Going from a Deleuzian perspective, Friedrich Nietzsche’s understanding of Christian love could be compared as something too complex to be just labeled as sadism or masochism. In Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ, he begs to differ but also takes the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of sadism and masochism from Deleuze’s Coldness and Cruelty under consideration. Analyzing Christian love through the filter of sexual perversion isn’t as unbelievable as one would think. Aspects of both sadism and masochism, depending on if the subject is the priests, the laity, or the theology itself, will be found falling outside the aspects of sadism and masochism. Nietzsche's critique of Christian love will be followed by a comparison of it
…show more content…
He goes on saying Christianity is, “a religion of pity and that through the use of this pity, suffering becomes contagious” (Nietzsche 130). By becoming contagious, he continues to explain that the suffering of one person then causes this contemporaries to suffer with that person. Even if no one has an immediate reason to suffer, Christianity institutionalizes the pity so that everyone is forced to suffer by guilt. Nietzsche sorts those compulsions of guilt as convictions, “Conviction as a means…The ‘believer’ does not belong to himself, he can be only a means, he ahs to be used…His instinct accords the highest honour to a mortality of selflessness: everything persuades him to it…” (Nietzsche 184). For Nietzsche, Christian love is nothing more than the endless spread of suffering. The promise of eternal paradise, or what starts out as a lie for Nietzsche, becomes the faithful conviction of the laity. God allows us to hurt, makes us hurt, and hurts us because he loves us. We unconsciously expect others hurt with us just because we have a sense of love for one another. For Nietzsche, Christian love is nothing more than the endless spread of …show more content…
The unclear connection between both makes it challenging to specifically pin-point whether Christianity seeks to actively reject and disallow what the sadists want or to active destroy it. The nonexistence of pleasure is evidently present, but also the leaving out of laity completely makes the connection between sadism and Christianity incomplete. Deleuze describes his description of a masochist as a seductive educator that seeks through fantasies, suspensions, and fetishes to reject and refuse reality. Nietzsche’s account of the Christian “conviction” fits with the masochistic suspension of reality; but still remains unclear. Sadistic negation or masochistic denial could be questioned as being an example of Christianity’s hatred of realism. The practitioners, including priests, choose to deny the Christian theology’s concept of reality existing is negated because it is shown to exist in a purely symbolic form. Because Christian theology celebrates weakness and submissiveness, “Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak..” (Nietzsche 128), the practitioners lack the power to achieve any sort of denial. This justifies the lack of the
He goes on saying Christianity is, “a religion of pity and that through the use of this pity, suffering becomes contagious” (Nietzsche 130). By becoming contagious, he continues to explain that the suffering of one person then causes this contemporaries to suffer with that person. Even if no one has an immediate reason to suffer, Christianity institutionalizes the pity so that everyone is forced to suffer by guilt. Nietzsche sorts those compulsions of guilt as convictions, “Conviction as a means…The ‘believer’ does not belong to himself, he can be only a means, he ahs to be used…His instinct accords the highest honour to a mortality of selflessness: everything persuades him to it…” (Nietzsche 184). For Nietzsche, Christian love is nothing more than the endless spread of suffering. The promise of eternal paradise, or what starts out as a lie for Nietzsche, becomes the faithful conviction of the laity. God allows us to hurt, makes us hurt, and hurts us because he loves us. We unconsciously expect others hurt with us just because we have a sense of love for one another. For Nietzsche, Christian love is nothing more than the endless spread of …show more content…
The unclear connection between both makes it challenging to specifically pin-point whether Christianity seeks to actively reject and disallow what the sadists want or to active destroy it. The nonexistence of pleasure is evidently present, but also the leaving out of laity completely makes the connection between sadism and Christianity incomplete. Deleuze describes his description of a masochist as a seductive educator that seeks through fantasies, suspensions, and fetishes to reject and refuse reality. Nietzsche’s account of the Christian “conviction” fits with the masochistic suspension of reality; but still remains unclear. Sadistic negation or masochistic denial could be questioned as being an example of Christianity’s hatred of realism. The practitioners, including priests, choose to deny the Christian theology’s concept of reality existing is negated because it is shown to exist in a purely symbolic form. Because Christian theology celebrates weakness and submissiveness, “Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak..” (Nietzsche 128), the practitioners lack the power to achieve any sort of denial. This justifies the lack of the