Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. ~Mark Twain
I was just
about to finish packing my tent when a police car appeared. I never try to
avoid responsibility. In fact, I tend to openly admit all wrongdoing with some
degree of pride which always gives an utterly naïve impression. Be it as it
may, in some situations you do not have other alternatives. The police officer
started interrogating me with an obvious question whether I slept there. It
would not make much sense to say that I was just building my tent on a parking
lot 10 am in the morning so I had to admit that. Then I was told that this
camping night would cost me 130 € because since the forest was a national park,
camping was strictly forbidden with the exception of therefore specially
designated campsites. I came up with a compelling reason. I said that had I had
so much money, I would definitely not have slept like this here in the parking
lot. As he looked at my pitiable conditions, clemency woke up in him and
decided to let me get away only with a warning. Thanks God I got so easily out
of this situation! Next time I will be more vigilant. Firstly, I will build my
tent somewhere further in the forest and secondly, I will pack it up early in
the morning so nobody could catch me red-handed.
Ironically,
in spite of riding along the Atlantic all the time, today I swam in a lake. The
sea was simply too far away and I needed to cool down a little during my lunch
break. Just a pity that I could not have a lunch in the local restaurant
because French kitchen apparently does not work between 3 and 7 pm. I decided
to wait until the evening nevertheless to taste a true French Galette, a thin
large salty buckwheat pancake filled with ham and eggs. I took a big ice-cream
in a goblet for the time being, charged my gadgets completely, and
realized how much the McDonald's is overpriced. Since I do not need internet
access anymore, I can indulge myself in local cafés and restaurants with no
worries.
Before
wrapping up my amateur elaborations on philosophy, I would like to say a few
words about Nietzsche. I am appalled that almost every Christian recoils in
horror when I say that Nietzsche is one of my most favorite philosophers. What
a blossomy, how can somebody who clearly said God is dead and inspired the Nazis
with the idea of a perfect man be a shining example for a Christian? Well,
first of all, Nietzsche was probably the most misunderstood philosophers of all
times. His life was equally perplexing as his aphorisms and one could easily
come to a wrong conclusion about his philosophy. Similarly, his rather strong
words could be easily ripped out of context and misused for a completely
different ideology that the one they were supposed to allude to. In any case,
according to his biographers, Nietzsche's character was a polar opposite to the
modern widespread belief about him: He was very sensible, peaceful and
actually loathed Anti-Semitism to such an extent that he broke his relationship
with his sister, the only person he really trusted, just because she married a
man who displayed rather scary characteristics as an Anti-Semite . Besides, his
idea of a perfect man was much deeper than many Nazis could ever comprehend. It
involved profound moral changes in society as far as the culture and morality are
considered, but definitely not weeping out certain demographic groups.
Similarly, he did not succumb to madness as a heretic, but as a deeply
sensitive person who could not stand up torturing a horse by reckless men. And
his famous saying that God is dead was meant figuratively in the sense that God
is dead in hearts of people because only very few acted in accordance with
their religion. One must bear in mind that at those times, Christianity was
obligatory and a man could not simply say that he does not believe in God.
Therefore, everybody, the good and the bad alike, went to the church as humble
sheep and very often did the exact opposite as their religion was saying them
all the time. Nietzsche could not stand this hypocrisy and saw no sense at all
in practicing a religion if it is merely taken as an institutional custom and
not lived from inside out. He also hoped for the ultimate fall of the Catholic
Church in which he saw "a glimmer of hope for better morality". To a
certain extent, he was right, the Catholic church did lose on its political and
social significance over the century, but it was not replaced by any better
morality according to his wishful thinking. The world remained actually the same;
the only difference is that there is no need for hypocrisy anymore as the
social rules changed over the course of time as well. People are equally
lascivious and corrupt as they were in the past with a small difference that
nowadays they admit their (wrong)doing quite openly and sometimes are even
praised for that. On the other hand, Catholic Church did not die out as he predicted,
but on the contrary managed to clean itself to a certain extent (Whether you
agree with this statement or not depends on your own point of view of seeing a
glass half-empty or half-full). Considering the age in which Nietzsche lived, I
find his statements quite fair - I would also despise such hypocrisy. Nowadays,
however, it is all different. Religion is not obligatory anymore and this
voluntary factor significantly reduces the amount of black sheep. Of course, it
would be foolish and naïve to say that Christians are now better than Atheists,
but generally speaking, they constantly try to become better persons because one
is obliged to do so by Christian beliefs and standards. To this constant striving for improvement
fits quite well the quotation by Thomas Carlyle that the greatest of all faults
is to be conscious of none. Therefore, a humble sinner has better chances to
become a better person than somebody who is "almost perfect" and does
not make any more effort to move further. As always, the exception enforces the
rule and you cannot make broad generalizations, but the sketched tendency
cannot be denied. Anyway, I doubt that Nietzsche would say this about
Christianity nowadays; I would rather imagine him bitching about slipping moral
standards in our so called mainstream hedonic society. Anyhow, I personally
like it as it is right now. I cannot imagine that the religion would be
obligatory. Supposing that the God gave us free will, where the man takes pride
to command what the others should believe in? As an intellectual rebel, I would
never subscribe to any forced religion. One could oppose that we should do that
for the better good, or even the souls of the other people, but I will once
again raise the finger and ask who the person is that he or she dares to mingle
with sovereignty of any individual. One must firstly choose freely to seek salvation;
we cannot do it for him or her by force. Unfortunately, some deeply religious
people would not share my view. Oh, pardon, deeply religious does not
necessarily mean what I wanted to say: fanatics is precisely the right word to
describe such individuals, whose extreme beliefs brings more evil than good. I
just wanted to make this fundamental difference quite clear because many people
mix these two strikingly different words. On the other hand, you might find
many self-conceited Atheists who loathe of religious people who find their life
fulfillment in for them utterly bizarre customs and thinking. If only people
were really tolerant - these words I am writing now would not be needed at all.
With religion it is sometimes like with salt (again, just a broad
generalization, I always cautiously point it out, my own professional
deformation). If you add the right amount, it will enhance the flavor of every little
thing, but once you really overdo with it, it can easily spoil everything.
Still, you might find some people who like their dish unsalted and you cannot
force them to salt it just because you enjoy it more that way.
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