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Full Idea
It is the pinnacle of man's mendacity to think up a being as a beginning and 'in-itself', according to the yardstick of what he happens to find good, wise, powerful, valuable - and think away the whole causality by which they exist and have value.
Clarification
'Mendacity' is dishonesty
Gist of Idea
It is dishonest to invent a being containing our greatest values, thus ignoring why they exist and are valuable
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[122])
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Writings from the Late Notebooks', ed/tr. Bittner,Rüdiger [CUP 2003], p.224
A Reaction
I think most non-religious people feel that religion completely fails to solve the problems it is meant to address, by just ignoring the problems, or pushing them to another place.
| 20773 | The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus] |
| 23348 | Both god and the good bring benefits, so their true nature seems to be the same [Epictetus] |
| 5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
| 19344 | God prefers men to lions, but might not exterminate lions to save one man [Leibniz] |
| 6254 | We are asked to follow God's ends because he is our benefactor, but why must we do that? [Hutcheson] |
| 6255 | Why may God not have a superior moral sense very similar to ours? [Hutcheson] |
| 16006 | Either Abraham rises higher than universal ethics, or he is a mere murderer [Kierkegaard] |
| 7158 | Morality kills religion, because a Christian-moral God is unbelievable [Nietzsche] |
| 7199 | It is dishonest to invent a being containing our greatest values, thus ignoring why they exist and are valuable [Nietzsche] |
| 4488 | Those who have abandoned God cling that much more firmly to the faith in morality [Nietzsche] |
| 20701 | Can God be good, if he has not maximised goodness? [Davies,B] |