as only thereby come into the world in accordance with
this logic:--"sin".... The concepts of guilt and punishment, the whole
"moral order of the world," have been devised _in opposition_ to
science,--_in opposition_ to a severance of man from the priest.... Man
is _not_ to look outwards, he is to look inwards into himself, he is
_not_ to look prudently and cautiously into things like a learner, he is
not to look at all, he is to _suffer_.... And he is so to suffer as to
need the priest always. _A Saviour is needed._--The concepts of guilt
and punishment, inclusive of the doctrines of "grace," of "salvation,"
and of "forgiveness"--_lies_ through and through, and without any
psychological reality--have been contrived to destroy the _causal sense_
in man, they are an attack on the concepts of cause and effect!--And
_not_ an attack with the fists, with the knife, with honesty in hate and
love! But springing from the most cowardly, most deceitful, and most
ignoble instincts! A _priest's_ attack! A _parasite's_ attack! A
vampirism of pale, subterranean blood-suckers! When the natural
consequences of a deed are no longer "natural," but are supposed to be
brought about by the conceptual spectres of superstition, by "God," by
"spirits," by "souls," as mere "moral" consequences, as reward,
punishment, suggestion, or means of education, the pre-requisite of
perception has been destroyed--_the greatest crime against mankind has
been committed._ Sin, repeated once more, this form of human
self-violation _par excellence_, has been invented for the purpose of
making impossible science, culture, every kind of elevation and nobility
of man; the priest _rules_ by the invention of sin.--

* * *

I _condemn_ Christianity, I bring against the Christian Church the most
terrible of all accusations that ever an accuser has taken into his
mouth. It is to me the greatest of all imaginable corruptions, it has
had the will to the ultimate corruption that is at all possible. The
Christian Church has left nothing untouched with its depravity, it has
made a worthlessness out of every value, a lie out of every truth, a
baseness of soul out of every straight-forwardness. Let a person still
dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! To _do away with_
any state of distress whatsoever was counter to its profoundest
expediency, it lived by states of distress, it _created_ states of
distress in order to per