Dipu George

Final Exam Essay- Phil 1301 12/8/10

God is Dead

This essay looks at the concept of God and Nietzsches view on God. He starts off basically by saying God is dead from one of his writing the mad man. He asserts that, there are no higher worlds and therefore no morality derived from God or nature. There are no more references of good and bad. God is a concept, a relic of the past, which mankind no longer need, so it is better to be discarded. To him religion is a primitive concept of God, that buries him in churches and in the pages of sacred books. He is against the churchs hierarchical and authoritarian nature which basically attempt to remain at power to govern people in the ways of faith. He is concerned about the social effect of religion, especially Christianity. Religion and faith nurture a sense of helplessness, fear and dependence on God. It essentially molds the person to be dependent and submissive. It therefore shuns the basic human drive to be self-reliant and work out its own individual way. Therefore it creates what he calls subordinate morality called slave morality. To Nietzsche all these gave rise to nihilism. He do not want the nihilism to exist either and devices a solution. Also he did not believe in equality of all individuals, but rather on social hierarchy at the top of which is Ubermensch, a super human who can essentially replace God and is a paradigm of human will. This super human or super human society is Nietzsches answer to nihilism and Godlessness. This is a

Dipu George
Final Exam Essay- Phil 1301 12/8/10

balancing act by Nietzsche to bring back order by replacing weak with strong willed people in society. Nietzsches view on God is strong and is reflected in most of his work. He sets out determinately, to overthrow the existing notions and goes on to fill the void with his new ideologies and a replacement for the weak hearted people. But his writing lacks the argumentative style. He almost always writes in abstract thinking. His extreme views are written out plainly without any premises, most of the time. This makes it difficult to interpret in the first place. Add to that the multitude of different interpretations many of which are equally likely and are credible. So the exact meaning of his concept of God summed up from his writings can have several versions. But at the core he seemed to have rebellious feeling against God and religion, Christianity and the church in particular. His views have profound importance today. If we set apart God and church and any pitying religion and embrace nihilism, the void created will be chaotic and the world would soon crumble. To avoid the chaos and its consequences, we would need some reference or a mentor who/which would then bolster and mold our natural instincts, natural drive, our will, our goal. Ideally it should result in a strong-willed population responsible for creating, and self reliant in almost everything and excelling in, whether it is art, philosophy, science, sports or politics. But what/who that reference/ mentor can be in the 21st century remain a question. Surely the mistakes of history cannot be allowed to repeat, but it remains to be seen if the will of the people will deliberately allow it to be repeated. Let us all hope for the best outcome.