Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer; and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!
Interpretation
Nietzsche questions the authenticity of those who preach faith without embodying its principles.
In this quote, Friedrich Nietzsche critiques the inconsistency between the teachings of Christianity and the behavior of its followers. He suggests that true faith and redemption should be reflected in the conduct of those who profess such beliefs, and if the disciples of Christ cannot exemplify these ideals, then it becomes difficult for him to believe in their message or the Redeemer they represent.
In practice
During a debate on the role of religion in society, one might quote Nietzsche to emphasize the importance of authentic belief.
Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness β as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne β and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.
Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.
The unformed is not worse than the over-formed. The former is nothing; the latter is mere appearance. Real form presupposes real life.
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
Even as I approach the gambling hall, as soon as I hear, two rooms away, the jingle of money poured out on the table, I almost go into convulsions.
If a jury have not the right to judge between the government and those who disobey its laws, and resist its oppressions, the government is absolute, and the people, legally speaking, are slaves.
When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.
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