DID FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE really believed God is dead?

The famous phrase “God is dead” is derived from a parable the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in his book The Gay Science. Many people who quote Nietzsche mistakenly think that God’s death (or more precisely, the death of the idea of God) is a happy, liberating idea. But Nietzsche thought otherwise. In his parable, Nietzsche tells the story of a madman who in the early hours lights a lantern and runs to the marketplace shouting, “Where is God?” At first the people in the marketplace who do not believe in God respond with teasing humor. Did he lose his way like a child? Does he hide from us? Is he on a journey? Then the madman leaps up and with piercing eyes says, “Whither is God? I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers.” But the madman is quick to let the people of the town know of how serious their deed was. He continues: 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?345 Nietzsche’s point is clear. The absence of God also entails the absence of purpose and meaning in the universe. The French atheistic existentialist Jean Paul Sartre agreed with Nietzsche and found it “extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven.”346 Like the Earth untethered from the sun, life without God has no direction or purpose." - from Trent Horn's Answering Atheism: How to Make the Case for God with Logic and Charity
#GodIsDead
#FriedrichNietzche
#AnsweringAtheism
#TrentHorn
#Atheism