What Do you Suppose Nietzsche meant by "God is Dead"?

[Sunstone]

How do you interpret Nietzsche's statement, "God is dead"? Just curious.

 

[lunamoth]

How do you interpret Nietzsche's statement, "God is dead"? Just curious.

N. was the crest of the post-modern wave. He could have equally said "Science is dead." It would amount to the same thing.

 

[Sunstone]

N. was the crest of the post-modern wave. He could have equally said "Science is dead." It would amount to the same thing.

Interesting take on it. Thanks.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

 

[Sunstone]

I recall one scholar of Nietzsche interpreting the expression to mean that Nietzsche believed God had become irrelevant in people's lives in most of the ways he had formerly been relevant. Does that make sense to anyone?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I recall one scholar of Nietzsche interpreting the expression to mean that Nietzsche believed God had become irrelevant in people's lives in most of the ways he had formerly been relevant. Does that make sense to anyone?

That's what he meant.

Nietzsche's Der tolle Mensch, a first person narrative at the end of L'etranger, and Sartre's essay defending existentialism stuck out most. Nietzsche generally regards the "death of god" as a thing to be celebrated. However, at times he demonstrates the radical implications of "killing god."
"Wohin ist Gott?...ich will es euch sagen! Wer haben ihn getötet..Was taten wir, als wir diese Erde von ihrer Sonne losketteten? Wohin bewegt sie sich nun? Wohin bewegen wir uns? Fort von allen Sonnen? Stürzen wir nicht fortwährend? ...Irren wir nicht wie durch ein unendliches Nichts? Haucht uns nicht der leere Raum an? Ist es nicht kälter geworden? Kommt nicht immerfort die Nacht und mehr Nacht? "
"Where is God? I will tell you. We have killed him...What did we do, when we loosed this earth from its sun? Where is it going now? Where are we ourselves going? Away from all suns? Do we not plummet unceasingly?...Do we not stray as though through an unending nothingness? Does not the void breath upon us? Has it not become colder? Comes there now not ever night and more night?" Nietzsche's Der fröhliche Wissenschaft.

Sartre even quotes Dostoevsky in his essay: "Dostoïevsky avait écrit : “Si Dieu n'existait pas, tout serait permis.” C'est là le point de départ de l'existentialisme. En effet, tout est permis si Dieu n'existe pas, et par conséquent l'homme est délaissé, parce qu'il ne trouve ni en lui, ni hors de lui une possibilité de s'accrocher."

"Dostoevsky has written: 'If God didn't exist, everything would be permitted.' This is the starting point of Existentialism. Indeed, everything IS permitted if God doesn't exist, and as a consequence man is forsaken, because he can find neither within himself, nor apart from himself, anything to cling to."

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I recall one scholar of Nietzsche interpreting the expression to mean that Nietzsche believed God had become irrelevant in people's lives in most of the ways he had formerly been relevant. Does that make sense to anyone?

I've heard that interpretation before, I believe it was on a documentary I watched but forget what it was called. It makes total sense and because that's the only interpretation I've heard, I can't imagine another one.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

How do you interpret Nietzsche's statement, "God is dead"? Just curious.

The idea of God no longer holds primacy in the morals of the masses. People now make their own morals, even against a supposed higher power.

Basically, Nietzsche was proclaiming the death of moral absolutism.

 

[Sunstone]

The idea of God no longer holds primacy in the morals of the masses. People now make their own morals, even against a supposed higher power.

Basically, Nietzsche was proclaiming the death of moral absolutism.

Quite interesting. Did his thinking go beyond the death of moral absolutism? Say, to a reliance on medical science rather than faith healing?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The idea of God no longer holds primacy in the morals of the masses. People now make their own morals, even against a supposed higher power.

Basically, Nietzsche was proclaiming the death of moral absolutism.

I would go slightly beyond that. I think he was hailing the death of the God as in some sense the death of morality, the death of any and all meaning.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I would go slightly beyond that. I think he was hailing the death of the God as in some sense the death of morality, the death of any and all meaning.

