Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
I: Criticism of Religion§251 The attacks made upon Christianity, hitherto, have been not only timid but false. So long as Christian morality was not felt to be a capital crime against Life, its defenders have had it all their own way. The question concerning the mere “truth” of Christianity, whether in regard to the existence of its God, or to the legendary history of its origin, not to speak of its astronomy and natural science, is quite beside the point so long as no inquiry is made into the value of Christian morality. Are Christian morals worth anything or are they a profanation and an outrage, despite all the arts of holiness and seduction with which they are enforced? The question concerning the truth of the religion may be met by all sorts of subterfuges; and the most fervent believers can, in the end, avail themselves of the logic used by their opponents, in order to create a right for their side to assert that certain things are irrefutable — that is to say, they transcend the means employed to refute them (nowadays this trick of dialectics is called “Kantian Criticism”).