On of the things that irritate them the most is the phrase “God is Dead”. A phrase that is obviously meaningless in a literal sense...
What Nietzsche was saying when he said “Gott ist tod!” was not what most people think.
He first made the obvious point that modern science and in particular evolution made God redundant and belief in supernatural beings was not longer credible.
At the time (mid C19) many people had lost their belief in God but continued to act as though nothing had changed. That is, they continued to act as Christians but had no basis for doing so.
Nietzsche’s real point was that the non-existence of God is a big deal and that we need to take the implications of this seriously. He was not merely saying what everyone knew (there is no God) but that we need to forge a new morality that is not based on discredited and useless religious ideas.
This idea can be relevant in discussions with theists. Just telling the story of what Nietzsche was saying is very powerful, because it takes as a given that religious belief does not make sense now that Darwin has done away with the argument from design. The discussion can turn to the real question: given no God, what do we do with our lives?
What Nietzsche was saying when he said “Gott ist tod!” was not what most people think.
He first made the obvious point that modern science and in particular evolution made God redundant and belief in supernatural beings was not longer credible.
At the time (mid C19) many people had lost their belief in God but continued to act as though nothing had changed. That is, they continued to act as Christians but had no basis for doing so.
Nietzsche’s real point was that the non-existence of God is a big deal and that we need to take the implications of this seriously. He was not merely saying what everyone knew (there is no God) but that we need to forge a new morality that is not based on discredited and useless religious ideas.
This idea can be relevant in discussions with theists. Just telling the story of what Nietzsche was saying is very powerful, because it takes as a given that religious belief does not make sense now that Darwin has done away with the argument from design. The discussion can turn to the real question: given no God, what do we do with our lives?