# "Nietzsche is dead." -God. Is this a UL? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 31, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299 "2008-12-31T00:38:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/1 "2008-12-31T00:38:09Z")
“God is dead.” -Nietzsche “Nietzsche is dead.” -God Everyone knows this graffiti appeared somewhere. A wall at Harvard, a New York subway station, on a plaque with Nietzsche’s bust. You know, putting those “intellectuals” in their place. A fool hath said in his heart and all that. Only did it appear? My google-fu didn’t help, but this sounds so apocryphal. Anyone got the, er, straight dope on this? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/2 "2008-12-31T00:56:21Z")
It has to have appeared somewhere. I don’t claim to have originated the snark, but I wrote it on a blackboard myself in the classroom where I was taking an intro to Existentialism course (c. 1978). The instructor left it there, but added: “Nietzsche is Pietzsche.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/3 "2008-12-31T01:59:08Z")
It first seems to have been popularized around 1964 in the popular press. Whether it truly was first written on a bathroom wall, or someone wrote it in response to the popular press version, we’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/4 "2008-12-31T02:38:22Z")
I saw it on a bathroom wall in college, but that was several years after the story had already gone around. So, yes, it did appear somewhere at sometime. But whether or not it was the creation of a sanctimonious grad student or a professional comedy writer, I can’t help you there. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/5 "2008-12-31T02:57:41Z")
I remember this joke being used on the Dave Allen show, many years ago. some guy writes “God is dead- Kilroy” on a wall Kilroy gets struck by lightning. The words “God” and “Kilroy” change places ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/6 "2008-12-31T03:02:38Z")
Wasn’t this in the original ‘Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ as an utterance from the Guide? I don’t know whether it predated that. Bob ---
**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:** [December 31, 2008, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/7 "2008-12-31T03:10:09Z")
It most certainly predated it. Norton Mockridge included the exchange in his book on graffiti, **The Scrawl of the Wild** in 1968. The book supposedly used actual graffiti, though I don’t think Mockridge ever documented where he saw what. Though Mockridge himself was partial to the exchange: “My mother made me a homosexual.” “If I give her some wool, will she make me one, too?” ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/8 "2008-12-31T04:21:10Z")
**Tap! Tap! Tap!** Is this thing ON? It appears in 1964, both in books and the newspapers. Whether it appears later is of little use. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/9 "2008-12-31T04:26:21Z")
Hijack: **RealityChuck** , I know I’ve seen your sig; where did you get it? ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/10 "2008-12-31T04:30:47Z")
> [@urban1z](#): > > Wasn’t this in the original ‘Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ as an utterance from the Guide? I don’t know whether it predated that. You’re probably thinking of the entry on the Babel Fish: > [@](#): > > The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy recieved not from its own carrier but from those around it, It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. the practical upshot of this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any language. > > Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes like this : “I refuse to prove that I exist”, says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.” > > “But”, says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.” > > “Oh dear”, says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. > > “Oh that was easy” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/11 "2008-12-31T04:31:43Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Hijack: **RealityChuck** , I know I’ve seen your sig; where did you get it? _Animal Crackers_ (1930). ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/12 "2008-12-31T05:54:32Z")
I’ve always seen this written as: > [@](#): > > God is dead. -Nietzsche, 1882 > Nietzsche is dead. -God, 1900 (implying that rather than smiting him outright, God just sat around nonchalantly waiting for old age to do its thing, getting his final laugh that way.) ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/13 "2008-12-31T06:28:56Z")
I’ve read every book of the Hitchhikers Guide in the not too distant past and don’t recall it from there. Maybe in the odd radio shows and LP recordings, though… Never heard them. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/14 "2008-12-31T11:48:19Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > I’ve always seen this written as: > (implying that rather than smiting him outright, God just sat around nonchalantly waiting for old age to do its thing, getting his final laugh that way.) Like the old Arab saying: “Sit at your doorstep and [eventually] you will see the burial of your enemy go by”. (Except if you die first, in which case you would not care.) Whoever wrote “Nietzsche is dead” it was not God so Nietzsche still wins this match for now. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/15 "2008-12-31T12:57:35Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > (implying that rather than smiting him outright, God just sat around nonchalantly waiting for old age to do its thing, getting his final laugh that way.) Btw, do most people realize that “God is dead” was a _commentary_ on society’s view of him? Nietzche didn’t kill him and brag about it, he was reporting that society “killed” him by letting their morals get out of step with religion. So the proper symmetry would have been: “Nietzsche is dead.” --society. …but that doesn’t look as rhetorically pretty. ---
**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:** [December 31, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/16 "2008-12-31T15:02:46Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > **Tap! Tap! Tap!** Is this thing ON? > > It appears in 1964, both in books and the newspapers. > > Whether it appears later is of little use. The difference, of course, is that I provided an actual cite. ---
**Author:** ![ntcrawler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/34f0e0/32.png) [@ntcrawler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ntcrawler)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/17 "2008-12-31T20:47:54Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > Btw, do most people realize that “God is dead” was a _commentary_ on society’s view of him? Nietzche didn’t kill him and brag about it, he was reporting that society “killed” him by letting their morals get out of step with religion. > > So the proper symmetry would have been: “Nietzsche is dead.” --society. > > …but that doesn’t look as rhetorically pretty. If that’s indeed the case then the most appropriate form should be: “God is dead” – society or “morality is dead” --society. But i agree it wouldn’t sound as witty and funny 😛 ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nietzsche-is-dead-god-is-this-a-ul/479299/18 "2008-12-31T23:45:45Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The difference, of course, is that I provided an actual cite. :sigh: 24 Sept 1964 _Syracuse(NY) Post-Standard_ 34/4 The entertainment column, _Lyons Den_, authored by Leonard Lyons, a contemporary of Walter Winchell, and in the same business. > [@](#): > > An Insiders Newsletter emissary saw the ancient sign on a Berlin beer hall "God is Dead–Nietzsche. Under it had been added, “Nietzsche is dead -God” Also, using Google Book Search– _The Impossible Theater_ by Herbert Blau, 1964. page 20 > [@](#): > > A San Francisco columnist, reading the graffiti on a toilet wall, came back with an answer: Nietzsche is dead! says God . Now, did this San Francisco columnist actually read this in a toilet? Who knows, but it confirms that the joke was going the rounds in or about 1964.