Nietzsche and the drunk priest
“There have been two great narcotics in European civilization: Christianity and alcohol.”
On a Sunday of the year 1868, Nietzsche walked into a chapel in Leipzig searching for Wagner’s latest solo album. The chapel was empty and there was a priest standing on the altar drinking a sangria and headbanging to Christian Metal. Nietzsche ran to the priest like a madman and knocked the sangria out of his hand. “Thou shall not judge thy brother” cried the priest!
Then, a moment of silence sat on the chapel, Nietzsche had seen that the priest was drunk. The bowl of sangria sat next to the bible, the sun had gone away and the angels were terrified under the pews. Nietzsche stood on the altar and his voice echoed in the chapel: “In man, creature and creator are united: in man there is material, fragment, excess, clay, dirt, nonsense, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day — do you understand this contrast? The body must be fashioned, bruised, forged, stretched, roasted, and refined — it is meant to suffer.”
The priest hiccuped and told Nietzsche: “But there is a lot suffering in the world my brother! I take refuge in my fortress Jesus Christ and take a sip of his holy blood!” A real face-palm moment for Nietzsche here followed by a mustache stroke. Nietzsche yelled in the chapel: “I have come looking for Wagner’s album and this is what I get?! Like alcohol, the teachings of Christianity dull the pain of living and weakens the resolve to overcome the problem from which the pain arose. Both numb pain, and both reassure us that things are just fine as they are, sapping us of the will to change our lives for the better, destroying the bridge to the Ubermensch.”
After Nietzsche finished his sermon, the priest had a sudden burst of crying. Nietzsche consoled him and whispered in his ear: “The pangs of the woman giving birth hallow all pain; all becoming and growing — all that guarantees a future — involves pain.”
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