Maybe Nietzsche had a point -

Nietzsche is oft quoted and little read (much as is the Bible). Most are familiar only with his statement from Twilight of the Idols "What does not kill me makes me stronger"

For years, that statement just hit me as "make wrong". As in, how can you not APPRECIATE my selfish, dramatic victimhood?

As I moved through my issues of self-worth and shame, the statement made more and more sense. Why, yes - as I pilot through the jetsam of my own making, it gets easier and easier. Now, I can own and feel it. I am stronger, and none of those things that had been giving me the willies killed me at all.

Almost twenty years ago, a rebirther told me that her understanding of rebirth (or reincarnation, if you would rather) was that whatever lessons I failed to learn during this life would be added to the lessons in the next life.

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' " - [§341] The Gay Science

That admonishment scared me and set me to deciding to buckle down and STUDY. I doubt that I'm done studying, but at least I've moved into a higher class recently.

People have long asserted that Nietzsche was an atheist, but I read his famous quote differently -

After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave, — an immense frightful shadow. God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow. And we — we have still to overcome his shadow! - §108The Gay Science

To me this suggests that people ignore the teachings and good works and instead live in the shadow of their chosen deity - they focus so intently on the shadow of the departed God that they cannot focus on themselves to apply the lessons to their own lives. They continue on as human beings - bigoted, blame-filled, fault-seeking victims of life who continue to wistfully look back at the shadow in the cave.

To live this way is to dishonor the hard work of the chosen Deity. It is to use the works of the Deity to blame and shame others without doing the dirty work of living those principles. I know that it is human nature to persist in feeling victimized and to look for ways to make oneself feel better by tearing others down. Most in ecclesiastical leadership (that I've met) engage in this behavior aggressively, turning any objection into additional blame toward the complainer.

It is my current belief (and I reserve the right to change this belief within the hour if I find other insight) that once a person reaches a place where they can clearly see and understand Nietzsche's statement about Buddha's shadow, they can begin to participate in spiritual pursuits free of that overruling draw to use spiritual teachings as a weapon against one's perceived enemies.