Saturday, February 9, 2019
"God is Dead" Analysis
During class the other day, Nietzsche's famous quote "God is dead" was brought up, but I felt the question of what he actually meant by it wasn't truly resolved. Many people lump this quote in with Nihilism and the direct rejection of religion, but that wasn't necessarily its purpose. Nietzsche himself wasn't a nihilist, and though he wasn't particularly religious himself, the quote was supposed to be a reflection of society at the time. It represented the death of hope and faith in society, in everything from their government to actual religious belief itself. "God" meant something much broader than the Christian God at face value, it meant everything He used to represent to Western Christian society. His "death" wasn't Nietzsche's thinking God had literally died, but the belief in his values were.
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3 comments:
Thank you for resolving this, as I really didn’t understand the true meaning of the statement. And if you think about it it is actually quite sad That hope has escaped us as a society. Hope is (or at least I think it is) a foundation for us as humans. Hope gives us meaning in life and for nations to believe that it is dead is quite depressing. Take the American dream for example it is the hope that we as citizens can make a better life for ourselves and our families through hard work and determination. Hopefully hope is now a bigger pet of our lives as humans because it gives us reason and purpose to make strides individuals and as a community.
This is actually an interesting interpreting this quote. In hearing this quote, I wasn't entirely sure what Nietzsche was thinking but what I did think was that he was referring to the loss of faith within society. However, it is much more than that. People during this time period were much more focused on expressing themselves through artistic means rather than taking the time to praise or worship the Christian God. While not all people necessarily lost faith, it was not the primary thing in people's lives and not the most important thing to them. It's almost like deism if you think about it. People believed in God but didn't think he intervened much in the universe and therefore faith wasn't that important to them despite it being there.
When I first heard this quote, I actually thought of the loss of hope rather than nihilism as well! I think that during his time, especially during the industrial revolution, it was common for less and less people to turn to religion for every problem. It was also the fact that people were beginning to delve into their inner emotions, and really start to lose hope on reaching salvation through religion.
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