Passion, Reason, Religion, and Nietzsche

Nietzsche thought that truth and honesty were sacrificed when a thinker begins to reason, he thought genius lies in the instincts, and that goodness does too. But what kind of thinking was Nietzsche doing when he made that statement? Was it not reason looking at the instincts? I think the problem for Nietzsche comes in thinking of the instincts as a wild Dionysian beast that needs to be released. What Nietzsche was really concerned with, which might have caused him to exaggerate a bit, was that too often religion, philosophy and science have completely blocked the innate instincts with reason---the continuing denial of sociobiology in the Humanities even today continues this blockade.

I think of reason, the intellect, and the conscious mind as riding a horse called the Instincts, which is not Nietzsche's wild Dionysian beast-instinct, but a horse which also contains the essential sacred instinct of evolving in the material/supermaterial world to the zenith of evolution, which is Godhood. This is the right balance between reason and passion, if it can be called a “balance.” Is your conscious mind totally aware of all your needs and wants? If it does not know the activation of life to evolve to Godhood---shaped by the vagaries of outside evolution and selection---then it is not totally aware of all your wants and needs and may be blocking your most sacred instinct.

Reason can become a virtue, contrary to Nietzsche, as long as reason includes the balance of a large dollop of the passions and emotions, and is especially aware of the goal of the instincts to evolve life to Godhood. We don't want to reject reason in favor of the passions, as Nietzsche seemed to do, without including in the passions the sacred Godhood goal of the instincts. But we also don't want to reject passion in favor of reason without including in reason the sacred instinct toward evolving to Godhood. Reason and the instincts can reason this. Intelligence developed to the degree that Nietzsche felt it was “tyranny” over the instincts, but it is not tyranny if we would not have survived and evolved without that powerful intelligence.

Even so, I have to acknowledge Nietzsche's concern with intellectuals, priests, and philosophers applying ideas as their own wills to power and not as the will to truth they claim. Nietzsche thought that Socrates separated the population from their instincts and that Plato was a moral fanatic in doing this to Socrates. Nietzsche thought the real philosophers of Greece came before Socrates, they were on guard against an intellect that “puffs one out” with theatrical virtues and clever dialectics.

This is not anti-intellectual, it is anti-abstract ideas attempting to rule real life and biology, and anti the definitions of things becoming more important than living objects. Too often religion and philosophy grew on this phoney ground, and I think they can be revitalized with theological materialism, which also includes a return to common sense. With Godhood seen as the sacred goal of the instincts, and related to the first glimpses of the Inward God seen in Christianity, and other religions, Nietzsche can be seen as having been mistaken in trying to murder God and religion---he missed the instincts and reason behind these things.
We are looking for "reality" when we use reason, intuition and instincts to look for truth.