The poet Lord Byron said: “There is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”[1] Great thinkers, across the centuries, have always used inquiry to understand the world. It doesn’t mean that nothing can be believed, but it does mean that skepticism and doubt are human inclinations that lead us toward growth.
Nietzsche’s famous quote that “God is dead”[2] was originally intended to mean that societal perspectives had “killed” God, rather than the actual death of a supernatural entity. Society (believers included) made God irrelevant.
In another work, Nietzsche wrote: “Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say, marvelously simplified Christianity.”[3]
Is this reflective of many religious institutions and their collective members in the 21st century? Christians are often lumped together into a collective body, yet have little to no “public” intellectual power, in politics, science, and culture. Why?
Broadly speaking, Fundamentalist Christians have “privatized” Christianity, leaving little room for the intellectual exercises within the world of thought that leads to true growth and increased effectiveness in understanding and communicating our spiritual journeys.
Thus, Nietzsche’s point is well taken — surface understandings of God eventually result in a religion without a head,… [Read more…] about The Freedom to Think