/lit/ - Literature

Schopenhauer advocated life-denial, Nietzsche advocated life affirmation. Consequently they had opposite views on Islam. Which was right?

Schopenhauer on Islam:

>Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical needs of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value.

Nietzsche

>Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization, and later it also destroyed for us the whole harvest of Mohammedan civilization. The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was fundamentally nearer to us and appealed more to our senses and tastes than that of Rome and Greece, was trampled down ( I do not say by what sort of feet ) Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly instincts for its origin because it said yes to life, even to the rare and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life! The crusaders later made war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them to have grovelled in the dust a civilization beside which even that of our nineteenth century seems very poor and very "senile." What they wanted, of course, was booty: the orient was rich. Let us put aside our prejudices! The crusades were a higher form of piracy, nothing more! The German nobility, which is fundamentally a Viking nobility, was in its element there: the church knew only too well how the German nobility was to be won . The German noble, always the "Swiss guard" of the church, always in the service of every bad instinct of the church but well paid . Consider the fact that it is precisely the aid of German swords and German blood and valour that has enabled the church to carry through its war to the death upon everything noble on earth! At this point a host of painful questions suggest themselves. The German nobility stands outside the history of the higher civilization: the reason is obvious. Christianity, alcohol the two great means of corruption. Intrinsically there should be no more choice between Islam and Christianity than there is between an Arab and a Jew.