Death of god

Table of Contents

Introduction2

Discussion3

God is dead3

Philosophy of life4

Living Without god6

Beyond God, Beyond Religion10

Eternal Return11

Conclusion13

End Notes15

Death of god

Introduction

Frederick Nietzsche was a German philosopher who wrote essays and was a cultural critic. He wrote about morality, language, history, aesthetics, truth, nihilism, consciousness, cultural theory and the meaning of existence. All of his writings have exerted great influence on intellectual history and the western philosophy.

Frederick Nietzsche talked about the death of god and foresaw the termination of conventional religion and metaphysics. Some of the interpreters of Frederick Nietzsche think that he had accepted nihilism, abandoned philosophical reasoning and promoted a mythical and legendary exploration of the condition of humans, at the same time, not worrying about getting truth and information about those terms in the true traditional sense. But the other interpreters of Frederick Nietzsche give their opinions that in order to offset the expected rise of nihilism, he got himself involved in a positive program to endorse and reiterate life therefore he called for a thorough and naturalistic contemplates of the nature of the human existence, morality and knowledge. On any of the interpretations, it is believed that Frederick Nietzsche suggested the plan of becoming what one is, by nurturing instincts and other different cognitive faculties. This plan of his requires a continuous struggle with one's intellectual and psychological inheritances.

Frederick Nietzsche claimed that the ideal human being must create his or her own identity with the help of self realization and this should be done without depending on anything transcending than life such as soul or god. This is the way of living which should be adhered to even if one has to adapt to a radical vision of eternity.

Discussion

God is dead

The concept that god is dead was introduced to us by Frederick Nietzsche. This concept of death of god is very well known and popular but it is hardly and rarely understood in it its true meaning. The best passage regarding the death of God is offered by Frederick Nietzsche in his 'The Gay Science' in section 125 which are titled 'The Madman'. In this passage, Frederick Nietzsche talks about a man who enters a market and starts yelling that he seeks god. As a result, a group of atheists start laughing at him and mock him to which, the madman explains to them that god is dead and remains dead and it is us who have killed god so how can we comfort ourselves since we are the murderers ourselves.

The proclamation of Frederick Nietzsche regarding the death of god means that the Christian view of the world was not the central influence any more on the idea of the western culture. Frederick Nietzsche rationalized that it was the mankind that created god through its wishful thinking but in the nineteenth century, people matured intellectually and rejected the existence of god altogether. The intellectual people all over the world were accepting atheism as their world view and the theories of these intellectuals were also starting to manipulate common people all over ...