God did not die, we killed him.
27
Jun
It is a bad reading of Nietzsche’s idea that God died, what happens in the
reading of “The gaia science” (Nietszche, 2017), first that speaks of science, according to which Gaia in the Greek sense refers to Mother Earth and finally , the madman “began to shout incessantly:
“I seek God. ” Let’s see his own text, although the translation may have imperfections: “crazy man. “They did not hear of this crazy man who lit a lantern in the morning and ran to the market, and he began to shout ceaselessly,” I’m looking for God! I seek God! “? “And as there were many of those who did not believe in God, he aroused a great laugh. So he’s lost? One of them asked. Did he lose himself as a child? Another said. Are you hiding? Is he afraid of us? Did you board a ship? You emigrated? They shouted and laughed at each other.
The madman threw himself between them and pierced them with his gaze. “Where did God go?” He shouted, “I’ll tell you! We killed them – you and me. We are all his killers! But how did we do it? How did we manage to drink the sea entirely? Who gave us the sponge to erase the horizon? What have we done to unleash the land of your sun? Where does she move now? Where do we move to? Away from all the suns? Do not we continually fall?
Back, to the sides, to the front, in all directions? Are there still ‘above’ and ‘below’? Do not we wander like that through an infinite nothingness? Do not we feel the breath of the vacuum? Has not he become colder? Does not darkness everlast? Do not we have to light lanterns in the morning? Did we not hear the noise of the gravediggers bury God? Do not we smell divine putrefaction? – the gods rot too! God is dead! God is still dead!
And we killed them! How can we console ourselves, murderers among the murderers? The strongest and most sacred the world had ever possessed bleed whole under our daggers – who will cleanse us this blood? With what water could we wash? What atoning rites, what sacred games will we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this act too great for us? Should not we ourselves become gods, to at least seem worthy of it?
There has never been a greater act – and whoever comes after us will belong, because of that act, to a story higher than the whole story until then! “At that moment he silenced the mad man, and again looked at his listeners: they too were silent looking amazed at him. “I come too soon,” he said then, “is not yet my time. This enormous event is on the way, it still walks: it has not yet reached the ears of men.
Sparkle and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, the acts, even after they was done, need time to be seen and heard. This act is still more distant to them than the furthest constellation – and yet they have committed! – It is also told the same day the mad man broke into several churches, and in each one intoned his Requiem aeternaum deo. Taken out and interrogated, he merely replied, “What are these churches, if not the mausoleums and tombs of God?”
In the next post, I suggest some interpretations, including a Christian one, now make yours.
NIETZSCHE, F. A gaia ciência. Aforismo 125, LeBooks, 2017. (in portuguese, ebook).
