Chris Hedges: After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck with Nietzsche

[Echo In Light]

After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck with Nietzsche


It is hard to muster much sympathy over the implosion of the Catholic Church, traditional Protestant denominations or Jewish synagogues. These institutions were passive as the Christian right, which peddles magical thinking and a Jesus-as-warrior philosophy, hijacked the language and iconography of traditional Christianity. They have busied themselves with the boutique activism of the culture wars. They have failed to unequivocally denounce unfettered capitalism, globalization and pre-emptive war. The obsession with personal piety and “How-is-it-with-me?” spirituality that permeates most congregations is undiluted narcissism. And while the Protestant church and reformed Judaism have not replicated the perfidiousness of the Catholic bishops, who protect child-molesting priests, they have little to say in an age when we desperately need moral guidance.

I grew up in the church and graduated from a seminary. It is an institution whose cruelty, inflicted on my father, who was a Presbyterian minister, I know intimately. I do not attend church. The cloying, feel-your-pain language of the average clergy member makes me run for the door. The debates in most churches — whether revolving around homosexuality or biblical interpretation — are a waste of energy. I have no desire to belong to any organization, religious or otherwise, which discriminates, nor will I spend my time trying to convince someone that the raw anti-Semitism in the Gospel of John might not be the word of God. It makes no difference to me if Jesus existed or not. There is no historical evidence that he did. Fairy tales about heaven and hell, angels, miracles, saints, divine intervention and God’s beneficent plan for us are repeatedly mocked in the brutality and indiscriminate killing in war zones, where I witnessed children murdered for sport and psychopathic gangsters elevated to demigods. The Bible works only as metaphor.

The institutional church, when it does speak, mutters pious non-statements that mean nothing. “Given the complexity of factors involved, many of which understandably remain confidential, it is altogether appropriate for members of our armed forces to presume the integrity of our leadership and its judgments, and therefore to carry out their military duties in good conscience,” Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, wrote about the Iraq war. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, on the eve of the invasion, told believers that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a menace, and that reasonable people could disagree about the necessity of using force to overthrow him. It assured those who supported the war that God would not object.

B’nai B’rith supported a congressional resolution to authorize the 2003 attack on Iraq. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which represents Reform Judaism, agreed it would back unilateral action, as long as Congress approved and the president sought support from other nations. The National Council of Churches, which represents 36 different faith groups, in a typical bromide, urged President George W. Bush to “do all possible” to avoid war with Iraq and to stop “demonizing adversaries or enemies” with good-versus-evil rhetoric, but, like the other liberal religious institutions, did not condemn the war.

A Gallup poll in 2006 found that “the more frequently an American attends church, the less likely he or she is to say the war was a mistake.” Given that Jesus was a pacifist, and given that all of us who graduated from seminary rigorously studied Just War doctrine, which was flagrantly violated by the invasion of Iraq, this is a rather startling statistic.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Beg to differ. One has Robert Green Ingersoll

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_green_ingersoll.html

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

An honest God is the noblest work of man.

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.

Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.

Few rich men own their property; their property owns them.

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.

If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.

Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.

Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.


My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.

The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.

The more liberty you give away the more you will have.

The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.

Who was Robert Green Ingersoll?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll

[Blue_Tires]

9. thanks for those...

[Union Yes]

2. Thou shalt not kill. Why do fundy churches advocate for holy war? knr nt

[glitch]

3. Hedges compiles impressive insights as usual but his conclusion is way too binary.

"And the death of religious institutions will only cement into place the new secular religion of the Last Man, the one that worships military power, personal advancement, hedonism and greed, the one that justifies our ruthless callousness toward the weak and the poor."

Break out of the Either/Or Chris, explore some Elses (see my sig links).

[azul]

4. The gospel of wealth is very deceptive.

How did so many people fall for this failure of moral authorities to take a just stand or not speak up? Hypnosis?

Father Miguel D'escoto talking of the US's aggressive wars and the UN said, " The crime has been baptized." And that seems to be why these RB's have not been impeached.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/26/the_united_nations_is_beyond_reformit

[Echo In Light]

8. "Prosperity" Christianity

[crikkett]

5. What, and not Jung?

[Echo In Light]

7. I suspect Hedges has read a good deal of Jung

[Prof Lester]

6. Hmm. Freddy Nietzsche had sex once in his whole life..

And got syphilis.. which made him insane.. and killed him. He was mollycoddled by his mother most of his life, then his crazy, jew-hating sister. And all along he wrote stuff about being a "superman", and telling folks how to dominate women. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Forgive me if I choose not to listen to the little freak. Besides which, he is number one idol of NEO-CONS!! His appeal is to dweebs with their head up their ass. Thanks but no thanks. Bullshit don't float.

[lonestarnot]

10. +10!

[Echo In Light]

11. You do understand that Hedges *isn't* endorsing Nietzsche?

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

13. no, the respondant completely missed the point of the article

Knee-jerk cluelessness isn't just for Republicans, ya know.

[depakid]

12. Syphilis doesn't match the symptomatology

The closest matching diagnosis is a condition known as CADASIL.

http://www.actaneurologica.be/acta/article.asp?lang=en&navid=133&id=14389&mod=acta

Background : Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), one of the most profound and influential modern philosophers, suffered since his very childhood from severe migraine. At 44 he had a mental breakdown ending in a dementia with total physical dependence due to stroke. From the very beginning, Nietzsche’s dementia was attributed to a neurosyphilitic infection. Recently, this tentative diagnosis has become controversial.

