Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“In Christianity, neither morality nor religion is in contact with any point of reality. Nothing but imaginary causes (God, soul, ego, spirit, free will–or even ‘unfree will’); nothing but imaginary effects (sin, salvation, grace, punishment, forgiveness of sin). An intercourse between imaginary beings (God, spirits, souls); an imaginary science of nature (anthropocentric, absolute lack of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology (nothing but self-misunderstandings … repentance, remorse of conscience, temptations by the devil, presence of God); an imaginary teleology (the kingdom of God, the last judgment, everlasting life). This purely fictitious world is greatly to its disadvantage, distinguished from the dream world in that while the latter reflects reality, the former falsifies, depreciates, and negates it. When once the concept of ‘nature’ was devised as a concept antithetical to ‘God,’ ‘natural’ had to be the word for ‘reprehensible’; that whole fictitious world has its root in hatred of the natural …”
–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ
Sharp and Pointed 