Nietzsche Arguments Persuasive Essay
Perhaps the most convincing arguments Nietzsche makes for the idea that God is either dead or does not exist is the idea that God is a creation of Western society, a universal ideal of morality, truth and ethics. When he argues then that those things no longer exist, if indeed they ever did, as a unifying factor in European culture, he makes a convincing argument that God was merely a creation of humanity to fulfill a spiritual need for there to be a greater good or high purpose for life. In Nietzsche’s argument, the next step after the acceptance of the death of God is a step toward nihilism and the idea that life has no meaning.
On a personal level, choosing to accept the idea that God does not exist gives the reader the ultimate freedom and responsibility for his own life. The reader can no longer blame personal decisions on some epic struggle between good and evil, but must acknowledge that his or her actions are his own, chosen based on her own wants, needs and perceptions. The idea that there is no higher power to answer to can be emotionally devastating or it can be liberating.
For many the idea of God has always been a strange dichotomy as most religious preach a god of mercy and love and yet bad, often horrible, things happen, even to those who are devout worshippers of that god. Too often, the religious have tried to explain away why God allows bad things to happen. From hurricanes to the Holocaust, there has never been a logical explanation for a God of love and mercy to allow evil. Some have argued that evil must exist to show good for what it is, but that too is simply hiding behind the reality. One does not have to eat a good apple to know when one is bad and vice versa. Any act can be judged on its own merit without the benefit of the opposing force.
Therefore, determining that God does not exist only matters when the person who discovers this decides it matters. For those with no faith, the death of God means nothing. For people of faith, it is a devastating conclusion. However, it seems that it should be argued that people of faith, for whom seeing is not believing, should never become convinced that God does not exist and should be completely unaffected by Nietzsche. In essence, since God is a concept defined by man, its importance is likewise defined by man.
