16 April 2013

God is dead

 We're discussing Nietzsche in class this morning.  Here's his most (in)famous passage:

“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?”  (The Gay Science)

Though the idea that humans must becomes gods is hardly new, Nietzsche's divine obituary and Kierkegaard's wholesale abandonment of the possibility of rational faith, left us flailing about for a suitable Grand Narrative to replace God and Reason. Unfortunately, as a culture, we chose the decadent straight-jacket of modernist science and pragmatism.   And western civilization has been in moral decline ever since. . .
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:10 AM

    "God is dead." (Nietzsche, 1882)

    "Nietzsche is dead." (God, 2013)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:57 PM

    "Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

    Oddly Anselmian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Except, of course, Anselm would say that we become gods with God.

      Delete