the purpose of discipline, organization and indoctrination of their captive flocks. In other words, I am taking into very serious account Nietzsche’s objections to “God” as poison and this ought to help me tremendously, to focus and clarify my chief point of disagreement with Nietzsche, in the sense that I see God homoeopathically, as an antidote! (For all those who are baffled by my last phrase, I am recommending a study of the fundamentals of homoeopathy. One suggestion, however: the reader should not start looking for popularized digests and other poor man’s guides to homoeopathy, but seek the works of the masters, such as Hahnemann, Clarke, and Kent. Incidentally, I would strongly recommend these three to others, too, who have a special interest in human psychology, as I do not know a better psychology manual than the works of the great homoeopaths.)

I mean, the renewed and rejuvenated God of our time, the only source of absolute morality, and the banner for the humanity’s struggle against immorality. In this monumental struggle, anyone who is not with Him is against Him. The main task of God’s people is to determine, which side is God’s side, and the right answer is by no means obvious...

Inasmuch as God is now seen as the only antidote, the value of such concepts as ‘the beyond’ and ‘the soul’ becomes so obvious that the following Nietzschean passage will also require… not a refutation, mind you, but a meaningful philosophical revaluation of its basic terms: “The concept of the beyond, the true world, invented in order to devaluate the only world there is, in order to retain no goal, no reason, no task for our earthly reality! The concept of the soul, the spirit, finally even immortal soul, invented in order to despise the body, to make it sick, holy, to oppose everything that merits to be taken seriously in life: nourishment, abode, spiritual diet, treatment of the sick, cleanliness, and weather.” (ibid.)

It ought to come out clear by now that our purpose in appealing to the concept of God and His concomitant attributes of the Absolute and the Ideal, is not to counter life, nor to devaluate the only world there is, but to bring the world closer to an ideal where nations immersed in their seemingly irreconcilable differences may ultimately discover their common ground. Yes, even if we accept the Nietzschean premise of God as poison don’t we know that the worst poison can also be the best and, often, the only cure? And so it is in this case, nota bene!