The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"): Complete Works, Volume TenNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"): Complete Works, Volume Ten
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Philosophy
is only in an intellectual being that there is pleasure, displeasure
and Will; the immense majority of organisms have nothing of the kind.
128.
_The Value of Prayer.--_Prayer has been devised for such men as have
never any thoughts of their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul
is unknown, or passes unnoticed; what shall these people do in holy
places and in all important situations in life which require repose and
some kind of dignity? In order at least that they may not _disturb,_
the wisdom of all the founders of religions, the small as well as
the great, has commended to them the formula of prayer, as a long
mechanical labour of the lips, united with an effort of the memory,
and with a uniform, prescribed attitude of hands and feet--_and_ eyes!
They may then, like the Tibetans, chew the cud of their "_om mane
padme hum,"_ innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the name of
the God Ram-Ram-Ram (etc., with or without grace) on their fingers;
or honour Vishnu with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with his
ninety-nine; or they may make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary:
the main thing is that they are settled down for a time at this work,
and present a tolerable appearance; their mode of prayer is devised
for the advantage of the pious who have thought and elevation of their
own. But even these have their weary hours when a series of venerable
words and sounds, and a mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But
supposing that these rare men--in every religion the religious man is
an exception--know how to help themselves, the poor in spirit do not
know, and to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean to take their
religion from them, a fact which Protestantism brings more and more to
light. All that religion wants with such persons is that they should
_keep still_ with their eyes, hands, legs, and all their organs: they
thereby become temporarily beautified and--more human-looking!
129.
_The Conditions for God.--_"God himself cannot subsist without wise
men," said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less
subsist without unwise men,"--good Luther did not say that!
130.
_A Dangerous Resolution.--_The Christian resolution to find the world
ugly and bad, has made the world ugly and bad.
131.
_Christianity and Suicide._--Christianity made use of the excessive
longing for suicide at the time of its origin as a lever for its power:
it left only two forms of suicide, invested them with the highest
dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all others with dreadful
threatenings. But martyrdom and the slow self-annihilation of the
ascetic were permitted.
132.
_Against Christianity._--It is now no longer our reason, but our taste
that decides against Christianity.
133.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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