The Religous Sense: Nietzche

"In his book, The Gay Science, Nietzche tells the story about a mad man who goes to a crowded market place in broad daylight, carrying a lantern and shouting, “I am looking for God! I am Looking for God!” But the crowd simply ridicules him and bombards him with verbal abuse. Turning angrily to the crowd, he declares, “God is dead.” Then he smashes his lantern on the ground. “God is dead,” he continues. “We have killed him, you and I. All of us are his murderers. How did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?”

Commenting on this story, Rolheiser writes, “How can someone kill God? What Nietzche is suggesting with this parable is that unbelief, a certain kind of atheism, is not something which exists primarily outside the circle of those people who take themselves as believers. It is, first of all, a phenomenon within the circle of believers. Simply put, the problem of atheism and unbelief is not so much that the existence of God is denied by certain persons, but that God is absent from the ordinary consciousness and the lives of believer. God is not enough alive or important in ordinary consciousness."

- Most Rev. Fr. Patrick Buzon, D.D. (Philippines)