God is dead?

[According to Pliny]

"God is dead!" was the concensus amoung many post-modernists following World War I. The reasoning was that such a terrible event couldn't occur in a world still looked over by a supreme being. Read up on the DaDaists and existentialism for more on this.

[Babar714]

Nietzche is dead.

--God

[Big Iron]

I killed "Bob"! Then I peed on his head ...

[astorian]

Obviously, when the nihilist philosopher Nietzsche said "God is dead," he did not mean literally that Jehovah was once alive, but has since kicked the bucket. Nietzsche himself did not believe that ANY god had EVER existed, so he wasn't speaking of a literal death. And, for that matter, a Christian can believe in God and STILL concede that Nietzsche was right in the larger point he was trying to make. What he WAS saying, in effect, was "Let's face it, folks: our society's laws and morality were based on Christianity- and the important people in our society don't really believe in Christianity any more!"

And Nietzsche was right: by the late 19th century, Europe's intellectual class was no longer religious, and hadn't been religious in centuries! Europe's aristocracy had long since ceased to think of religion as anything more than an archaic tradition. In other words, traditional ideas about God and morality were becoming meaningless to the leaders of Europe. God was not PHYSICALLY dead, but he was becoming irrelevant to the way people led their lives.

Now, earlier secular philosphers like David Hume and Immanuel Kant had tried to show that reason and logic could uphold traditional notions of morality, even if God did not exist. And MOST 19th century Europeans seemed to want to carry on with traditional morality, as if their growing disbelief in God didn't really change anything.

Nietzsche wasn't about to let secular Europe off so easily. Nietzsche saw that, once you stop believing in God, EVERYTHING ought to change! NOTHING could or should be the same as before! Without God, notions like altruism and delayed gratification of our desires make no sense at all!

Nietzsche and his contemporary Dostoevsky were both intelligent enough to see that "Without God, everything is permitted." That bothered the hell out of Dostoevsky. It didn't bother Nietzsche a bit!

The problem with Nietzsche's reasoning (as summarized by Astorian) on a Godless society is that he seems to assume the only reason for a person to behave in a moral fashion is a fear of divine retribution. The fact is that most people want to live in a secular society guided by moral principles, irregardless of how this affects them in the spiritual world. So a person may behave morally because he feels his actions make for a more moral society and he wishes to live in such a society.

[RoboDude]

How dod the expression "God is dead" originate, and what were they referring to?

[GOD]

See Nietzche.

"The report of my death was an exaggeration."
--Mark Twain, cable from London to a New York newspaper.

[NanoByte]

I don't see what a war would have to do with this. I thought people fought wars to see if God were on their side.

Ray

I agree with Mike King, irrespective of his misspelling of the word regardless.

[Nickrz]

What is the headline question on the copy of Time Magazine on the table in the waiting room of Mia Farrow's psychiatrist in the 1968 Roman Polanski film Rosemary's Baby?

[astorian]

As a Catholic, I certainly won't claim Nietzsche as an ally. He had nothing but scorn for religious people in general, and Christians in particular. He considered Christianity a crutch for weak-minded people and, more diabolically, a lie to keep the strong and powerful in check. Oddly enough, however, Nietzsche had even GREATER scorn for those who don't believe in God, but would like to pretend there is some OTHER basis for traditional morality!

Nietzsche saw, as men like Hobbes had seen centuries earlier, that Nature is ugly indeed. In Nature, the stronger animals kill the weaker animals and take what they want, without any concerns about morality. For example, the biggest strongest lion kills his rivals, and the offspring of his rivals, and takes all the females he wants for himself. THAT is the natural way of things. To use Hobbes' famous line, in nature, life is "nasty, brutish and short." This is no less true for uncivilized humans.

