Nietzsche's On The Genealogy Of Religion

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Nietzsche takes on religion in his polemic On the Genealogy of Morals. He see’s religion, specifically the birth of Judaism, as the beginning of change from master morality to slave morality. Like Nietzsche, I see an abrupt change from master to slave morality, but instead of the birth of Judaism, I see the concept of heaven and hell as the cause. Master morality requires personal freedom and responsibility, whereas slave morality thrives on the hindrance of the two. Personal freedom to act and develop one's own morals is hindered when one has to always be wary of breaking Jesus’s commandments. In the same way, one has to switch their priority from being responsible for making the most out of this life to being responsible for avoiding the …show more content…
So with the advent of heaven and hell, came the the transition from master morality to slave morality by limiting freedom and changing the concept of responsibility.
One could make the argument that because Jesus’s heaven and hell was not the first instance of an after life it cannot be the point of transition from master to slave morality. It is true that many societies prior to the time of Jesus had concepts of an after life. For instance, in Ancient Greece the human body was considered the incarnation of a soul fallen from the Rim of Heaven. According to Julian Young most souls were condemned to 10,000 years of repeated reincarnation unless, “the soul has three times lived the best life – the ‘philosophical life’ – then the period that must be endured before a return to the heavens is abbreviated to 3,000 years” (Young 9). A philosophical life is one spent, “in the pursuit, not of power, fame, fortune or sensuous pleasure, but of knowledge, …show more content…
Rabbi Sherman Wine, an expert on Humanist Judaism, describes the relationship between ancient Greece and humanism, “The first articulation of humanist principles comes from ancient Greece” (Wine 315). The philosophy of humanism is closely entwined with with master morality. Wine writes, “Humanism is a philosophy of life without God. It maintains that reason is the best method for the discovery of truth, that the natural world of space-time is the only world that exists, and that the power to solve human problems lies mainly within human beings” (Wine 315). This philosophy gives the power of freedom to humans and places their responsibility on living the mortal life to the best of their abilities. The principles of humanism extended beyond the atheistic, and applied to the Greeks as a whole. So it is easy to see why master morality was able to thrive under this philosophy. But the humanistic principles were not destined to stay long, Wine writes, “The triumph of Christianity in the Roman world led to the suppression of Greek philosophy” (Wine 315). So now from a historical perspective we can see the transition from master to slave morality is directly linked to
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