# "God is dead" Huh? (NOT a Great Debate!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 15, 2001, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453 "2001-08-15T22:11:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/1 "2001-08-15T22:11:33Z")
I’ve heard reference more than once to a headline in the New York Times in the 1970s that said “GOD IS DEAD.” 1. Is this story true? That is, was there such a headline? 2. If so, why? What occassion or occurrence resulted in “GOD IS DEAD” being a newspaper headline? Or was it someone’s prank? In other words, the factual circumstances of how the headline came to be. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/2 "2001-08-15T22:22:45Z")
I think it was a philosophical conclusion Nietzsche reached, rather than… y’know… a straightforward obituary. I guess you knew that. That side of it can be summed up best at [this link](http://www.xrefer.com/entry/552186). Heaven knows how it got a headline, but I have a vague memory of it too. Wasn’t it _Time_? I was quite interested when watching Carla Lane’s sitcom _Luv_ to notice the eco-protester son wearing a t-shirt which proclaimed "God is _deaf"_. I thought that a far more interesting idea. Unanswered prayer and so forth, although perhaps it was just a spelling mistake. Anyway He’s not dead, it’s okay. I was talking to Him earlier. ---
**Author:** ![therealblaze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@therealblaze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/therealblaze)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/3 "2001-08-15T22:27:47Z")
The Pro-Life, Pro-Choice issues would seem to stem from, " The Separation of Church and State." Having reviewed this document exhaustively, I believe Our Forefather’s created this document to say, “The State should not decide on matters of religious freedoms, under the letter of the Law, because it is God who controls such matters.” In the 1960’s the court system set out to redefine the meaning of "Separation of Church and State. The court handed down a decision that, "Separation of Church and State, meant, “The Church is religious and the State is not.” After the release of this court decision, the following day the New York Times had only three words on the front page, “GOD IS DEAD!” [Source](http://www.medjugorjeusa.org/prochoiceprolife.htm) ---
**Author:** ![therealblaze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@therealblaze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/therealblaze)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/4 "2001-08-15T22:38:54Z")
**They caught the last train for the coast** Could be a reference to wacky California religions, or could just be a way of saying that they’ve left (or died – western culture often uses “went west” as a synonym for dying). Or, perhaps this is a reference to the famous “God is Dead” headline in the New York Times. [What is Don McLean’s song “American Pie” all about?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_398b.html) Maybe this should go to CoCC but I’ll try my luck and post it here as it is somewhat relevant to this issue. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/5 "2001-08-15T22:46:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Bredin \* > \*\*I’ve heard reference more than once to a headline in the New York Times in the 1970s that said “GOD IS DEAD.” > \*\* The only reference I’ve ever heard to the NYT having such a headline was in Elton John’s song, “Levon,” which includes the line, “He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day when the New York Times said, ‘God is dead and the war’s begun.’” This song is in fact from the 1970s, but to the best of my knowledge, the NYT never had any such headline. What **is** true is that on April 8, 1966, TIME Magazine’s cover was the phrase, “Is God Dead?” in bright red letters on a solid black background (you can see the issue in question in a scene in _Rosemary’s Baby_). The cover story concerned a group of theologians from Emory University calling themselves “Christian atheists” who claimed that God was dead. The spokesperson for the group, Thomas J.J. Altizer, was mostly vilified by the public, being greeted upon his appearance on the Merv Griffin Show by people shouting, “Kill him!” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/6 "2001-08-16T00:50:59Z")
That sort of headline is just not the style the _Times_ used at the time. They were noted for dry, factual headlines; that sort of sensationalism would have been more at home at the _News_ (and nowadays, the _Post_ – which was a liberal democratic paper in the 1960s, BTW, and not prone to sensational headlines). > [@](#): > > therealblaze – that quote was an opinion, not a fact. As for the basis for the author’s opinion, it’s hard to justify, since no where does the constitution mention “God.” Further, the founding fathers concept of the Creator were considerably different than modern concepts of God. ---
**Author:** ![DAVEW0071](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19b73/32.png) [@DAVEW0071](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DAVEW0071)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2001, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-is-dead-huh-not-a-great-debate/76453/7 "2001-08-16T01:50:15Z")
All right, I’m not familiar with any of the philosophy involved in the statement that “God is dead.” However, in thinking about it, for those who regard religion as myth concocted by superstitious (and more primitive-minded) people, once knowledge and technology reached a certain point, it could be argued that such superstitions had no place in the human experience. What was once regarded as “an act of God” (lightning, e.g.), could now be explained scientifically. Therefore, the “god” that man invented for things he could not explain has died; replaced by the scientific proofs of these phenomena. And that which we still cannot explain is relegated to the mysteries for which research, science, etc., will eventually find an explanation. I don’t know if this fits in with any actual philosophical treatises, but that’s how I make sense of the statement in question.