Why is Nietzsche always credited with "God is Dead" and why was that profound?

Question

Why does that term always serve to encapsulate his theories?

Answer 1

Besides having the courage to quote this phrase in one of his books, the implication was, that the God-tradition that had an iron-clad grip over Western Europe for nearly 2,000 had frankly run out of gas...

He was a very bold individual, however, he was simply expressing what the best thinkers of the time had been feeling & realizing, which was that religion, moreso than the creator of the universe, was empty on the inside, and full of hypocrisy...

Answer 2

Nietzsche isn't credited for "god is dead", other before him mention this including luther and aquinas. Nietzsche is credited for the meaning of the phrase. Obviously he doesn;t literally imply that god is physically dead, but is a more dramatic or even poetic way of asserting peoples lack of belief in god. In the madman he adds that his very followers are the ones responsible for this death. Man is in a state of the denial of nihilism, they take belief as a cheap second hand doctrine held and retained by custom and tradition. Nietzsche finds it important to revaluate everything through perpectivism. In the three metamorphosis when the spirit transforms into a child after confronting the thou shalt dragon, is a representation of a new beginning. The beginning of revaluation.

Answer 3

It is a direct quote from his book "Thus spoke Zarathustra". While it may not encapsulate the core of his philosophy, its someone sensational nature has kept it closely associated with Nietzsche in the popular mind.

Answer 4

The era of Nietzsche was too religious. People were forced to go to church and everyone claimed to believe in God. An era of Church dictatorship; no one has his/her own thought or own image. People don't even know the Bible and lived in dead worship and dead religious practice.

Nietzsche just awake people to consider the true religion. Otherwise, it is better for a man to walk alone.

Answer 5

I won't presume to explain Nietzsche. Read his BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. But below is the most often quoted passage in this connection (Nietzche, THE GAY SCIENCE, section 125 on "The Madman"):

BEGIN QUOTATION

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, "I seek God! I seek God!" As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Why, did he get lost? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"Whither is God" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, foreward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be born after us--for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. "I come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering--it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars--and yet they have done it themselves."

It has been related further that on the same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said to have replied each time, "What are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

END QUOTATION

Answer 6

The poor guy was depicted as crazy although his writings were brilliant. He is still quoted often.

He dared question religion during his time.

Answer 7

Don't you understand the term?God IS simply dead.

Edit:

"The poor guy was depicted as crazy although his writings were brilliant. He is still quoted often."

Every brilliant person is crazy although not every crazy person is brilliant.I love his books.