The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
128.
_The Value of Prayer._—Prayer has been devised for such men as have never any thoughts of their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is unknown, or passes unnoticed; what shall these people do in holy places and in all important situations in life which require repose and some kind of dignity? In order at least that they may not _disturb_, the wisdom of all the founders of religions, the small as well as the great, has commended to them the formula of prayer, as a long mechanical labour of the lips, united with an effort of the memory, and with a uniform, prescribed attitude of hands and feet—_and_ eyes! They may then, like the Tibetans, chew the cud of their "_om mane padme hum_," innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the name of God Ram-Ram-Ram (and so on, with or without grace) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is that they are settled down for a time at this work, and present a tolerable appearance; their mode of prayer is devised for the advantage of the pious who have thought and elevation of their own. But even these have their weary hours when a series of venerable words and sounds and a mechanical, pious ritual does them good. But supposing that these rare men—in every religion the religious man is an exception—know how to help themselves, the poor in spirit do not know, and to forbid them the prayer-babbling would mean to take their religion from them, a fact which Protestantism brings more and more to light. All that religion wants with such persons is that they should _keep still_ with their eyes, hands, legs, and all their organs: they thereby become temporarily beautified and—more human-looking!
_The Conditions for God._—"God himself cannot subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less subsist without unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that! _A Dangerous Resolution._—The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. _Christianity and Suicide._—Christianity made use of the excessive longing for suicide at the time of its origin as a lever for its power: it left only two forms of suicide, invested them with the highest dignity and the highest hopes, and forbade all others in a dreadful manner. But martyrdom and the slow self-annihilation of the ascetic were permitted. _Against Christianity._—It is now no longer our reason, but our taste that decides against Christianity. _Axioms._—An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall back again, is, in the long run, _more powerful_ than the most firmly believed belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief). In the long run: that means a hundred thousand years from now.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.