Philosophy - Death of God

Spencer Shapiro

Professor Parekh

Introduction to Philosophy

24 October 2014

Word Count: 934

Death of God

The belief that “God is dead” should give a scare to people.  In the modern world, people have become less inclined to believe in religion and there is now passivity regarding the belief in God.  Without the belief in God and an afterlife, people no longer feel the need to be “good” people.  People now would rather have an easy life of satisfaction than feel meaning.  The burden that this gives the people causes anguish and forlornness.  People should fear for their lives because there is nothing that can stop people from sinning.  In this paper, I will argue that without God in peoples’ lives, life becomes meaningless because people have become less interested in striving for morality.

Without a God, people do not pursue being “good” because there is no afterlife.  People “stray, as through nothingness” because they have lost all touch with God (Nietzsche 1044).  The transcendent world has lost its strength for modernity.  When Nietzsche talks about the madman who goes into the city, he describes how the people have yet to realize what they have done.  By killing God, the people have lost their purpose in life.  People don’t attend church anymore and these churches have become the “tombs and monuments of God” (Nietzsche “Joyful Wisdom”).  The importance of the belief in God has been lost in people.  

People would rather go through a life of contentment rather than fulfillment.   When Zarathustra returns from the mountains back to the town of common people, he notices how meaningless the lives of the people have become.  The people of the town say they have “discovered happiness” (Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”).  This type of “happiness” as the people call it is not truly meaningful.  The people of this town have left regions where it is hard to live because they are looking for comfort and warmth (Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”).  We should not pursue happiness because then we become shallow and spiritually impoverished.  This phenomenon of “The Last Man” creates a level of conformity.  Without risks people never test morality and never strive for greatness.  People no longer want to become poor or rich because “both are too burdensome” (Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”).  People want this risk-free life instead of feeling any displeasure, even if this displeasure can ultimately lead to more meaning and a deeper understanding of morality.  

The absence of God creates a major burden on people.  Without a God, existence must precede essence.  This means that man appears and then, only afterwards, defines himself (Jean-Paul Sartre “Existentialism and Humanism” 1232).  Because there is no human nature, man wills himself to be what he wants to be.  This creates a major responsibility on every man.  Every decision that man makes is not only a decision for him but also for the rest of society.  Every decision reflects what he believes the values of society should be and at the same time “create[s] an image of man as we think he ought to be” (Jean-Paul Sartre “Existentialism and Humanism” 1232).  Without a predetermined nature in every person, we have complete power over our actions.  This responsibility we have should make us more moral because we know that each decision impacts the entire population.  This should cause deep anguish for each individual because of the grandness of each decision.  It is difficult to escape the feeling of this “total and deep responsibility” (Jean-Paul Sartre “Existentialism and Humanism” 1233).  Sartre challenges that the absence of God actually makes us more responsible, and in a way, more moral.  That would be true if people actually felt that action must be taken. People are so afraid to make the wrong decision that they can’t make one at all.  It is necessary that even with there being no rules written down, one must make a decision in order to assert the values that one believes in.  Great leaders are able to overcome this struggle of indecisiveness and make a decision that affects the entire society.  The majority of people cannot make this decision.