God is dead

"God is dead" (German:  "Gott ist tot" ; also known as the death of God) is a widely quoted statement by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It first appears in Nietzsche's 1882 collection The Gay Science (also translated as "The science of joy" German: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft) It is most famously associated however with Nietzsche's classic work Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra), which is most responsible for popularizing the phrase. The idea is stated in "The Madman" as follows:

But the best known passage is at the end of part 2 of Zarathustra's Prolog, where after beginning his allegorical journey Zarathustra encounters an aged ascetic who expresses misanthropy and love of God:

But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: 'Could it be possible! This old saint has not heard in his forest that God is dead!'

Although the statement and its meaning is attributed to Nietzsche it is important to note that this was not a unique position as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel pondered the death of God, first in his Phenomenology of Spirit where he considers the death of God to 'not [be] seen as anything but an easily recognized part of the usual Christian cycle of redemption'. Later on Hegel writes about the great pain of knowing that God is dead 'The pure concept, however, or infinity, as the abyss of nothingness in which all being sinks, must characterize the infinite pain, which previously was only in culture historically and as the feeling on which rests modern religion, the feeling that God Himself is dead, (the feeling which was uttered by Pascal, though only empirically, in his saying: Nature is such that it marks everywhere, both in and outside of man, a lost God), purely as a phase, but also as no more than just a phase, of the highest idea.' Of course the spirit in which it is intended is a verily Nietzsche manifestation, however it is important to consider the material that gave rise to this idea.

God is dead (disambiguation)

"God is dead" is a widely quoted statement by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

God is dead may also refer to:

God Is Dead?

"God Is Dead?" is a song by rock band Black Sabbath featured on the album 13. It is the first single from the album, and the first with Ozzy Osbourne since 1998's "Psycho Man" and "Selling My Soul" from Reunion. The song was released via an MP3 download on Amazon. It was also available as a free download to those who pre-ordered the full album on iTunes. The song in its entirety was posted on the official YouTube channel in promotion of this. Both the song title and figure on the single's cover, by Heather Cassils, are a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher who is famous for saying that "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?".

"God Is Dead?" reached No. 6 on the UK Rock Charts.

The music video, directed by Peter Joseph, known for the Zeitgeist film series, was released on 10 June 2013.

The song was featured in the second promo for the sixth season of Sons of Anarchy, a FX network television series.