Page 33 - Liberating Liberals V2

Liberating Liberals
Baby boomers were experimenters par excellence in the 1960s. Let’s continue to experiment until we
die — for ourselves and our society. We may have just begun to scratch the surface of what could be. C’est la freethinking ...
God’s shifting shadow
One of the popular misconceptions about Nietzsche was that he was an adamant atheist. According to Thiele, he only opposed the “existence of a god who would dictate how man is to live, thus stymieing human creativity.”21
Nietzsche was much more concerned with
the psychological superstructure that belief in a fundamentalist God creates. These “shadows of God” harden assumptions that may have inhibited happiness and freethinking for thousands of years. 22
For instance, belief in a judgmental God who formulates ten unbreakable commandments creates
a mental predisposition for absolutes. Leftover anxiety from this fundamentalist approach still affects liberals even when we consider secular subjects. And though liberals are no longer bound by some of the commandments — such as taking the Lord’s name
in only semantic vain, or not multi-stop shopping on sacred Sunday — we still defend “politically correct” precepts with the same uncompromising fervor that conservatives defend the Ten Commandments. Not
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