Now, as the Christian Hobbes and the virulently ANTI-Christian Nietzsche realized, religion (and Christianity in particular) gave men a set of laws and principles that forced them to sublimate their selfish desires and work for the betterment of others. Take away those principles, and you're left with two sets of people:

1) the "nice" secular folks, from Immanuel Kant to Mike King. These people think they can do away with the Judaeo-Christian god, but still retain the "nice" parts of the Judaeo-Christian tradition ("love your neighbor," etc.)

2) The strong and powerful, who want what they want when they want it, and don't see any point to delaying their personal gratification, and have only scorn for those who do.

If THAT's what it all comes down to, who's going to come out on top? Pretty obvious, I should think.

In the absence of God, there is only one thing that matters in this world: Power. Religious people have always known that, and shuddered. Nietzsche recognized that fact and embraced it: he thought the idea of chaos and war of all against all was rather cool!

Nietzsche understood that morality is totally artificial in the absence of a higher power. Though he mocked Christian morality, he could at least understnad its hold on people (as ridiculous as he found it, he knew it promises people something attractive). He couldn't understand the "nice" atheists who refuse to admit where their unbelief logically takes them.

If we are so naturally brutish, then why did every culture ever known invent its own religion and/or code of ethics? The fact that we frequently behave immorally is often used to "prove" that we have no inherent morals. The reverse is true. Having morals, we take notice when we do not live up to them.

The cartoonist Walt Kelly, creator of 'Pogo", once wrote---"God is not dead, He is merely unemployed."

No, no he's resting. Look!



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Ranger Jeff
The Idol of American Youth

[DrFidelius]

If that God hadn't been nailed to its cross it would have been pushing up daisies. He wouldn't twitch if you put fifty thousand volts through Him.


Oh my Kenny, they killed God! You bastards!

[furt]

Ranger jeff-that was great.

Atsorian--that was great too.

Lumpy--Theology makes strange bedfellows....


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"It all started with marbles in school..."

[GOD]

Did you hear the one about the 3 blasphemers who all go to Hell....

Kidding, guys! Just kidding! A little-known trait of mine is that I am omnisarcastic.

Nietzsche had even GREATER scorn for those who don't believe in God, but would like to pretend there is some OTHER basis for traditional morality

What? Nietzsche scorned me? Already, Freddy boy, the gloves are off! I'll be waiting for you in the parking lot and I'm planning to kick some ubermensch ass! I'll whoop you so bad even Zarathustra won't know you! Word!

[Lumpy]

Nietzsche understood that morality is totally artificial in the absence of a higher power. Though he mocked Christian morality, he could at least understnad its hold on people (as ridiculous as he found it, he knew it promises people something attractive). He couldn't understand the "nice" atheists who refuse to admit where their unbelief logically takes them. Gee, I would never have believed that Nietzsche and C.S. Lewis had anything in common! Lewis's many works, most notably The Abolition of Man, also held that there was ultimately no way to maintain moral values without reference to some supernatural order.

[pldennison]

I find it hard to believe that astorian, who I thought was smarter than this, would buy the idea that immorality (or amorality) is a necessary logical consequence of atheism. It could very well be that the set of behaviors we call "morality" are an inevitable partner of the evolution of human intelligence; as intelligence would grant us the ability to recognize pragmatic ideas like "We should refrain from indiscriminately killing each other or taking each others' stuff if we want to protect both individuals and the species."

I also seriously question:In the absence of God, there is only one thing that matters in this world: Power. Religious people have always known that, and shuddered.

Religious people rarely shudder at that idea, and are often the ones most frequently attempting to grab power; and what's more, astorian damn well knows it, too.

The whole "morality-is-impossible-and-contrived-in-the-absence-of-Judeo-Christian-religion" is a line of shit I wouldn't expect to hear from him, and is not borne out by any observations of history or socioanthropology.

Hear, hear!!!

