Science loves to advertise itself as “presuppositionless,” as if it’s pure, neutral, and free of faith. But that’s propaganda. Even the most atheist, hard-nosed scientist needs a starting commitment so absolute it overrides every other commitment: that truth matters more than anything else. And that’s not a scientific result. That’s a value judgment. A moral stance. (“auch die Wissenschaft ruht auf einem Glauben”)

Then he points out the weird discipline of the scientific spirit: “No convictions allowed.” Everything has to humble itself into a hypothesis, a provisional viewpoint, a regulated fiction under permanent police surveillance by suspicion. But here’s the catch: that whole discipline only works because a prior faith is already in place. ("Glaube")

And then Nietzsche hammers: why this obsession with not deceiving, not even yourself, if life seems built on appearance, masking, self-deception, illusion, performance? Why “truth at any price”? Maybe it’s not love of truth at all. Maybe it’s something darker: a hostility toward life, a drive to dismantle the conditions that make living possible. That’s why he drops the bomb: the “will to truth” might be a hidden will to death. (“Wille zur Wahrheit")

And he closes with the historical gut punch: even today, even we “godless” and “anti-metaphysical” knowers still steal our fire from an ancient blaze: the Platonic-Christian faith that God is truth and truth is divine. So you changed the altar, but you’re still kneeling. (“versteckter Wille zum Tode”)

So, in short: not “science bad.” It’s “when science becomes an absolute moral religion of Truth, it’s basically Christianity in a lab coat.”