What does Nietzsche mean when he discusses the "holy lie"?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chelsea Riggs
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Chelsea Riggs

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I've been researching philosophy online for a little while, and I keep running across this thing called the "holy lie". Try as I might, I can't seem to find any explanation of this statement. Help?
 
I think it might also be called a Noble Lie.

Where people with a high status make up lies with a religious nature to get what they want....

" instinct and passion for integrity which makes war upon the "holy lie" even more than upon all other lies. . . Mankind was unspeakably far from our benevolent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the spirit which alone makes possible the solution of such strange and subtle things: what men always sought, with shameless egoism, was their own advantage therein; they created the church out of denial of the Gospels. . . . " Nietzsche

Elliot has a good point too.
 
He writes of society's concepts of truth and illusion, not what actually is, so he has no idea of what holy is because it is outside of society.
 
Quite simply a lie relating to what is 'holy'. When he discusses 'the' holy lie he is referring to Christianity, and in particular to what Christianity became following Jesus' death rather than to Jesus' own teachings.
 
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