Nietzsche and “God is Dead”
I. Introduction “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” (The Gay Science 120) When first being introduced to Nietzsche, a person may infer that his idea, the “death of God”, is literal. The phrase does not mean there was an actual God who existed at one point and then died in a literal sense. When Nietzsche said this, he was implying that God died in modern society, the values of religion lost their dominance, and religion no longer fulfills the role of providing peoples’ lives with purpose and meaning as it once did. Nietzsche also believed there could be positive possibilities for humans without God. Without God standing in the way, he believed that people would be able to see the value of the …show more content…
One of the quotes that Nietzsche is most famous for is “God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!” (The Gay Science, 120) When Nietzsche states that the people have killed him, he does not mean that the people had literally killed God. “The death of God has to deal with the fact that Christianity was no longer the single comforting factor in people’s lives” (Joseph). People have been discovering various and more modernistic values, therefore pushing God aside. During this time, many people also directed their attention to the church instead of having a genuine relationship with God. As the perfect picture of God began to fall apart, Nietzsche thought that everyone would eventually realize the death of God. This is a respectable argument because in a way, people did “kill God” by replacing the thought of him with something …show more content…
For Christians, the purpose in life is to bring glory to God and to spread the gospel to nonbelievers. One of the questions that Nietzsche failed to answer logically is “What is the purpose of life?” After Christianity became less valued in society, people struggled to find a meaning or purpose for their lives. According to Nietzsche, there is no meaning to life, but if there were, the purpose of one’s life would be decided by oneself. “Nietzsche advises the individual to leave off from any meaning granted ‘a priori’ (such a meaning would, he argues, not even be intelligible as a meaning), and to set himself his own goals” (Gerhardt). A priori is the belief that knowledge derives from experience. Nietzsche taught that each individual person should set his/her own goals and values instead of taking them from
I. Introduction “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” (The Gay Science 120) When first being introduced to Nietzsche, a person may infer that his idea, the “death of God”, is literal. The phrase does not mean there was an actual God who existed at one point and then died in a literal sense. When Nietzsche said this, he was implying that God died in modern society, the values of religion lost their dominance, and religion no longer fulfills the role of providing peoples’ lives with purpose and meaning as it once did. Nietzsche also believed there could be positive possibilities for humans without God. Without God standing in the way, he believed that people would be able to see the value of the …show more content…
One of the quotes that Nietzsche is most famous for is “God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!” (The Gay Science, 120) When Nietzsche states that the people have killed him, he does not mean that the people had literally killed God. “The death of God has to deal with the fact that Christianity was no longer the single comforting factor in people’s lives” (Joseph). People have been discovering various and more modernistic values, therefore pushing God aside. During this time, many people also directed their attention to the church instead of having a genuine relationship with God. As the perfect picture of God began to fall apart, Nietzsche thought that everyone would eventually realize the death of God. This is a respectable argument because in a way, people did “kill God” by replacing the thought of him with something …show more content…
For Christians, the purpose in life is to bring glory to God and to spread the gospel to nonbelievers. One of the questions that Nietzsche failed to answer logically is “What is the purpose of life?” After Christianity became less valued in society, people struggled to find a meaning or purpose for their lives. According to Nietzsche, there is no meaning to life, but if there were, the purpose of one’s life would be decided by oneself. “Nietzsche advises the individual to leave off from any meaning granted ‘a priori’ (such a meaning would, he argues, not even be intelligible as a meaning), and to set himself his own goals” (Gerhardt). A priori is the belief that knowledge derives from experience. Nietzsche taught that each individual person should set his/her own goals and values instead of taking them from