15.
Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contact
with actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes (”God”
“soul,” “ego,” “spirit,” “free
will”—or even “unfree”), and purely imaginary
effects (”sin” “salvation” “grace,”
“punishment,” “forgiveness of sins”). Intercourse between
imaginarybeings (”God,” “spirits,”
“souls”); an imaginary natural history (anthropocentric; a
total denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology
(misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeable general
feelings—for example, of the states of the nervus
sympathicus with the help of the sign-language of religio-ethical
balderdash—, “repentance,” “pangs of conscience,”
“temptation by the devil,” “the presence of God”); an
imaginary teleology (the “kingdom of God,” “the last
judgment,” “eternal life”).—This purely fictitious
world, greatly to its disadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world
of dreams; the later at least reflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it,
cheapens it and denies it. Once the concept of “nature” had been
opposed to the concept of “God.” the word “natural”
necessarily took on the meaning of “abominable”—the whole of
that fictitious world has its sources in hatred of the natural (—the
real!—), and is no more than evidence of a profound uneasiness in the
presence of reality. . . . This explains everything. Who alone has any
reason for living his way out of reality? The man who suffers under it. But to
suffer from reality one must be a botched reality. . . . The
preponderance of pains over pleasures is the cause of this fictitious morality
and religion: but such a preponderance also supplies the formula for
décadence. . . .