[Polycarp]

Nick...I may have missed it, but there didn't seem to be a response to your post about the Time cover. What that was all about was a set of four radical theologians (self description, not editorial comment by me) who espoused a viewpoint very roughly summarized as "God has no effect on human affairs, and hence is (as good as} dead." Or at least they argued from a premise similar to this. <Note: I'm trying to squeeze a fairly complex philosophical concept into a paragraph-size post, so please don't take issue with what I missed in that summary.>

[Polycarp]

Aack....I lost a whole line of that post!

Ending was supposed to be, "Note: I'm trying to squeeze a fairly complex philosophical concept into a paragraph-sized post, so please don't take issue...."

[astorian]

I never said that atheists are immoral, and neither did Nietzsche. I merely point out, as Nietzsche did, that atheists haven't got a leg to stand on when they speak of morality.

Most of the atheists I know personally are actually rather nice people. None are foam-at-the-mouth Madalyn Murray O'Hair types. Most grew up in tepidly religious households, and most never had a huge, dramatic "moment of relaization." Most either ignored religion or practiced it sporadically... and then one day decided they just didn't buy into any of it, and never thought about it again.

Did they suddenly become sadistic, greedy swine upon abandoning their old religions? Nope. They generally held onto the essential moral teachings of Christianity (at least, the ones that weren't too demanding or bothersome), while ditching Christ himself. Why? I suspect it was more a matter of habit than anything else. ALL of us, believers and non-believers alike, tend to be rather intellectually lazy. We find it easier to justify the way we've always thought and always behaved than to think in new ways.

What it comes down to is, most "nice" atheists are living off the moral capital of a previous era's belief system. In essence, they've thrown out the baby but kept the bathwater.

Nietzsche understood this perfectly well- to Nietzsche, saying that you can abandon God but attempt to keep moral codes is like... well, saying that "I don't believe in the tooth fairy, and I don't believe he'll leave me a quarter, but I can STILL leave a tooth under my pillow." Sure you can, Nietzsche would answer, but why would you want to? The "death" of God is an event of earth-shattering importance. Einstein once said that "the atomic bomb has changed everything but our way of thinking." Substitute "the death of God" for the atom bomb, and you'll have a fair understanding of what Nietzsche was getting at.

Numerous brilliant (and I don't use this word lightly) atheists, most notably David Hume, have tried to spell out a code of morals based on nothing more than logic, reason and utilitarianism. They have failed miserably, because (as even Hume saw) morality can NEVER be based on reason. Reason is worthless in determining what is good or bad, or what we should want- at best, reason is a tool for figuring out how to get what ILLOGIC (be that whims, emotions, sentiment, or whatever) tells us is good or bad.

To use a pop culture reference, Mr. Spock said, when sacrificing himself in "Star Trek 2," that, logically, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Logically? Ha! "Logically," my own needs and wants outweigh everything and everybody else.

[Gaudere]

I am an atheist, and I will say that my morals are subjective (I know I do not speak for all atheists in this). Nevertheless, I do not feel this makes them less valid, nor do I agree that that means that I cannot say an atrocity is wrong. My morals are based on what is best for human society. If you can convince yourself that the wanton murder of thousands could have ever been possibly considered “best for society” you are a far better persuader than I. We call people who can convince themselves that wanton murder is Ok to be psychopaths; and no, I don’t consider someone who can believe this is moral behaviour to be immoral; they’re insane.

For an example, right now society and religion both agree that beating little children is wrong. Even with subjective morals, for such a thing to become moral it would require a phenomenally radical change in human physiology and culture. But, say, all little children suddenly would die horribly if they were not beaten; then beating little kids *would* be moral. Or if people could suddenly were sterile with their spouses but not with others; then adultery *would* be moral. Since these examples are horribly unlikely, unless there is a similar wild change in humanity, my morals parallel what we have spent thousands of years determining what is best for society.

