Nietzsche : God Is Dead

The Question: State your understanding of the philosophy of F. Nietzsche. What does he

mean by saying "God is Dead"?

Nietzsche's philosophy is that of a radical view as it calls for the complete

reevaluation of morals and blatantly attacks the Judeo-Christian tradition in modern

society. He believed one should dare to become who they are. In order to ascertain one's

full potential as a human being, the ethic system of which by society runs, must be

changed as it only hampers one's will to power.

According to Nietzsche, philosophy is not the pursuit of truth, for there are no

truths, only interpretations, instead it is an attempt on the creator's behalf to interpret

reality in their favor. To illustrate this point he examines master morality as opposed to

slave morality.

Master morality simply defined is a system of what is good and what is evil, set up

by and based on those who have power. So it is not surprising that it would regard the

attributes of a noble to be inherently good and those of a weaker peasant to be evil or,

rather, undesirable. Since it is the rich and powerful who define this morality, it is built to

their benefit.

Contrary to master morality, there is slave morality and likewise it is built with the

same biases only differing as it leans to benefit the poor. This system of ethics overturned

that of the master, by twisting all virtues hailed as good by noble aristocrats, into evils,

slowly over the course of time. Then goodness is translated into weaker friendlier virtues

such as that of sympathy and equality.

A good example of the slave morality can be seen in Judeo-Christian values which

encompass and encourage all the characteristics of the weak while suppressing power.

Nietzsche saw these values to be unnatural of human nature. So for one to deny their

power and surrender to a value system that is irrelevant to our times would be decadent to

themselves. He also believed this system to be against everything that has produced

culture and civilization, mainly the continuous elimination of the weak by the strong.

This process, which separated human kind from it's animal state, has been put into

reverse, causing natural leaders and those with abilities over the mediocrity of the masses

to be un-selfed.

Everyone wants control over their environment, a will to power. According to

Nietzsche, that is the flaw in Judeo-Christian beliefs; they suppress this power and when

it finally breaks out, they are in turn hypocrites. Nietzsche has stated "God is dead". He

justifies this statement on one end on the soul ground that religious clout has diminished

to the point where he can make that comment without consequence. On the other end the

sheer