Objective : To use historical accounts and original materials including correspondence, biographical data and medical papers to document the clinical characteristics of Nietzsche’s illness and, by using this pathography, to discuss formerly proposed diagnoses and to provide and support a new diagnostic hypothesis.

Materials : Original letters from Friedrich Nietzsche, descriptions by relatives and friends, and medical descriptions. Original German sources were investigated. Biographical papers published in medical journals were also consulted.

Results : Nietzsche suffered from migraine without aura which started in his childhood. In the second half of his life he suffered from a psychiatric illness with depression. During his last years, a progressive cognitive decline evolved and ended in a profound dementia with stroke. He died from pneumonia in 1900. The family history includes a possible vascular-related mental illness in his father, who died from stroke at 36.

Conclusions : Friedrich Nietzsche’s disease consisted of migraine, psychiatric disturbances, cognitive decline with dementia, and stroke. Despite the prevalent opinion that neurosyphilis caused Nietzsche’s illness, there is lack of evidence to support this diagnosis. Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) accounts for all the signs and symptoms of Nietzsche’s illness. This study adds new elements to the debate and controversy about Nietzsche’s illness. We discuss former diagnoses, comment on the history of a diagnostic mistake, and integrate for the first time Nietzsche’s medical problems.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

14. for a "professor" you don't read very closely

Try again, genius.

Keerist, how clueless can you get.

[Echo In Light]

15. Bump

[Echo In Light]

16. Another

[Echo In Light]

17. Bump

[CrawlingChaos]

18. EXCELLENT article - thank you for posting!

Another astute and important piece of writing from Hedges. He is certainly a welcome antidote to the disturbingly authoritarian New Atheism that is rising to fill the void of imploding religions.

[Echo In Light]

29. You're welcome

[krabigirl]

19. Well, lack of religion does not equal no belief in a God or higher power. for some, sure.

not for others.

[Arugula Latte]

20. I wish religion would fizzle out faster.

Hurry up and go away, already, you irrational, harmful mythology!

[CrawlingChaos]

27. I think the point is religion fizzling out doesn't solve our problems

Something equally odious will fill the void.

Which is not to say that the current implosion of churches doesn't have a major upside (especially if you're an alter boy) but Hedges raises great questions about the aftermath of any such widespread fizzling.

[BurtWorm]

21. We're not stuck with Nietszche any more than we're stuck with Chris Hedges or anyone else.

[CrawlingChaos]

25. I don't think that's what Hedges meant

If you read the article, particularly the observations about Nietszche's "Last Man" character and the current state of society, I think you'll see what I mean. It really is a thought-provoking and worthwhile read. You can't infer too much from the title.

[BurtWorm]

30. I think it's exactly what Hedges meant.

Hedges says:

<<The consumer culture, as Nietzsche feared, has turned us into what Chalmers Johnson calls a "consumerist Sparta." The immigrants and the poor, all but invisible to us, work as serfs in this new temple of greed and imperialism. Curtis White in "The Middle Mind" argues that most Americans are aware of the brutality and injustice used to maintain the excesses of their consumer society and empire. He suspects they do not care. They don't want to see what is done in their name. They do not want to look at the rows of flag-draped coffins or the horribly maimed bodies and faces of veterans or the human suffering in the blighted and deserted former manufacturing centers. It is too upsetting. Government and corporate censorship is welcomed and appreciated. It ensures that we remain Last Men. And the death of religious institutions will only cement into place the new secular religion of the Last Man, the one that worships military power, personal advancement, hedonism and greed, the one that justifies our ruthless callousness toward the weak and the poor.>>

Hedges thinks he is speaking for "us," but he's doing what a lot of theologians do, which is speaking reductively, as though the essence of what "we" are can be distilled in an 800 word essay. Speak for yourself, Hedges! A lot of us do want to see what is done in our name. A lot of us want to know the moral consequences of our purchases. What's more, I'm sure Hedges knows that. He's not preaching to The Last Man when he writes for Common Dreams. This is glorified name-calling of an enemy he really does not understand, i.e., the Tea Bagger, who would be disgusted to think some hippie is accusing him of not having religion.

[old mark]

22. Spoken like a true former cleric. When religion dies, we have many other possibilities

that come with freedom of thought and life choices.
Sadly, I doubt religion is on the way out - there is too much money and power involved for the big players to let go of it, and some people seem to really believe there is a need for it.

mark

[lolly]

23. I start disagreeing with the article right where you left off

After noting how morally bankrupt these religions are, he trots out the old false dichotomy--But without religion we would have no morals! Nobody would have fought for civil rights! Nobody would be helping out in the inner cities, yada yada yada.

[earth mom]

28. I agree with you. I'm agnostic and nobody "taught" me to feel compassion or have ethics or morals.

I've had them since I was born.

I've always felt compassion for people and animals and have always had a strong sense of right and wrong.

Frankly, it's alarming and shocking to me that so many have to be "taught" to feel compassion and have ethics/morals.

So, does this mean that this is actually a planet full of sociopaths pretending to be good people because they are afraid of burning in hell? :wow:

[WinkyDink]

24. But what "church", in that poll? Mainstream? I DOUBT IT. More likely "feel-good" non-denominational.

[KonaKane]

26. This is not a religion problem. Its an American political religion problem.

I have lived in a few places around the world and nowhere have I seen religion dones so weirdly as here. In your face, in your politics, etc. America has largely poisoned the notion of faith.