Notably (to my knowledge/experience with it) confession is fundamentally centered around penance and forgiveness, rather than around solving the problem. That’s not to say a priest would never give advice if you asked, but the structure of it is like that. When I used to be catholic and would go, it was never like, “Okay, what are you going to do to act differently?” It was like, “For your penance, say five hail marys” or whatever.
“God is dead, for we have killed him.”
This is exactly what Nietzche was referring to. Because religion shifts responsibility onto itself, religious followers don’t actually address their problems. Nietzche was being literal and metaphorical. Literal as is “the death of Christ at the hands of mortals” and metaphorical in the way you describe.
Nietzche thought this is why religious people often become nihilistic in both thoughts and actions. Because they are no longer to blame for others’ suffering, the religious person (Christians in particular) adopts a worldview that nothing in life matters because it’s all just preparation for the afterlife. It becomes easy for them to witness suffering and take no action because of it.
This has bled over into secular thinking, as well. Even when non-believers and apostates don’t have beliefs in religion, their ways of thinking have remained the same. This is especially rampant among capitalists who think the system is perfect. The system takes away blame and shifts it onto the disenfranchised (“Choose to be homeless,” bootstraps, welfare queens, and so on).
“God is dead, for we have killed him.”
This is exactly what Nietzche was referring to. Because religion shifts responsibility onto itself, religious followers don’t actually address their problems. Nietzche was being literal and metaphorical. Literal as is “the death of Christ at the hands of mortals” and metaphorical in the way you describe.
Nietzche thought this is why religious people often become nihilistic in both thoughts and actions. Because they are no longer to blame for others’ suffering, the religious person (Christians in particular) adopts a worldview that nothing in life matters because it’s all just preparation for the afterlife. It becomes easy for them to witness suffering and take no action because of it.
This has bled over into secular thinking, as well. Even when non-believers and apostates don’t have beliefs in religion, their ways of thinking have remained the same. This is especially rampant among capitalists who think the system is perfect. The system takes away blame and shifts it onto the disenfranchised (“Choose to be homeless,” bootstraps, welfare queens, and so on).