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Have you heard of the story of the madman by Friedrich Nietzsche?
A man in a marketplace cries, "I seek God! I seek God". The people around him mocked him, saying, "Why, did you misplace him?" " Maybe he is lost or taking a break" And so forth...
The madman, finally says "Whither is God?. "I shall tell you. We have killed him-you and I."
The madman wonders off, and is heard muttering, "What are these churches, now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?'
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
We have killed God, you and I. Actually, he is probably missing in action. But Scientific paradigms are weakening Christianity, and hagiography generally.
Only that I don't quite get, if one has a point to make, he doesn't make it, rather than tell a metaphorical story. When one does that I always wondering what it is they are wrapping up in fancy packaging so we don't know what we are being sold.
There's another story too, and the true one.
"The incredible disappearing god"
When God first was, with a gesture of his invisible hands, he conjured into existence all the stars, galaxies and their many (1) planets.
When he made earth, sun, moon, trees, birds, animals, fish and man (not always in the right order) and saw it wasn't as good as he'd hoped, with a wag of his invisible wand, rather than make it he way it ought have been, he destroyed most of it in a Flood and saved a representative family who were no better than they should be.
When the descendants of that family got themselves into a fix, with a command of his invisible brain, he fiddled it so Hie enslaved people could march out and conquer a handy bit of land.
When that land got clobbered to extinction by powerful neighbours, He encouraged what remained of His people to keep hoping until in time, the Persians let them return.
When His city, temple and people were flattened by the Romans, He changed His immutable message into one of love and forgiveness which he arranged to be issued through the political decisions of a successful general.
Following the obliteration of that general's kingdom by the followers of another religion, God allowed his word to be in he hands of those using it in war, conquest and persecutions, while he looked on and sighed.
After the Great war where he was apparently on both sides, He manifested in visions, apparitions and dubious apologetic argument (2).
Following the failure of His crusade against communism, Russia gave it up anywaybecause they couldn't afford it and God confined himself to inspiring demonstrably false ideas in the heads of the faithful and limiting his appearances to slices of toast and mould on wallpaper.
God hasn't been killed. He has merely dwindled away.
(1) I deserve a rep for refusing to use 'Myriad", there.
(2) C.S Lewis' notorious "Lord. Liar or lunatic" fallacy of trifurcation is the textbook example.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 05-20-2017 at 11:34 PM..
Have you heard of the story of the madman by Friedrich Nietzsche?
A man in a marketplace cries, "I seek God! I seek God". The people around him mocked him, saying, "Why, did you misplace him?" " Maybe he is lost or taking a break" And so forth...
The madman, finally says "Whither is God?. "I shall tell you. We have killed him-you and I."
The madman wonders off, and is heard muttering, "What are these churches, now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?'
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
We have killed God, you and I. Actually, he is probably missing in action. But Scientific paradigms are weakening Christianity, and hagiography generally.
Comments?
I tend to be pretty concrete, so I'll observe that in order to kill something, it must first exist.
I tend to be pretty concrete, so I'll observe that in order to kill something, it must first exist.
Yes. Which is why Nietzsche put it in analogous story form. And I find the analogy misleading. The idea of God and the power of belief in Him doesn't die so easily. It is a gradual vanishment as the gaps for God gradually shrink.
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