Currently I am in the process of having to write on various Nietzschean ideas, one of which is potentially the concept of 'God is dead' as I understand it from Nietzsche's perspective. Now, Nietzsche basically uses this concept academically and from an atheistic perspective, claiming that God is purely an invention of man and that humanity has ceased to believe in God. He further believes that we all live our lives now through a series of reactions to this point. Either we are in mourning, we refuse to accept this or we accept that God is dead and live our lives morally as we wish.
Naturally I disagree with Nietzsche but I understand how, academically he can reach such a viewpoint. As someone else once said along the lines 'Nietzsche may not believe in God but I wonder if God believes in Nietzsche'. This is not a verbatim quote but it covers the concept as I heard it and explains a touch of Nietzsche's pride, ambition and lack of humility.
Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was this comment from someone on this idea. They stated that God was extremely dead with the overwhelming amount of good and bad in this world evidence for that. Which, as a claim, made my head real for a second or two. The reason for this is that, theologically, such a claim makes little sense to me. Oh, I understand the rationale behind such a claim, it's just that to my mind God - at least within Christianity - explains the existence of good and evil, good and evil does not defy the existence of God.
This is the biggest issue I have with Nietzsche from all my reading to this point. He consistently links religion to morality. Now, religions across the board are exceptionally focused on morality - even the more extreme of them. Yet, the issue is that he believes all religions are focused on making you become a 'good' person in order to gain some kind of spiritual or eternal reward. Not to mention that 'good' is an arbitrary and subjective concept, Christianity for instance is not about making people 'good' but eternally perfect. Which is another topic aside from this one.
Anyway, theologically Christianity states that it was man's own choices - defying God's instructions (original sin) - that lead to the existence of good and evil. So the point I am making is that yes, to me to hear that good and evil are somehow evidence for a non-existence of a God is flawed in its logic. Of course I understand the logic used to reach that point of conjecture, it merely does not flow well with me.
So is God dead? Well, it depends on what you choose to believe. I believe that he was, but that he also rose again. Others choose to believe as Nietzsche did, that he is a concept that no longer has any relevance and is 'dead'. Many things matter according to the perspective. Only that whether God is dead or not has no relevance if the ultimate truth is that he is and always will be...