That I would say is utterly false. Nihilism is the pit of the last man, but the Ubermensch makes his own morals and holds strongly to them, in spite of their lack of objectivity.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That I would say is utterly false. Nihilism is the pit of the last man, but the Ubermensch makes his own morals and holds strongly to them, in spite of their lack of objectivity.

I quoted his work above. How would you interpret that?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I quoted his work above. How would you interpret that?

I interpret it as cutting a quote off too soon, don't you?

"The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife, — who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves ? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us ? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it ?"

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

I recall one scholar of Nietzsche interpreting the expression to mean that Nietzsche believed God had become irrelevant in people's lives in most of the ways he had formerly been relevant. Does that make sense to anyone?

Yes, I have always thought it was all about man creating God and now we no longer need Him.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I interpret it as cutting a quote off too soon, don't you?

"The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife, — who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves ? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us ? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it ?"

It isn't "shall":
"Müssen wir nicht selber zu Göttern werden, um nur ihrer würdig zu erscheinen?"/ "Must we not become ourselves Gods, in order that merely seem to be worthy?"

First, it is phrased as question. Second, it is deontic, not deliberative. It is phrased as an obligation now made necessary (and posed as a questioning plea) not as a release of shackles or something "only the strong" can stomach. The entirey monologue is riddles with claims of freedom at desperate cost, followed by "I have come to soon".

 

[Willamena]

How do you interpret Nietzsche's statement, "God is dead"? Just curious.

I understand him to have meant that images of God, which dominate the popular theology, are a "dead" thing, a god lacking in vital substance.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

It isn't "shall":
"Müssen wir nicht selber zu Göttern werden, um nur ihrer würdig zu erscheinen?"/ "Must we not become ourselves Gods, in order that merely seem to be worthy?"

First, it is phrased as question. Second, it is deontic, not deliberative. It is phrased as an obligation now made necessary (and posed as a questioning plea) not as a release of shackles or something "only the strong" can stomach. The entirey monologue is riddles with claims of freedom at desperate cost, followed by "I have come to soon".

Sounds quite right. The death of God has come to soon to ask "where now?", but he more than elaborates on his views of nihilism in comparison with his ideal:

"It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope.

His soil is still rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow there.

Alas! there comes the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man -- and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whiz!

I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves.

Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.

Lo! I show you the Last Man. "

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sounds quite right. The death of God has come to soon to ask "where now?", but he more than elaborates on his views of nihilism:

"It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope.

His soil is still rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow there.

Alas! there comes the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man -- and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whiz!

I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves.

Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.

Lo! I show you the Last Man. "

That sounds like exactly what I said: the death of meaning and morality. An era where we stray into unending night and nothingness where only the "despicable man" who accepts this and staggers on can triump in a world where triumph means nothing.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

That sounds like exactly what I said: the death of meaning and morality. An era where we stray into unending night and nothingness where only the "despicable man" who accepts this and staggers on can triump in a world where triumph means nothing.

...yes and no. The Last Man lives the longest, but is not favored by Nietzsche. "Fellow creators, the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets", not dead men who want nothing out of life.

There is no triumph to be found in the last man.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

...yes and no. The Last Man lives the longest, but is not favored by Nietzsche. "Fellow creators, the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets", not dead men who want nothing out of life.

There is no triumph to be found in the last man.

I'm not sure he ever found triumph in anything. As I said:

Nietzsche generally regards the "death of god" as a thing to be celebrated. However, at times he demonstrates the radical implications of "killing god."

He viewed the Christian tradition as merely shackles. Yet he had the acumen to know that simply erasing the illusion of objective morality had consequences. The result was not subjective morality and meaning defined by humanity, but a lack of both, and only those who could stomach this would endure. This is quite in line with the views of his contemporaries and those who followed him, such as Sartre, Freud, Camus, and even Kant (a forebear).