One thing that benefited me in reading and listening to Nietzche was the empowering psychological energy in his words. Most people misinterpret the parable of the Madman where Nietzche proclaims the "death of god." This is not considered a good thing by Nietzche. In fact, he spends the rest of his life reinventing the "concept of God" in a way that in his mind aligns with the forces of nature and biological reality. Thus he says things like:
“I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.”
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
He is trying to avoid the atheistic nihilism of philosophers like Schopenhauer, who go down the road of passive-nihilism and philosophical pessimism: a philosophy best represented visually through the character Rust Chole in the first season of the HBO series True Detective. Nietzche wants to avoid that kind of atheism, which led Bertrand Russell to say that basically true atheism leads to "unyielding despair." Nietzche instead wants to believe in a "God" that affirms life as it is and empowers him and others. He refuses to embrace a pessimistic passive-nihilism, but instead seeks to create an active-nihilism of life-affirmation, which projects a concept of a God that can dance; and the belief that when one is strong and powerful and generative, one is loved by God(s). Thus he writes:
… [the] aristocratic equation (good = aristocratic = beautiful = happy = loved by the gods) … the contrary equation, … namely, "the wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; …—but you, on the other hand, you aristocrats, you men of power, you are [according to Lutheranism] to all eternity the evil, the horrible …
... [the aristocrats as the] positive and [their] fundamental conception (saturated as it is with life and passion), of "we aristocrats, we good ones, we beautiful ones, we happy ones."
Joseph Smith said ".... The word Mormon means literally, more good." So combining Smith and Nietzsche, I realized that my Emergent LDS Equation would be this: more good = Mormon = beautiful = happy = loved by God.
During my exmormon atheism phase I eventually realized that by proclaiming atheism I was saying the opposite of "more good = Mormon = beautiful = happy = loved by God." I was instead saying (at the very least unconsciously) "we are victims = pessimistic = unhappy (despairing) = abandoned by God." Of course, I claimed that I did not believe in God (so I would have said I wasn't really feeling abandoned by God as I lacked a belief in God), but ultimately deep down on an existential level I often felt as if I was a cosmic orphan, a victim of accidental happenstance in an unfriendly Universe trying to kill me. This is exactly what the agnostic atheist Neil Degrasse Tyson once declared: that the Universe is trying to kill us; which is in contrast to Einstein who argued that we should perceive the Universe as the God of Spinoza and choose to see the Universe as a friendly place.
So I realized the psychological usefulness of Einstein encouraging us to perceive the Universe as a friendly place, as a way to reduce stress and over reactiveness. Meanwhile, Nietzche's body of work indirectly helped me realize the importance of one's personal philosophy and ethics (e.g. Christian) or ideology (e.g. Neo Marxism), one's God-concept (loved by God) or being anti-God (abandoned by God). I began to see that the attitude of the Universe is trying to kill us and we are not loved by God, but are cosmic orphans as cosmic accidents, was not inspiring or motivating or empowering toward feeling empowered and happy.
So I began to experiment pragmatically -- for the sake of my own self-esteem (my own well-being and confidence) -- with embracing a belief in God in the sense that the Universe is a friendly place, and believing that I am favored by God, and I am loved by God. As I psychologically experimented with these worldview perceptions, I realized that I began to feel much better, more empowered, and my overall mood improved.
Through my Emergent Mormon paradigm, I could believe in a God who does not just dance, but is an embodied God that affirms the sensual body as good and holy. I could not go with Nietzsche all the way toward Nietzscheanism, but could at least go with him partially, as far as joining him to a degree by saying we are "saturated as it is with life and passion … we Emergent Mormons, we good ones, we beautiful ones, we happy ones, we who are loved by God."
I realized that by 2023 others had come to a similar conclusion that I did. I began to notice several former atheists beginning to become religious (or quasi-religious) and saying things like they are God's favorite or they are loved by God, and noticing that this simple affirmation empowered them psychologically. I noticed that their saying that God-belief can restore meaning, order, and societal stability for the sake of civilization, had merit. I could tell that this "God" energy was empowering and enlightening and purpose-inducing.
There was also in contrast to this "theistic renaissance," a noticeable different energy: an energy of the Universe is not a friendly place, that we are abandoned by God and orphans in an empty Cosmos, and from this mindset the social contagion of feeling insecure, resentful, angry, and unhappy; as these kinds of atheists, as nihilistic postmodernists and neo-marxists, seemed to want to create meaning for themselves by acting "Christian" without the metaphysics of Christianity. As in they seemed to want to build a similar edifice that Christianity had built but were doing so without the legs (God, a soul, objective morality/the Good) that formed the tabletop of the Christian Ethos (which formed our Judeo-Christian civilization).
Watching all these former atheists become Christian again after 2020, and utilize belief in God as a source of meaning, direction, and empowerment, helped me realize that I was not being naive or that my experiences were merely subjective; for I could objectively see others benefiting from a similar pro-God worldview and attitude.
I realized that in the past my saying "I'm an atheist (or agnostic)" and "I don't believe in God," was unconsciously synonymous with saying "I believe in Nothingness." This subconsciously equated to "I am nothing," rather than saying "I am loved by God." I also began to realize that by rejecting belief in God (as the Father God in particular) I was indirectly promoting Occult Feminism or Satanic Feminism (as an anti-Fatherhood cult) and the destruction of the family and fatherless homes, leading to an increase in chaos, degeneration, incivility and crime. By not believing in the concept of a Cosmic Father (God) I was unconsciously in a way rejecting All Fathers, for God as a concept is at the very least a metaphor for the universal father archetype. So asserting that I was favored and loved by God, and perceiving the Universe as a friendly place, not only saturated life with meaning and passion but it also promotes fatherhood and motherhood and the family; it thus puts me on the side of a healthy future for my species and future generations. In other words, if I wanted to be pro-living and affirm Life and not be anti-Life, it would make sense to affirm a Lifeward God: that as a symbol of the universal Father affirms all fathers in the fatherly role (with mothers) of raising the future generation. It was also in my own best interest to affirm God in order to inherit a more civilized society I would be living in as I aged; and it was in the best interest of my species to affirm a God that can not just dance but generate a Healthy People and a more Just Society.
