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Example research essay topic: God Is Dead Thousands Of Years - 1,420 words

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God is Dead? My grasp of Nietzsche s statement God is dead fluctuates between an almost enlightened comprehension of what he means to a virtual stupor of confusion. However, during my more lucid moments of understanding (which I like to believe outweigh the moments of stupor hood), I see his point on a variety of levels. Nietzsche s writings on the subject are loaded with meaning; he purposely leaves his words wide open to interpretation. Just how we absorb Nietzsche s ideas on the subject of God s death, however, are directly contingent on who or what we think God really is. Nietzsche seems to approach God as a concept rather than a man.

This results in a somewhat paradoxical slur, because concepts generally don t live in a tangible enough sense for them to also die. Personally, I see Nietzsche s God as a personification of a concept. This concept is not easily definable itself; it can be either a somewhat broad religious conception of divinity, or; God can represent religious values and fundamentals themselves. Nietzsche s defense of his claim that God is dead operates on many planes.

It is this that compels me to describe not one, but several of the reasons I extracted as to why, exactly, God is dead. Religion, for Nietzsche, is a regimen of doctrines. Religious practice, observance, and faith are facilitated by a set of rules. The regulations imposed by religion are life-defining: religion dictates how we should compose ourselves in life, as well as what in life we perceive as important. Straying from the boundaries of religious teaching is unholy, and ultimately, bad, in that doing so defies holy instruction. When God says Thou Shalt, there are no options for an observant follower.

Within the structured laws of religion, there is no room left to assert one s power to will freely. Nietzsche illustrates this by presenting a conceptual dragon representative of this notion: Thou shalt is the name of the dragon... Values, thousands of years old, shine on these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: All Value of all things shines on me. All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily, there shall be no more I will. (139) Creative will is effectively eradicated by religion s thou shalt's; by the word of this God, this conception of divinity. (586) Those who assert their power to will freely are in danger of opposing what is good, as defined by religious teachings.

They are looked upon by the good as malign, heretical, blasphemous, and possibly even sickly. But why? asks Nietzsche: , , Behold the good and the just... behold believers of all faiths! Whom do they hate most? The man who breaks their table of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker; yet he is the creator (136) To Nietzsche, it is the creator who is virtuous.

It is the creator who has the power to assert their creative will. This Power is a new and paramount virtue. What is good? , asks Nietzsche, Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. Nietzsche recognizes the power to will freely as the most important of all virtues. This is what he believes we must strive for. Religion, on the other hand, is an institution of the weak: those who do not have the power to will freely let the word of God decide for them. (572) This virtuous creator is Nietzsche s overman.

He represents the height of human capacity, of human spirit; a divine spirit. The overman is the essence of maximized human capability. This being is Nietzsche s conception of divinity. For a religious thinker, however, God is the conception of divinity. This fact in itself is not necessarily the root of what Nietzsche is critical of; according to Nietzsche, the divine (whatever it may be) should innately represent and promote the will to power, to create freely. However, religion propagates nihilism: religious adherents surrender their creative freedom to the rigid confines of God s curriculum.

Nietzsche s contention is this: If the spirit, or the essence, or the geist of divinity does not promote creativity and Power as a virtue, than this spirit, or essence, or geist or God must not exist. This God, or conception of divinity, must have died, otherwise this divine force would necessarily cultivate our will to power. I strongly believe that Nietzsche sees the initial conception of a God as a positive point in human development. The idea of a God reflects a certain creative drive, the creator spiritus of humanity.

The mighty God of the ancient Israelites reflected their own power and potential as a people. This idea of a refined and superior being is very similar to Nietzsche s overman: an ultimate expression of our virtues, a model of what we strive for. After this initial monotheistic revelation by the Jews, however, creativity completely stagnates. How can anyone today still submit to the simplicity of Christian theologians to the point of insisting with them that the development of the conception of God from the God of Israel, the god of a people, to the Christian God, the quintessence of everything good, represents progress? (584) The Jewish God and the Christian God are too similar to be considered a progression. Additionally, this only slightly updated god has remained unchanged for ages.

The same doctrines, respectively, have governed both religious faiths for centuries. But our knowledge of the physical world (which Nietzsche regards as much more important) has progressed steadily, moving in directions which are contradictory to religious fundamentals. All the methods, all the presuppositions of our current scientific outlook, were opposed for thousands of years with the most profound contempt. (579) The omniscient God that once provided absolute truths has since been proved wrong. This God has died, obviously rendering him incapable of offering more pertinent wisdom. The increasing staleness of God s teaching is representative of a decline in the essence of holiness, and also shows God s descent, literally, into death. Although neither an exact or approximate date can be specified, Nietzsche notices that, in retrospect, we can witness the slow but unmistakable degeneration of the divine spirit.

The proud, inspiring God that once existed as a powerful force (and I emphasize force, hoping to imply a noticeable presence) has degenerated, step by step, into a mere symbol... (584) The supposedly omnipotent substance of this Godly presence no longer exists on its own, but rather is represented through a symbol, or evoked, possibly, through the construction of a house of worship. What truly exists should not require any form of symbolic representation. It should represent itself as an existing entity. To recognize God, most observers depend on symbolic expressions, or mediates such as priests to invoke heavenly interaction. Whereas this Godly force might have once been full of life, it has since died. I perceived Nietzsche s sentiments about the death of God as wholly life-affirming and completely optimistic.

Even for me, as an unenthusiastic atheist (if anything definable), the notion of God being dead resonates in my mind as being rather morbid, and disturbingly pessimistic. To the contrary, however, Nietzsche s overman concept serves as a very uplifting and empowering idea. It seems unfair of me to put ultimate trust and devotion into something which I don t really know exists. A new pride my ego taught me, speaks Zarathustra, and this I teach men: no longer to bury your head in the sands of heavenly things, but to bear it freely, an earthly head, which creates meaning for the earth. Why should I concern myself trying to interact with something I cannot say I have experienced first-hand, and strive towards an admittedly unattainable set of heavenly standards and virtues (represented by God)? Rather, why not assert my tangible, realistic power over the world in which I exist (and which I know for certain exists), and attempt to empower myself to the limit of my own, human capabilities.

Nietzsche s overman is within all of us. The spirit of God has never manifested itself as anything recognizable to me. Why should I not trust myself enough to say in all honesty that I have not experienced God close enough to affirm any actual belief in his / her /it s existence? I guess in some sense, God is dead, for all I know; if he were alive, I d imagine that I d know for sure.


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Research essay sample on God Is Dead Thousands Of Years

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