Religion as Resentment in the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

Abstract

Nietzschean way of understanding ressentiment is rooted in the naturalistic tradition, but the author of Zarathustra seeks the psychological sources in the desire to exist at any costs (explicitly referring to Schopenhauer’s thought). Nietzsche opposes any sacrifices and ascethism. He thinks that such attitudes as priests’ celibacy have explicit hypocrisy as their grounds and express the lack of strength to cope with life. For Nietzsche, the Christian religion is the highest degree of sacrificing the goods, which the slave (using Hegelian terminology) sees every day. Such an outlook on life needs the breaking one’s will and the complete indifference to material goods.