What did Nietzsche mean by "God is dead"?
13 ANSWERS
Craig Anderson
Craig Anderson, Choosing to believe... not sure in what exactly.
Written 3 Jan 2015
Originally Answered: What did Friedrich Nietzsche mean when he said "god is dead?"
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” - Nietzsche, The Gay Science (section 125 "The Madman").
What Nietzsche is expressing this passage (and the two subsequent declarations of God's death in Thus Spoke Zarathustra) is not his belief in the actual death of an actual deity (my understanding is that despite his Lutheran upbringing he was an atheist); rather, he is expressing lament and fear that the world is turning away from an objective foundation for morality. Since, he argues, people no longer believe in God they can no longer recognize absolutes with respect to morality. Of course, he was not a moral relativist, he is not arguing there are no absolutes with respect to morality. He is railing against the rise of moral relativism and nihilism. Nietzsche's realization that faith in God could not survive as the basis for morality and his fear that the loss of faith would lead to widespread nihilism is what pushed him to search for a more reliable, fundamental, basis for objective morality, which he eventually developed into his theories on the will to power.
My guess is someone will give a much better answer to this... I'm just a fan of Nietzsche and in continual struggle to understand him but this is my understanding at present.
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OTHER ANSWERS
Rolf Bazuin
Rolf Bazuin, always talking to myself, and therefore never alone
Written 8 Apr 2013
I got an A2A for this (tnx by the way), and after looking at Yuan Gao’s answer, that pretty much sums up the short version. In light of the A2A, allow me to place the whole ‘God is dead’-debacle in the bigger picture of Nietzsche’s life work. (Please do note that I’m expounding on my personal interpretation of Nietzsche; there are millions of different ones on what he really meant to say; since FWN was a full-blown Subjectivist, none of them is better than the next, it's all subjective in the end.)
First of all, it’s not to be taken literally, of course. If a thing called God would exist, He would be immortal. As a result, if He were dead, He wouldn’t have existed in the first place. The warning that Gao describes is that of the loss of objective morals and the impact it would have on the coherence of society – it is basically a matter of time before everything falls apart. But let’s get back to this later, and focus in on what ‘God is dead’ actually means.
Thousands of years ago, mankind didn’t know a whole lot about the mechanics of our universe, and as a result we invented some supernal being called God in order to explain why lightning strikes, how babies can be born, and where flies come from. In essence, it was sort of a universal axiom used to fill the gaps in our understanding of the world around us. This is the first function of God: to provide a framework wherein knowledge can be attained.
Then there’s the second function of God: a powerful political weapon. In spite of many people calling ‘Moses and the bunch’ delusional idiots, they were actually the ones who (almost) got away with the neatest trick ever pulled in the history of mankind. What they did is extend th
ไม่ทดีอะไร โดย "พระเจ้าจะตาย"คำตอบที่ 13เครกแอนเดอร์สันเครกแอนเดอร์สัน เลือกที่จะเชื่อว่า...ไม่แน่ใจในสิ่งที่ตรงกันเขียน 3 2558 ม.ค.ตอบ: แต่เดิม ได้ Friedrich ทดีอะไร เมื่อเขากล่าวว่า "พระเจ้าคือตาย"พระเจ้าเสีย พระเจ้ายังคงตาย และเราได้ฆ่าเขา วิธีที่เราจะสบายตัวเอง ฆาตกรของฆาตกรทั้งหมด ไหนที่ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ และยิ่งใหญ่ของทั้งหมดที่โลกยังเป็นเจ้าของมีเบลดตายใต้มีดของเรา: ที่จะเช็ดเลือดนี้ออกเรา มีน้ำอะไรเราจะทำความสะอาดตัวเอง เทศกาลอะไรของชดใช้ สิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์ที่เกมเราจะได้คิดค้น ไม่ได้ความยิ่งใหญ่ของหนังสือนี้ดีเกินไปสำหรับเรา ต้องเราเองไม่ได้กลายเป็นเทพเจ้าเพียงเพื่อแสดงคุณค่าของมัน " - ทดี เกย์วิทยาศาสตร์ (ส่วน 125 "คนบ้า")What Nietzsche is expressing this passage (and the two subsequent declarations of God's death in Thus Spoke Zarathustra) is not his belief in the actual death of an actual deity (my understanding is that despite his Lutheran upbringing he was an atheist); rather, he is expressing lament and fear that the world is turning away from an objective foundation for morality. Since, he argues, people no longer believe in God they can no longer recognize absolutes with respect to morality. Of course, he was not a moral relativist, he is not arguing there are no absolutes with respect to morality. He is railing against the rise of moral relativism and nihilism. Nietzsche's realization that faith in God could not survive as the basis for morality and his fear that the loss of faith would lead to widespread nihilism is what pushed him to search for a more reliable, fundamental, basis for objective morality, which he eventually developed into his theories on the will to power.My guess is someone will give a much better answer to this... I'm just a fan of Nietzsche and in continual struggle to understand him but this is my understanding at present.11.2k Views · View UpvotesShareMORE ANSWERS BELOW. RELATED QUESTIONSHow do you interpret the "God is dead" statements by Nietzsche?How can I articulate the connection between Plato, Socrates, and Nietzsche's idea that God is dead?What did Heidegger think of Nietzsche's "god is dead" theology?Is God dead in America?What does the Nietzsche Google Doodle (15th Oct 2013) mean?Nietzsche said God is dead. Does that include Islam?Is God dead?What did Friedrich Nietzsche mean when he said "whoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor"?What does Nietzsche mean when he employs certain nationalities as adjectives?Literary considerations aside, shouldn't Friedrich Nietzsche have written God is irrelevant instead of God is dead?How can I get someone to understand what "God is dead" means, and that the statement wasn't literal, but rather a metaphor for what the time was like?Is Nietzsche dead?Did Nietzsche mean "God is dead" literally or metaphorically?Did any poet tackle Nietzsche's challenge to write about God's boredom?What did Nietzsche mean when he wrote, “I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar”?OTHER ANSWERSRolf BazuinRolf Bazuin, always talking to myself, and therefore never aloneWritten 8 Apr 2013I got an A2A for this (tnx by the way), and after looking at Yuan Gao’s answer, that pretty much sums up the short version. In light of the A2A, allow me to place the whole ‘God is dead’-debacle in the bigger picture of Nietzsche’s life work. (Please do note that I’m expounding on my personal interpretation of Nietzsche; there are millions of different ones on what he really meant to say; since FWN was a full-blown Subjectivist, none of them is better than the next, it's all subjective in the end.) First of all, it’s not to be taken literally, of course. If a thing called God would exist, He would be immortal. As a result, if He were dead, He wouldn’t have existed in the first place. The warning that Gao describes is that of the loss of objective morals and the impact it would have on the coherence of society – it is basically a matter of time before everything falls apart. But let’s get back to this later, and focus in on what ‘God is dead’ actually means. Thousands of years ago, mankind didn’t know a whole lot about the mechanics of our universe, and as a result we invented some supernal being called God in order to explain why lightning strikes, how babies can be born, and where flies come from. In essence, it was sort of a universal axiom used to fill the gaps in our understanding of the world around us. This is the first function of God: to provide a framework wherein knowledge can be attained. Then there’s the second function of God: a powerful political weapon. In spite of many people calling ‘Moses and the bunch’ delusional idiots, they were actually the ones who (almost) got away with the neatest trick ever pulled in the history of mankind. What they did is extend th
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