Philosophy/Religion simply put Nietzsche was remarking about how people adhere to ‘moral principles’ as if they are rules to live by. The axe he ground was about how to make our own ‘morals’ rather than live comfortably by adhering to whatever societal principle we were expected to live by.
‘Asceticism’ as a ‘moral principle’ he would no doubt mock. As a principle arrived at (beyond societal dictates) he wouldn’t. This is why there are a number of seeming contradictions in Nietzsche as he doesn’t lay out ‘rules’ only comments on the problem of creating rules when old rules are disposed of.
I guess it wouldn’t be too far fetched to equate his ‘overman’ with buddhist ‘nirvana’. Neither is to be possessed or attained. They are ‘the reaching for’ or ‘to strive’.
The western world isn’t buddhist it is judeochristian. The judeochristian principles cannot be ‘removed’ without replacing them with something other. The whole point of ‘god is dead’ is the problem of taking responsibility on ourselves rather than shifting it away from ourselves. But we’re all weak and pathetic and will continually keep clutching at ideas of ‘morality’ in the shadow of Christian Virtues. The very same exists in buddhists doctrines with dos and don’ts and Nietzsche would rile against those just as ardently if they happened to fall into his western world.
The quote above from The Genaelogy of Morals is how he first started to address the problem of human values and how to replace and rethink how human value systems can be replaced and/or reconstructed (in the west) in light of the disintegration of Christianity’s appeal due to the age of science. The recognition of humans as animals (less substantiated in his time than now) is something many, including myself, find hard to hold to having lived a life in a culture that regards humans (as someone mentioned) as on a ‘pedestal’ compared to other animals. The crazy thing is we have been trained to deplore our animal self because we’re able to see ourselves as apart from nature. Our images of godhood are our images of our future selves … but we have no idea how to attain them. The Greek gods were more human and lived for war and to murder and torture, to gain the upper hand over each other. The monotheistic god destroys human nature, impedes the capacity to use our ‘animal nature’. It sets up rules that ‘evil’ is a thing rather than Fortune.
I certainly don’t agree with
@Xtrix that ‘religion’ came before ‘philosophy’. They are the same thing but the division made in human cognition - socially impelled for unknown circumstances/reasons - most likely allowed the concept of ‘religion’ to congeal more readily in the public eye than the concept of ‘philosophy’. Underlying the Weltanschauung (‘world view’), that has always given us ‘presence,’ was the catalyst for all items of division whether we like it or not.
I’ve tried to frame ‘time’ before through use of the symbolism of Prometheus and Epimetheus. I think it makes sense to look at (speculatively) how ‘time’ (now atomized) sat quite differently for prehistoric humans. Without a conceptual adumbration of ‘time’ I don’t see how ‘religion’ or ‘philosophy’ can gain a good foothold. Maybe they can slightly through use of narrative that exists independent of history.