21.

The prerequisite for Buddhism is a very mild climate, great gentleness and liberality in manners, and no militarism; and it is the higher and even learned classes in which the movement has its home. One desires serenity, silence, and the absence of desire as the highest goal, and one reaches this goal. Buddhism is not a religion in which one merely aspires to perfection: the perfect is the normal case.

In Christianity, the instincts of the subjugated and oppressed come to the foreground: it is the lowest classes that seek their salvation in it. Here, the casuistry reasoning used to resolve moral problems of sin, self-criticism, and the inquisition of conscience are practiced as a distraction, as a means against boredom. Here, the affect against a powerful one, called "God," is constantly maintained (through prayer). Here, the highest is considered unattainable, a gift, a "grace." Here, public life is also absent; the hiding place, the dark room, is Christian. Here, the body is despised, and hygiene is rejected as sensuality. The church itself resists cleanliness (the first Christian measure after the expulsion of the Moors was the closing of the public baths, of which Cordova alone possessed 270). Christian is a certain sense of cruelty, against oneself and others; the hatred against those who think differently; the will to persecute. Gloomy and exciting images are in the foreground; the most coveted states, described with the highest names, are epilepsoids seizure-like states; the diet is arranged in such a way that it favors morbid phenomena and overstimulates the nerves. Christian is the deadly enmity against the masters of the earth, against the "noble"—and at the same time a hidden, secret competition (one leaves them the "body," one only wants the "soul"...). Christian is the hatred against the spirit, against pride, courage, freedom, libertinage license/lack of restraint of the spirit; Christian is the hatred against the senses, against the joys of the senses, against joy altogether...

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