Daffy Duck

Looks that's all very interesting, but for the lazy person, could you give us the gist of it in a paragraph?

*

People, myself included, chuck off at established religion, but it needs no theism to see that a man would be a fool to consider that he has nothing to learn from the scriptures; and that he is superior in mind and soul to all those who found high and enduring value in them.

... would be a fool to consider that he has nothing to learn from the scriptures...
Cumberland,
I'm not religious at all but I totally agree with what you're saying !

If God is dead, why do we miss Him so?

In a personal sense, this is not a relevant question, since belief in god is non existent without faith as a driver of belief.
The numbers involved in the belief system are irrelevant.

Belief in God as a socially binding mechanism, is also irrelevant, since society comprises a multitude of overlaying belief systems, which together define society.

If society is seen to be in decline, it’s more likely to be a fault of the political system, and not a question of religious belief.

Dan

"We may count Angela Merkle and Joe Biden as politicians whose lives are grounded in the Christian tradition".

That would be the worst advertisement for Christianity ever.

.

Dear Peter,

.

You wrote :

« … Nietzsche who, despite his atheism, lamented the death of God as a momentous event that untethered us. »
.

Though Friedrich Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran pastor and former teacher – who died when Friedrich was only five years old – he grew up not believing in God.

Nietzsche was not only a philosopher, he was also a poet, as the expression “Gott ist tot” (God is dead) attests. He probably could not resist the use of the playful assonance for effect, but the phrase should not be interpreted literally. It was not exactly what he meant.

The original quote from “Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft” (The Gay Science) is : “Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet!” (God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him).

He didn’t mean that there was a God who had died, but that our idea that there was a God had died. The Enlightenment had revealed that the universe was governed by physical laws, not by divine providence. Governments did not need divine right to be legitimate but be freely elected by the people. And moral theories did not need to be “revealed” by a God to be conceived.

Nietzsche realised that not only was God dead but that human beings had killed him with their scientific revolution to gain a better understanding of the world, its origin, and evolutionary process.

While Nietzsche was persuaded that this was a good thing for some people, saying: “... at hearing the news that 'the old god is dead, we philosophers and 'free spirits' feel illuminated by a new dawn”, he nevertheless thought that most people would have difficulty facing-up to a godless and seemingly meaningless world – unless they had an alternative existential philosophy to replace it.

Despite that, I don’t think it is true to say, as you indicate in your article, Peter, that Nietzsche “lamented” the death of God.

Nietzsche was not a nihilist. He had faith in life – here and now – not in some hypothetical “after-life”.

.

To Peter Sellick who writes: "After so many of us have shrugged off the existence of God because it is impossible that He exists under our materialist terms and because He is an affront to our freedom, there remains a nostalgia for God, a longing to be at one with our neighbour and the world and perhaps even to stand in the midst of a congregation and be overcome by awe. Like the prodigal, we feel unmoored, and our newfound freedom has the taste of desperation."

This is one of your most egregious efforts among the glossolalian vastness of fantasy that has marked your contribution to OLO
A significant number of us had no need of shrugging off anything in order to develop and grow into a normal human being. So many? Have you the resources, the intellectual honesty and energy to advise roughly how many? Every one of us is born without belief and would continue in that most excellent, simple and innocent condition until we shrug off our mortal coil, were it not for the intellectually vulnerable who fear being alone in a cold and hostile Universe, who cringe and pee their pants at the thought of there being no all powerful friend and protector. The prospect leaves a hole in their mind that one could metaphorically drive a truck through. (223)Cont....