Church Vandals: This Nietzschean Anarchist Condemns You

by JJ Epic | Jul 29, 2009 | 29 comments

By Andrew Carroll

Seeing the trenchant prose of Friedrich Nietzsche disrespectfully spray-painted on a church building, coupled with anarchy symbols and clichéd atheist mantras, left this particular Nietzschean anarchist with a bad taste in his mouth.

With no actual knowledge of Nietzschean or anarchist philosophy to stop them – and plenty of angst to aid them – the vandals have made nothing but fools of themselves, even amongst fellow anarchists, atheists, and Nietzsche fans.

The famous, and usually misunderstood, quote “God is dead” is not, as our vandals seem to think, a criticism of the concept of God and any ethics derived therefrom, as much as it is a challenge to the atheists of the world, to the godless, whose value system is inherently nihilistic.  This nihilism is something that Nietzsche believes must be overcome (and he died trying to do it).  He believed the atheist must struggle, in a world without God, to create his own values and find his own meaning.  Thus Zarathustra, the character who speaks the famous quote, goes on to say that we, after killing God as a source of value, must “become Gods ourselves…”  In other words, we must become the source of our own values.

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