I do acknowledge religion’s role in this, and I applaud it for codifing these rules. At the time they were developed, religious morals were probably as good or better than the secular system of justice. “An eye for an eye” was more merciful the contemporary codes of justice. However, religion’s inability to analyze and reason out its moral codes does not appear beneficial. Of course you can reason out religious moral codes, but not if you believe as you said that reason and logic cannot be used for morals. Then you are stuck with the Word of God alone. I agree religious morals certainly have the great majority of it correct: “don’t murder”,”don’t lie”, etc. But some of the religious moral codes, i.e. “homosexuality should be punished by death” seem FAR inferior to the secular code. You may say it is part of God’s Mysterious Plan, and that he knows what is best; that is valid logic. But I see such beliefs as doing great harm.

For a good going-over of this topic (before we get tossed into GD) go to http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000145.html. Pldennison, Powers and APB9999 explain an atheistic view of morals. It *is* logical to want to live in a moral world, and to do what you can to bring that about.

BTW, I thought Nietzsche was not all that highly regarded anymore. “Brilliant, but misguided” sort of thing. And it’s hard to say how Hume, Kant, et al. failed in their attempts; I thought they were pretty good. If you are certain that morals cannot come from reason, then I can see why you would believe that, though.


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"Eppur, si muove!" - Galileo Galilei

Or you could look into the work of John von Neumann and his game theory. He demonstarted on a mathematical level, that it is impossible to maximize your benefit on a single transaction unless you behave as if everyone involved will behave in the greediest fashion and plan accordingly. Most people who are familiar with this assume this proves that only greed is "logical". But if you go beyond the simplest example of single transactions, von Nuemann mathematically demonstrated that there are many situations where you will increase your personal overall benefit on a series of transactions by acting altruistically on individual transactions. To extend this beyond the abstract realm, this proves that is possible to base a moral society on reason alone.

[TheIncredibleHolg]

Good point, Mike. The prisoner's dilemma comes to mind.

Another possiblity that has not yet been discussed is that altruism and certain moral principles are simply embedded in our genes because they were beneficial to the survival of the species. In effect, evolution would have "applied" the logic that you cite. In that case, humans could keep these properties until natural selection (or the lack thereof) swings the other way.

How about that?

[pldennison]

astorian, you're still making the mistake of assuming that morality as we know it is unequivocally and permanently attached generally to religion and specifically to Christianity. I'm sorry, but that assertion is simply preposterous.

There were successful human societies prior to Christianity; there were successful human socities contemporaneous with Christ but elsewhere in the world; and there are successful human socities to this very day who are not Jews, Christians or Muslims. If anything, Christianity is "living off the moral capital of a previous era" as much as any other system is.

You don't honestly believe those ideas on how to treat each other were created out of whole cloth between 4 BC and 35 AD or so, do you? Of course you don't. As I said before, they have been integral to the success of groups of humans since, well, since there have been humans.

Christianity, or Judeo-Christian tradition, or religion period, has never had the market on moral ideas cornered, it doesn't now, and it never will. Anyone who thinks otherwise, and that includes you and Neitzche, is purposefully deluding themselves.

If the only thing keeping one indulging his or her whims at the expense of others is religion, I submit her or she is simply a naturally bad person. It would be nice to believe that "God" or some moral precepts exclusive to religion are the only thing keeping anarchy and chaos at bay. Unfortunately, it's also silly.

[Gaudere]

Another possiblity that has not yet been discussed is that altruism and certain moral principles are simply embedded in our genes because they were beneficial to the survival of the species.

David B has talked about the meme theory (by Dawkins and Blackmore), which says approximately the same thing (although not tied to genes, as I understand it). I haven't read the book or critiques of it, but it makes sense to me that beneficial behaviours would be passed on. I'll have to look into it later.

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"Eppur, si muove!" - Galileo Galilei

[pldennison]

Damn, I realized much later the other point I wanted to make: The argument that astorian is making, or at least describing, presupposes that God actually exists or did at one time. If God never did exist, then those moral rules were derived completely by humans anyway, and are no less arbitrary than rules derived by reason simply because they were placed inside a mythological or superstitious framework.