49. It is more blatant in Protestant thought than most other religious doctrine, exaggerating the absoluteness of God and God’s goodness with the inherent sinfulness of humans, so much so that within the leading Protestant churches, the official doctrine for centuries has been that even if one has faith, one’s only hope for a better life is not that one will truly become more moral, but only that God will “count” one as “righteous” though one never is.
50. Jack Sanders, Ethics in the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1986).
51. Soelle, Political Theology.
52. Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (New York: Harper & Bros., 1951), pp. 20–48.
53. Harvey Cox, Turning East: The Promise and Peril of the New Orientalism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977).
54. It is fairly significant that Stephen Hawking suggested that we need, however, to be looking for another planet to live on since within a century or so, we may need to begin such immigration for homo sapiens to continue to exist. Recent discoveries suggest that we may find some “exoplanet” such as “Ross 128b” as an answer, as an “Earth 2.0.”
55. Thomas J. J. Altizer, The Contemporary Jesus (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997). Altizer accepted Schweitzer’s analysis of the historical Jesus, from which he emphasized the “new.”
56. They usually get labeled “radical theologians.” Robert P. Scharlemann’s The Reason of Following: Christology and the Ecstatic I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), was a brilliant attempt to open up the possibility of Christology while preserving autonomy. Thomas J. J. Altizer’s refusal to cite “authorities” in some of his later works is also a methodological reinforcement of the value of autonomy. But these are exceptional books from exceptional people.
57. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking Books, 1954). Nietzsche (1844–1900), is remembered by those who only heard of him, but never read him, for his “nihilism,” his idea of the “death of God,” and for succumbing to insanity the final twelve years of life. However, for those who bother to read him, these three points are only simplistic caricatures of a brilliant man who suffered much, yet loved life so much that he wrote when others would have chosen just to lay in bed in self-pity. “Pity” was central among the powers or attitudes that Nietzsche found decadent. For more on him, see the section in chapter 1, which compares Nietzsche and Jesus, or read biographies of him, or better yet, the primary works, all of which Walter Kaufmann translated so ably and beautifully for us.
58. Walter Kaufmann, “Introduction” to Nietzsche, in The Portable Nietzsche, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking Books, 1954), pp. 3–4.
59. Ibid.
60. This theme against “false causes,” “change,” and ideals that are self-contradictory such as celibacy, are found in nearly all of Nietzsche’s writings. Our standards must be life-affirming, not life-defeating or life-denying. Perhaps his most intensely graphic descriptions are in Ecce Homo in which he even analyzes the negative effect on one’s spirit from the wrong kind of food or drink. He belittles German cuisine especially, but speaks of his discovered need to refrain not only from those foods that are cooked to death, in which pastries and puddings are turning into “paperweights,” but also from any alcohol and even coffee. Only a little tea, and only in the morning, is sufficient. Water is best, moderate meals, not extended feasts. He says the “origin of the German spirit” was “distressed intestines,” and shortly later says “all prejudices come from the intestines.” Most of all, avoid the sedentary life because it is the real sin against the holy spirit.” But not simply diet and lack of exercise can ruin one’s metabolism, but even living in the wrong place. See Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, tr. and ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), see esp. pp. 693–96.
61. One cannot miss this Nietzschean form of admiration of Jesus, even though Matthew did not put it in such language. Nietzsche admired Jesus, but found Christianity as counter to everything Jesus taught.
62. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p. 138.
63. By the time of the writing of this First Part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) he had already been very physically ill for thirteen years but was also in the frenzy of publishing a new book every year for the entire decade of 1878–1888. In 1889, he was committed to an asylum in Jena and died in 1900. Do we hear that reference in this description of the ill person who sends comforters away, facing only those who are deaf to his needs and desires? Further, we know his father, who was a Lutheran pastor, died when Friedrich was only five, so he was virtually surrounded by and raised by his mother, sister, grandmother, and two maiden aunts. He studied classical philology and at age twenty-four became a university professor in Basel. By 1870, he was appointed to full professor, then volunteered as medical orderly in the Franco-Prussian War, and returned a few months later to Basel with his health shattered. It is remarkable that he was able to bear these burdens as a “camel” to a desert, take on the role of a “lion” to challenge heteronomy and self-contradictory morality, and attempt to be creative as the “child.”
The Absolute’s Divisive Burden in Segregating Humanity
Humans enjoy reaping the benefits of their work. They even enjoy occasional gifts from family or friends, just as they enjoy giving things to others. One feels appreciated and a sense of pride to a moderate degree in both. But to be privileged above others, to receive gifts, attention, and praise disproportionately can make one uncomfortable. Privilege can even backfire and become a curse. It can ruin relationships between the giver and receiver. Most people either know firsthand or at least can imagine how they would have felt had their parents favored them over their siblings. It fouls relationships between the siblings, and the one who was “special” may be conditioned from the extra favors to begin to expect too much, even unreasonable attention from others or disproportionate benefits in general. That also destroys. On a larger scale, disproportionate distribution of goods can create privileged classes of people by which even if the privileged seem to enjoy their status, those who suffer from the inequality may become resentful, and quite often some of the privileged will even feel guilt for the disparity. This unnecessarily divides humanity.
A Painful Discovery of Being or Not Being Special
Most religions, by promising the final answer to life’s problems, and therefore the “more” life of which James spoke, tend unwittingly or even intentionally to divide humanity. The religions seem comfortable in propagating a worldview that, by using a particular metaphysics, enables them to promise benefits to their adherents and converts, disproportionate benefits that ultimately bestow a sense of privilege. They emphasize a uniqueness of their community of believers or adherents, just as they tend to stress a uniqueness of their founder or founding events. It is usually presented as the Absolute, the unchallengeable, the final word, or ultimate concern. Very few Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus (or others) are taught that any religion has the same connection with the ultimate truth or Absolute. They do not hear from their religious authorities that they could find as valid an answer in many other religions. Whether this sense of superiority, privilege, or exclusiveness is formed from the individual’s fantastic conversion experience blended with the institution’s need to maintain a united, distinct identity, or from other motivation such as a “lost cause,” or is simply inherited through one’s family, it is found in most if not all religions.
In order to maintain this uniform identity as a group, most religions do not encourage their members or devotees to think for themselves or be critical of everything they are taught by the authorities of the group. The clergy, the “religious” (orders), or hierarchy establishes itself as the “teaching authority.” This creates a certain distance between those who are the authorities and the “lay” members, sustained by the creation