Pious+Nietzsche

O'Hara, David L. "Pious Nietzsche." Sino-Christian Studies, vol. 8, Dec. 2009, pp. 225-229. EBSCOhost

In this article, the author talks about Benson who talks about how Nietzsche transformed from a Christian in his early life into a person who just praised a different god. He talks about how Nietzsche can be model for Christians to learn from instead of ignored by. Benson elaborates that Nietzsche wasn’t supporting atheism outright – he was instead just supporting for a person to live a life with proper morals without a believing in god. In this review the author wants to really emphasize that Benson says that Nietzsche just didn’t move from being a Christian to being atheist. He simply just switched religions. Benson says particularly “Nietzsche never simply stopped believing in God; he simply worshiped another god, whom he dubbed Dionysus”, which is often overlooked when people refer to him. Benson talks about how Nietzsche’s was never able to find his sense of individualism that he was looking for his entire life.  This differing view of Nietzsche has of Benson is extremely rare because many people reference Nietzsche creating a new-found atheism. Instead Benson shows in his book about Nietzsche that he just jumped to another religion. The way Nietzsche lived his life interpreted by Benson is extremely impactful because it shows how one man is always trying to find a sense of individualism and liberation. This type of liberation is always trying to be achieved by philosophers and many normal people every day. They can’t come to believe in a religion and they try to find an answer on how to live their life however many resort to just coming or following up with their own “God”. This sense of liberation and self-overcoming which Nietzsche’s writes about and how “God is dead” and humanity must find a way to live life intellectually without believing in a transcendental  being is probably not possible by observing Nietzsche’s.