Nietzsche's Big Mistake: Three Ideas on Christianity

It’s been a wild few months since I last wrote you—some unexpected developments in the background over here. All good and exciting, just a little crazy.

I’ll tell you the story later, but for now I just want to tell you:

The Other Life machine is up and running once again!

I published an extended reflection on Nietzsche's critique of Christianity and how it stacks up to a close reading of John. (Youtube, podcast.)

And I’m finally actually shipping my second book, The Independent Scholar, on Dec. 5. I’ve attempted to write down everything I've learned in the past five years, pioneering this strange lifestyle that I've invented. The final sections of the book will tell the story of WTF I’ve been doing this past year. (I feel like I beat the The Final Boss, in some sense.) If you’re a paying subscriber/member of the community, DO NOT PAY FOR IT (I’ll be sending you a copy gratis.) For the rest of you, pre-order link is here.

And of course paying subscribers/members will receive this month’s print letter shortly.

For today, I’d just like to share some highlights from the latest episode of the podcast, The Truth Will Set You Free: Nietzsche vs. St. John.

I. Christ doesn’t want blind faith, he wants “truth”

Rather than demanding blind faith (as Nietzsche alleges), Christ presents a surprisingly sophisticated theory of truth and evidence.

He doesn't claim authority based on divinity; he repeatedly says he has only come to tell the truth.

Even Pontius Pilate seems to agree that Christ is speaking truthfully. Pilate does not accuse him of lying, he only mocks the idea of the truth. “What is truth?” he infamously says.

Christ seems to be introducing the provocative idea that telling the truth is intrinsically good.

Listen at 00:08:21.

II. The miracles are stories about evidence

Miracles in the Gospels aren't superstitious magic tricks, but almost the exact opposite.

The miracles are there to demonstrate a real fact about our world, which is that literally unbelievable things will happen if you pursue the truth.

I’m not saying the miracle stories were metaphors—I’m saying literally real miracle stories happen to this day, so why would they not really happen back then?

Many engineering achievements we enjoy today were once seen as physically, scientifically impossible for the entire time until they were produced. Then they were produced, specifically by individuals who believed in the existence of a rational order beyond human consensus.

A reusable rocket, for instance, is epistemologically comparable to a miracle in the Gospels. I think miracles happened in the time of Christ, because I think they happen today (and everyone knows it). The only difference is that we’ve become confused by our own words.

Listen at 00:17:53.

III. The truth will set you free

Sin is not disobeying arbitrary orders, but as acting as if the truth isn't real—pretending you can pause or escape the natural order of reality.

The famous line from John, that "the truth will set you free," takes on new meaning: only by submitting to objective reality does one escape confusion and slavery.

Christianity is not about trusting on faith the superstitious dictates of a man claiming to be God—as the idiotic conventional wisdom would have it.

Christianity is about seeking the truth at all cost, acting on the truth no matter what other human beings say, having faith that the results will be good, realizing that there is no particular reason the world must be this way, then realizing that a living, speaking man literally said all of these things more than 2000 years ago, then realizing that they killed him for saying these things, and then inferring that this man probably was God himself because how else could any of this make sense?

Listen at 00:36:02.

Subscribe to the podcast and listen to the whole episode:

• Other Life on Youtube

• Other Life on Apple Podcasts

• Other Life on Spotify

I hope you’ve taken something from this email. More soon.

Thanks for your interest in my work!

Sincerely,

Justin Murphy