The Spiritual Problem of the "Death of God"

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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?

this statement written by Friedrich Nietzsche almost 140 years ago is one of the most famous and controversial statements ever written in all philosophy. Nietzsche didn't actually mean that God is dead, rather that our idea of God was. He believed that the world no longer needed God as the source for all morality, value, or order in the universe, philosophy and science were capable of doing that for us and should take the place religion used to have.

Nietzsche believed this to be a good thing for some people, but also very difficult and risky. He believed that it would turn out to be one of the biggest problems for the modern individual and it would possible bring out the worst of our human nature. With more and more people realising the origin of humans and of our human nature, that we are not the center of the universe, and that the meaning of life isn't what we used to believe, Nietzsche believed that we would unavoidably fall into a state of despair, pessimism or nihilism because of this.

The Spiritual Problem of the

What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism... For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe.

How totally different did the world appear to medieval man! For him the earth was eternally fixed and at rest in the centre of the universe…Men were all children of God under the loving care of the Most High, who prepared them for eternal blessedness; and all knew exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves in order to rise from a corruptible world to an incorruptible and joyous existence. Such a life no longer seems real to us, even in our dreams.

- Carl Jung

With this existential uncertainty brought to us be the decline of religion, we all feel insignificant or uncertain or even worthless at one point in our life. With the realisation that the only one who can truly judge us, is our selfs, the only option seem to be that our psyche turns uncertain about everything metaphysical and leaves us in an existential crisis. This can turn detrimental for our psyche, and our consciousness will start to self-regulate in an unconscious manner to try to bring the psyche back to normal state. This will lead to that we start looking for answers that we can not possible find, and none the less, we will actually believe that we have found them.

Thus our unconsciousness will start to lie to us, in a way of trying to repair our consciousness and bring us back to a normal and healthy psychological state.

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
― Fyodor Dostoevsky,

The Spiritual Problem of the

This is the danger of the increasing realisation of "the death of God" and of Atheist who have not consciously thought out their new Ideals.

If we let our unconsciousness lie to us, then we no longer are in control over our own mind. We will no longer be able to think for our selves, and then there are no way of knowing what other ideologies our mind will manifest itself to. this we can see in marxist/socialists, feminists and of course in religious people.

Small and hidden is the door that leads inward, and the entrance is barred by countless prejudices, mistaken assumptions, and fears. Always one wishes to hear of grand political and economic schemes, the very things that have landed every nation in a morass. Therefore it sounds grotesque when anyone speaks of hidden doors, dreams, and a world within. What has this vapid idealism got to do with gigantic economic programmes, with the so-called problems of reality?

But I speak not to nations, only to the individual few, for whom it goes without saying that cultural values do not drop down like manna from heaven, but are created by the hands of individuals. If things go wrong in the world, this is because something is wrong with the individual, because something is wrong with me. Therefore, if I am sensible, I shall put myself right first. For this I need—because outside authority no longer means anything to me—a knowledge of the innermost foundations of my being, in order that I may base myself firmly on the eternal facts of the human psyche.

- Carl Jung

The Spiritual Problem of the "Death of God"
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