What did Nietzsche mean when he said "God is Dead"?

Question

Nietzsche may have meant many different things when he said this. What do you think he meant?

Answer 1

Select passages from "The Parable of the Madman" from "The Gay Science"

"'Where has God gone?' [the madman] cried. 'I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this?'"

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

I believe that the madman is trying to inform the world that modern man has killed religious faith, that we (humans) are responsible for the death of God. I am not sure that Nietzche, who also wrote at length about the "herd mentality" and despised just about every "-ism" imaginable, was so much expressing lament and much as he was trying to make the masses aware of what was taking place around them.

"How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Religion was central to the ancient world and the medieval world. But many forms have thought have arisen in the modern age, some of which have been detrimental to religion and have led to "the death of God."

And now that we no longer have God, much less religion, to absolve us of our sins, where will we find consolation? Who can we hang the responsibility on, when it is too much for us to bear or when we simply choose not to carry it? What will replace God? How will the course of human history change as the result of the death of God/religion?

But we are not ready to hear this, much less accept the responsibility of these crimes. For as the madman states: "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men."

As was Nietzche, a philospher much ahead of his time. And interestingly, his words prefigure the bloodiest era in the history of human kind: the twentieth century.

Answer 2

Nietzsche is dead.
God.

Answer 3

I am a fool! That is what Nietzsche meant. The scripture tells us plainly. "the fool hath said in His heart there is no God".

Answer 4

Nietzsche is pushing up daisies like the rest of the pagan philosophers of his day, realizing how real God is and how wrong he was.

Answer 5

I think he meant that today's full of chaos and trouble world is dead of something what we need for-love,mercy,brother hood and compassion.I think that's what he mean's"God is dead"

Answer 6

He mean that, in today's world, there is no place for God. Hence: "God is Dead."

Answer 7

Indirectly he is saying, ' I am the biggest fool in the world '