5go, I agree that we can never know what jesus actually taught due to the time difference between his life and the writing of the gospels but I am assuming (for the purpose of this thread) that the gospels are more or less accurate in their depiction of jesus since most christians use them as the basis for their faith (to some degree or other, as pointed out by snowbird)
Then all Christians would be a nihilist then because not even the apostles followed Christ's lead.
The Anti-Christ (German: Der Antichrist) (also could be translated as The Anti-Christian) is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1895.
History of Christianity
[ edit ] Opposite development
Nietzsche saw a world–historical irony in the way that the Christian Church developed in antithetical opposition to the Evangel and the Gospel of early Christianity. [66] The fable of Christ as miracle–worker and redeemer is not the origin of Christianity. Christianity's history is a "...progressively cruder misunderstanding of an original symbolism...": the death on the cross. [67] Christianity became more diseased, base, morbid, vulgar, low, barbaric and crude. "As the Church, this morbid barbarism itself finally assumes power — the Church, that form of mortal hostility to all integrity, to all loftiness of soul, to discipline of spirit, to all open–hearted and benevolent humanity. — Christian values — noble values... ." [68] Nietzsche expressed contempt for his contemporaries because they mendaciously called themselves Christians but did not act like true Christians. Modern people act with worldly egoism, pride, and will to power in opposition to Christianity's denial of the world. Nietzsche considered this falseness to be indecent. Unlike past ages, his contemporaries knew that sham and unnatural concepts such as "God," "moral world–order," "sinner," "Redeemer," "free will," "beyond," "Last Judgment," and "immortal soul" are consciously employed in order to provide power to the church and its priests. [69] "[T]here was only one Christian, and he died on the cross." [70] "...[O]nly Christian practice, a life such as he lived who died on the cross, is Christian." Thereafter, the opposite kind of life was called Christian. Belief in redemption through Christ is not originally Christian. Genuine, original, primitive Christianity is not a faith. It is state of being that consists of "...a doing, above all a not–doing of many things... ." [71] Jesus' wanted his death on the cross to be an example of how a person can be free from resentment, revenge, and rebellion. The disciples, however, wanted revenge against the Jewish ruling class and high priests who had delivered him to Pilate. They elevated Jesus into being the Messiah and Son of God and promised future judgment and punishment in the kingdom of God. [72] This was in opposition to Jesus' doctrine that everyone could be a child of God and experience Heaven in their present lives by acting in a gentle, loving manner.
[ edit ] Paul and eternal life
The apostles claimed that Jesus' death was a sacrifice of an innocent man for the sins of the guilty. But "...Jesus had done away with the concept 'guilt' itself — he had denied any chasm between God and man, he lived this unity of God and man as his 'glad tidings'... ." [73] In order to claim that there is life after death, the apostles ignored Jesus' example of blessed living. Paul made immortality the main point in 1 Corinthians 15:17 when he said "...if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain." "Paul himself even taught personal immortality as a reward." [74] Paul used the promise of life after death as a way to seize tyrannical power over the masses of lower class people. [75] This changed Christianity from a peace movement that achieves actual happiness into a religion whose final judgment offers possible resurrection and eternal life. Paul falsified the history of Christianity, the history of Israel, and the history of mankind by making them all seem to be a preparation for the crucifixion. "The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all natural in the instincts — all that is healthy, all that is life–promoting, all that guarantees a future now arouses mistrust." [76] The meaning of life is that there is no meaning to present life. One lives for life in the beyond. By offering immortal life after death to everyone, Christianity appealed to everyone's egoism. The laws of nature would be broken for the salvation of everyone. "...[I]t is to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity that Christianity owes its victory — it is with this that it has persuaded over to its side everything ill–constituted, rebellious–minded, under–privileged, all the scum and refuse of mankind." [77] This influenced politics and led to revolutions against aristocracies. Nietzsche claimed that Paul's pretence of holiness and his use of priestly concepts were typically Jewish. Christianity separated itself from Judaism as though it was the chosen religion, "...as if only the 'Christian' were the meaning, the salt, the measure and also the Last Judgment of all the rest." [78] Christianity then divided itself from the world by appropriating "...the concepts 'God,' 'truth,' 'light,' 'spirit,' 'love,' 'wisdom,' 'life' as if these were synonyms of themselves... ." [79] According to Nietzsche, "In Christianity, as the art of holy lying, the whole of Judaism...attains its ultimate perfection." "The Christian is only a Jew of a 'more liberal' persuasion." [80]
