11-19-2004, 12:03 PM
|
#42 (permalink)
|
|
Mad Philosopher
|
That's true and it's not; it's true that it's usually taken out of context as you say, but what Nietzsche meant was that the concept 'God' was no longer relevant to society, and that society didn't realize it yet. If you'll excuse a lengthy quote (I really like this passage). (Bugger, it's in German. Translation is mine, quote is at vol. 3, pp 480-2 of the Kritische Studienausgabe).
Quote:
|
Did you not hear of the crazy man, who on a bright morning lit a lantern, ran to the market, and cried without ceasing "I'm looking for God! I'm looking for God!" Since there were many people standing there who did not believe in God, this caused great laughter. "Did he get lost?" said one. "Did he run away like a kid?" said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Did he get on a ship? Emigrate? So they shouted and laughed in confusion. The crazy man lept into their midst and bored through them with his glance. "Where is God?" he cried, "I will tell you! We have killed him, you and I. We are all murderers. But how did we do this? How were we able to drink up the seas? Who gave us a sponge to wipe away the horizon? What did we do, when we unchained the earth from her sun? Where are we moving to? Away from all suns? Are we not falling ceaselessly? And backward, sidewards, forwards, to all sides? Is there yet an over and an under? Are we not erring through unending nothingness? Isn't empty space breathing down on us? Hasn't it gotten colder? Isn't there coming evermore night and more night? Mustn't we light lanterns in the morning? Don't we hear the noise of the gravediggers, who are burying God? Do we not yet smell anything of the divine rot? of the rot of gods? God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How are we to comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? The holiest and most powerful that the world possessed -- it has bled to death under our knives. Who will wash this blood from us? With what water could we be cleaned? What feast of atonement, what holy games must we invent? Isn't the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not become gods ourselves, merely to appear worthy of it? There never was a greater deed -- and whoever is born after us belongs to a higher history than all history up to now by virtue of it!" Here the crazy man fell silent and looked again to his listeners: they were also silent and looked at him alienated. Finally he threw his lantern to the ground, so that it broke into pieces and was extinguished. "I have come too early" he said then, "It is not yet time. This monstrous event is still undeway and wanders -- it has not yet pushed to the ears of men. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars need time, deeds need time, even have they have been done, to be seen and heard. This deed is further from you than the furthest stars -- and yet you have done it!" They tell further, that the crazy man the same day invaded different churches and there intoned his Requiem aeternam Deo. Driven out and pushed to speak, he always said just this: "What are these churches now, if not the crypts and gravestones of God?"
|
__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
|
|
|