The Antichrist · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
39.
To reduce being a Christian, the state of Christianity, to an acceptance of truth, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is to formulate the negation of Christianity. _In fact, there are no Christians._ The "Christian"--he who for two thousand years has passed as a Christian--is simply a psychological self-delusion. Closely examined, it appears that, _despite_ all his "faith," he has been ruled _only_ by his instincts--and _what instincts_!--In all ages--for example, in the case of Luther--"faith" has been no more than a cloak, a pretense, a _curtain_ behind which the instincts have played their game--a shrewd _blindness_ to the domination of _certain_ of the instincts.... I have already called "faith" the specially Christian form of _shrewdness_--people always _talk_ of their "faith" and _act_ according to their instincts.... In the world of ideas of the Christian there is nothing that so much as touches reality: on the contrary, one recognizes an instinctive _hatred_ of reality as the motive power, the only motive power at the bottom of Christianity. What follows therefrom? That even here, in _psychologicis_, there is a radical error, which is to say one conditioning fundamentals, which is to say, one in _substance_.
Take away one idea and put a genuine reality in its place--and the whole of Christianity crumbles to nothingness!--Viewed calmly, this strangest of all phenomena, a religion not only depending on errors, but inventive and ingenious _only_ in devising injurious errors, poisonous to life and to the heart--this remains a _spectacle for the gods_--for those gods who are also philosophers, and whom I have encountered, for example, in the celebrated dialogues at Naxos. At the moment when their _disgust_ leaves them (--and us!) they will be thankful for the spectacle afforded by the Christians: perhaps because of _this_ curious exhibition alone the wretched little planet called the earth deserves a glance from omnipotence, a show of divine interest.... Therefore, let us not underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false _to the point of innocence_, is far above the ape--in its application to the Christians a well-known theory of descent becomes a mere piece of politeness.... [14] So in the text. One of Nietzsche's numerous coinages, obviously suggested by _Evangelium_, the German for _gospel_.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.