Religion helps man to shape his self. But it is ultimately not the answer. Various religions represent various stages of self-building. The 20th century brought a breaking point, where the self was separated from its ‘primordial ooze’, the group-soul, into a dynamic process of building a self-image out of energetic tensions; but this is hazardous and arduous work and whereas it replaces religion as a practice, it introduces whole new requirements of man.
This video goes somewhat profoundly into what religion is in its various stages. I venture out to this forum with it (whereas I normally contain the to the thread I made for it) because I think some people here might get something out of this and there is not a great chance they’ll run into it otherwise.
Christianity stands between the absolute surrender that forms the group soul, traditionally indicated by the moon and the sign Cancer, and the impulse of affirmation of a certain particular spirit, which takes hold of the imperfection of the human and hones it cruelly. The Christian is far crueler to himself than the muslim - therefore he preserves more, builds more. He is more Nietzschean, even though Nietzsche did not think so - cutting into life, spirit, this is what nature did to itself on the myth of Jesus. That it was all done in bad taste is - well, a matter of taste on which I agree with him - what N’s true objection was. But that it is more interesting than Islam is unquestionably true. Interest takes hold on value and determines a mans brain chemistry.
The Christ is a model for the self-suffering brain, the mind that only knows yet that it has wounded itself for a reason called love. He thought love meant something else. Now I a trying to push the concept back out of that receded paradigm into the fabric of living tissue; for that love has to be made unconscious, where the Christian ideal was to make it conscious. I thus assume that it has already been made perfectly conscious. West-man spent enough time on developing inner and transcendent love, but simply will not wish to throw out the baby with the bathwater by following Nietzsche all the way; - for that 19th century man of refined tastes it was a matter of life and death - no, of far more of course - that the bad taste of believing in the impossible would be destroyed.
But gods never stay dead for long, and the Ragnarok of Nietzsche’s thoughts corresponded to an Earthly battlefield like no other before it, reminiscent of the fields of Kurukshetra at least. What comes beyond? Only us; we are what Arjuna fought for.