Now, one of the first forms that this self-torture took was primitive man's accusation against himself that he was not properly grateful for the favors of his god. He saw that many natural phenomena benefited him, and he thought that these phenomena occurred in direct obedience to the deity's command. Therefore, he regarded himself as the debtor of the deity, and constantly accused himself of neglecting to discharge this debt, because he felt that, by so accusing, he would be most apt to discharge it in full, and thus escape the righteous consequences of insufficient payment. This led him to make sacrifices—to place food and drink upon his god's altar, and in the end, to sacrifice much more valuable things, such, for instance, as his first born child. The more vivid the idea of the deity became and the more terrible he appeared, the more man tried to satisfy and appease him. In the early days, it was sufficient to sacrifice a square meal or a baby. But when Christianity—with its elaborate and certain theology—arose, it became necessary for a man to sacrifice himself.
Thus arose the Christian idea of sin. Man began to feel that he was in debt to his creator hopelessly and irretrievably, and that, like a true bankrupt, he should offer all he had in partial payment. So he renounced everything that made life on earth bearable and desirable and built up an ideal of poverty and suffering. Sometimes he hid himself in a cave and lived like an outcast dog—and then he was called a saint. Sometimes he tortured himself with whips and poured vinegar into his wounds—and then he was a flagellant of the middle ages. Sometimes, he killed his sexual instinct and his inborn desire for property and power—and then he became a penniless celibate in a cloister.
Nietzsche shows that this idea of sin, which lies at the bottom of all religions, was and is an absurdity; that nothing, in itself, is sinful, and that no man is, or can be a sinner. If we could rid ourselves of the notion that there is a God in Heaven, to whom we owe a debt, we would rid ourselves of the idea of sin. Therefore, argues Nietzsche, it is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better. It makes him lose his fear of hell and his consciousness of sin. It rids him of that most horrible instrument of useless, senseless and costly torture—his conscience. "Atheism," says Nietzsche, "will make a man innocent."
[1] "Zur Genealogie der Moral," II, § 3.
[2] In the ancient Sanskrit the word from which "man" comes meant "to think, to weigh, to value, to reckon, to estimate."
[3] "Zur Genealogie der Moral," II, § 8.
[4] "Zur Genealogie der Moral," II, § 9.
[5] A familiar example of this superimposition of morality is afforded by the history of costume. It is commonly assumed that garments were originally designed to hide nakedness as much as to afford warmth and adorn the person, whereas, as a matter of fact, the idea of modesty probably did not appear until man had been clothed for ages.