The third chapter entitled "the religious mood" is one within which Nietzsche offers a fierce attack on the ideology that accompanys religious thought. It focuses on what Nietzsche perceives are the aims of the religious spirit, and the dangers found therein. Nietzsche begins with a description of the religious pathology which he terms the "slow suicide of reason" of its adherents. Arguing that it could be nothing other than self-mutilation to disregard and even negate the fundamental instincts that keep man alive.
In its Infancy religion was concerned with the sacrifice of others [primative stage]. Next it became concerned with the sacrifice of instinct for virtue [moral stage]. Finally it sought to sacrifice its God that it might worship gravity, magnetism and nothingness [modern stage]. This final folly Nietzsche asserts is a wound man still carry the scars of today.
How then is religion alluring? Why then would individuals be taken in by it if it is harmful? Nietzsche suggest this is for three reasons. Firstly man perceives within the Saint a strength of will that mirrors his own [albeit one that is secretly a negation of the will] this causes him to pause and make enquiries. Secondly a life of piety prevents the discovery of truth; man fears nothing more than the discovery of truth before he is strong enough to hear it. Thirdly religion is an effective means by which to find satisfaction in a world within which it is difficult to live.
Nietzsche alludes to religion being a tool of statecraft in much the same way as economics or politics. It is a tool with which to bind the public conscience to oneself, bring about peace, and also to excuse the ugliness of politics. Yet he warns against religion being permitted to become an end in itself. The crux of his objection appears within [62] where he describes man as an animal not yet adjusted to his environment. He asserts that man is weakened by religions grasp on the public conscience. Religion Nietzsche explains seeks to undermine the potential of the species. It does so by preserving what should have perished for the sake of the suffering populous. The "new creation" for Nietzsche is the "sublime abortion" of man and his glorious potential. Nothing more than a pathetic shadow of all that he might otherwise have become.
This chapter also introduces two interesting concepts of note that feature elsewhere within Nietzsche thought. Namely the idea of the eternal child and "Circulus vitiosus deus". With regard to the former Nietzsche proposes that perhaps what the intellect has exercised itself upon has only been the opportunity for its exercise. A childish game constructed by a childish mind. Nothing more than a child's plaything and pain to an old man. Yet perhaps this old man requires a new plaything or pain in the future. This cycle is the eternal child.
"Circulus vitiosus deus" translated as "the figure of the vicious circle". Is the anonymous free spirit. This figure, having abolished the meaning of actions in his abandonment of delusional morality, demands infinite repetition of events. When confronted with this nameless man one must either reject his actions as absurd, or accept they are unable to offer criteria from which to judge the abhorrent. Either way this figure makes his point and exposes the possibilities and impossibilities of the individuals chosen moral prejudice.
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