Is God dead?

The year was 1883,the month is unknown.

God died metaphysically sometime that year when the Friedrich Nietzsche epic "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" was published. Through the words of the mythical persian poet, Zarathustra, Nietzsche laid out the strongest case ever as to why God had to die.

Actually Neitzsche asserted that God had begun to suffer through a long slow death 2000 years ago, an agonizingly slow death as his creatures immediately and without letup through the centuries suffocated him by demanding his pity.

Here is an excerpt from Neitzsche's classic to clarify in his own words:

From Part 4:

"WHAT does all the world know at present?" asked Zarathustra of the old pope he encountered on his journey.

"Perhaps that the old God no longer lives,the God in whom all the world once believed?"

"You speak the truth O godless one," answered the old man sorrowfully. "And I served that old God until his last hour.

"You served him to the last?" asked Zarathustra thoughtfully,after a
deep silence,"you know HOW he died? Is it true what they say, that
sympathy choked him. That he saw how MAN hung on the cross,and could not endure it?

"So you are saying to me that his love for man became his hell, and at last suffocated him with pity ?

The old pope however did not answer,but looked aside timidly,with a
painful and gloomy expression.

"Let him go,"said Zarathustra,after prolonged meditation,still looking
the old man straight in the eye.

"Let him go,he is gone.Though it is honorable of you to only speak
in praise of this dead God,you know as well as I WHO he was,and that he had curious ways."

"I speak among three eyes," said the old pope jestfully(he was blind in
one eye),"in divine matters,I am more enlightened than Zarathustra
himself,believe me you utterly godless one.

"I served him many long years, my will followed all his will. A good
servant, however, knows everything, many a things which a Master
hides from himself.

"He was a hidden God, always very secretive. Even with his own son
he operated with secrecy as to his conception. At the door of his faith stands the hint of adultery.

"Whoever honors him as a God of love,does not think highly enough of love itself.Did not that God want also to be Judge?

"But one who truly loves does not seek reward and requital.

"When he was young,that God out of the Orient,he was harsh and revengeful,and built himself a hell which delighted those who loved him most.

"At last,however,he became old and soft and mellow and pitiful.
he became more like a grandfather than a father,but most like a tottering old grandmother.

"Then did he sit shrivelled in his chimney corner,
fretting on account of his weak legs,world-weary,will-weary,until one day he suffocated of his all too great pity."

"You,old pope,"said here Zarathustra,interrupting,"have you seen THAT
with your own eyes?

"It could well have happened in that way:in that way,but maybe otherwise.
When Gods die they always die many kinds of death.

"Well!"said the old pope,"regardless of the actual specifics,one way or other,he is gone.God is dead! He was counter to the taste of my ears and eyes; worse than that I will not speak against one who died.

Zarathustra replied,"I love everything that looks bright and speaks honestly.

You know this to be true,old priest.
There was something of your own type in him.
He was the priest type.He was equivocal.

"He was also indistinct.How he raged at us,this wrath-snorter,because we
understood him badly! But why did he not speak more clearly?

"if the fault lay in our ears,why did he give us ears that heard him badly?

"If there was dirt in our ears,well was it not this dead God who put it in them?

"So much died with him,this potter who had not learned thoroughly how to shape clay!

"But what was unforgiveable was that he took revenge on his pots and creations, because they turned out badly. That was truly a sin against GOOD TASTE.

"There is also good taste in piety, at last the great godless poet concluded.

"Away with SUCH a God! Better to have no God, better to set up destiny on one's own account,better to be a fool, better to be God oneself!'"

End of excerpt......

There you have it. God was "equivocal" and "indistinct", a "wrath snorter", too much like a priest. As I interpret this, in Nietzsche's view God gradually became ineffective as he morphed from a harsh and revengeful creator into an old, soft pitiful, world weary,will weary, grandfather and eventually a tottering old grandmother smothered in pity.

So Man murdered God. Forced to be a judge, God could not, at the same time be the ultimate LOVER that mankind insisted he be, a distinct,unequivical unconditional Father.

Does this perhaps explain why most people are self-indulgent, obsessively self-centered and unhappy?

Possibly.

I am just a simple man, an athiest who can think up questions but most of the time cannot answer them. A hypocrite who has the chutzpah to call himself The Answerman

I can understand how most religions will label this blasphemy but for the confirmed disbeliever it makes sense.