This is the parable by Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche was a great philosopher in the 19th century. His parents were missionaries and his grandparents were also missionaries, but he turned to atheism. He lived his short life from 1844-1900 and during that short time of life, he implied a pivotal impact to existentialism; he did not coin the phrase "God is Dead," he popularized it. Nietzsche spent the last 15 years of his life literately and mentally insane. He predicted show much in our time in the 20th century and was right. He predicted that God would not be able to handle the onslaught of philosophical and scientific reasoning and concept. He asked that how could anyone with a rational mind still believe in a supernatural being. He said that there would an utter cry in the 20th century of violence and chaos. And he was right. World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, Hitler, Stalin, 9/11 and so and so forth. The 20th century is by far the most violent century the world was ever seen, and is more violent than the previous 19 put together. Listen as he predicts this on the basis of the ramifications in positing a godless universe -

"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 did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? 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 continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest 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 we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to 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 into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God? God is dead, we have killed him."


Friedrich Nietzsche is basically saying that this is such a humongous a deed that everything will have to redefined, everything! There is no up, down, left. Even the trees are moving now, are they not? There is no absolute category anymore. He is not trying to point out that God doesn't exist; he is saying that we as human beings have killed God under our philosophical and rational theories. We have ignored God's wisdom and turned to our own in terms of philosophy and science. That's why Nietzsche asked that why would any human being in his right mind still believe in a supernatural being. We have strained into an infinite nothing. When we fall backwards we go forward, when we go right, we go left, we must light a lantern in the morning hours now. He is saying that existentially points of reference will be lost and new points of reference will have to be found. Follow me now, try to listen - We better become aware of that, because if you remove this transcendent absolute notion that existed in cultures as a point of reference as our daily definitions of life's meaning, its destiny, its origin, its value, he says if that has been wiped out, we have better find new ways of measuring in answering the question of life. And now don't miss this huge factor that is the most difficult issue that atheists face today. Here it is as Ravi Zacharias puts it - "If God does not exist, there is no objective point of reference for any moral framework." You raise such a category of evil, but if indeed we have evolved from primates, from mere animals, from mere atoms that exploded over a series of nothingness, then how can you say what is good and what is bad? If we are basically animals, how can we even posit good or evil? When one human kills another wouldn't you just call that natural selection? As Christopher Hitchens puts it - "I don't know how Christians can follow God's law when he says to love your enemies, I am sorry, but my motive is to kill the weaker ones and save the stronger ones, for we are animals and this nothing but natural selection" He said this in his debate against Rabbi Boteach. And as Darwinism puts it - "Red tooth and claw."And let add suggest this also - most cultures obtain there moral laws from religion. Don't they? Russell Kirk, the noted American historian, wrote the book "The Roots of American Order." He suggests why caused Americans framework of thinking, why Americans thought the way they did. And he draws back to America's roots to four cities: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and London. Jerusalem gave this culture its moral categories. Athens gave this culture its philosophical categories. Rome gave this culture its legal categories. And London, of course, the immediate that gave birth to this nation. And as God is dead, we as a nation still remember Athens, still remember Rome, still remember London, but we have forgotten Jerusalem. We speak of a godless universe, then we must now discard everything religion has to say from a transcending supernatural being, such as God, and must now play the role of god to redefine moral value in life. That's just morality, we still need to define life's meaning, purpose, hope, and destiny. Is this the best we can do? Listen to Stephen Jay Ghould, from Harvard - he says that the fact that we are here by accident is ultimately exhilarating. Do you feel exhilarated? How is is exhilarating to know that you are here by accident? Is atheism cheating me? What a homeless mind the humans possesses. Such complex entities, that trouble even the top scientists even today, are the products of immortal slime that had no idea of what it was doing and went "bang!"

No moral law, hence no such thing as evil and good, no meaning, no hope - for GOD is dead, we have killed him. We must now play gods to obtain a point of reference in this battleground, titled "Ethical Free-for-All," for we have lost our absolute, transcendent point of reference. Surely we are mistaken.

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