Nothing But Imaginary
In Christianity
neither morality nor religion
come into contact with reality
at any point.
Nothing but imaginary causes
(‘God’, ’soul’, ‘ego’, ‘spirit’, ‘free will’, – or ‘unfree-will.):
Nothing but imaginary effects
(‘sin’, ‘redemption’, ‘grace’, ‘punishment’, ‘forgiveness of sins’).
Once the concept of ‘nature’ has been devised as the concept antithetical to ‘God’, ‘natural’ had to be the word for ‘reprehensible’ – this whole world of fiction is rooted in a hatred of the natural (of reality!)
The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, aphorism 15
I am spending several days in North Carolina. I was born and grew up here. This place will always be a part of me. The conversations that I have with myself usually include a child or an adolescent with memories of a time spent here.
I marvel at the simpatico of spirit and of value between an individual as self obsessed, as emotionally damaged as Trump with many working class Southeners native to North Carolina. There was a time when I believed those who lived here were generally satisfied living here, to take pleasure in the amenities of the out of doors, and of family. Apparently I was mistaken.
The vocabulary of Christian fundamentalism so prevalent in the South, is a made up affair, ginned up terms which have no reference in the natural world. Why this stampede from the natural attitude and direct response such as a child would show? Nietzsche flatly observes that what is natural is conceived as the antithesis of what is divine. A ‘hairball’ of language emerges, a code if you will that is freely, skillfully used by adherents of the cult which Christianity has become. In other areas of the country this manner of speaking is distinctly alien, odd.
But here, in the South language is a token of membership.
To despise, to be done with this world, to crave an ‘other’ spiritual world is but an easy step to resonate with one who is disseminates universal resentment.
One thought on “Nothing But Imaginary”
For whatever reason, today’s post reminded me of the April 8, 1966 Time Magazine cover that read: Is God Dead?
In my reading of Nietzsche’s quotes in your blogs, although he had made the suggestion that this god is indeed dead, I then began to wonder if it’s possible for an entity that never actually existed to die. I realize that ideas, ethereal concepts, can become archaic and perhaps irrelevant, but can something like religion die in the sense of a living creature ceasing to breathe?
This past 5,000 years (a blip in our evolutionary journey) has brought with it myriad religious beliefs, most rooted in some form of magical thinking along with a deity of some sort. Regardless of what direction our species takes in the near or far future, survival dependent, this phase of religious belief will have impacted our culture, our society, and our very being in a way that is inexorable. The tenets of religion may cease to exist, but the effects of this era will most likely linger well beyond a time when churches become curiosities kept as a reminder and an homage to a past age.
Anyway, that’s my thought for the day.