nietzsche, when he first started his professional career, was a philologist. but then he wrote "beyond good and evil" and he was no longer accepted in the academic community. what he said about this was that he would have been very happy to have remained a philologist but "unfortunately i had to become God."
bwahahaha - now that's confidence*...ironic that it exist so strongly in a depressed man...

we're studying nietzsche right now. completely brilliant man (even though i don't think i agree with him)(much). anyways i just want to clear something up once and for all. any time nietzsche is mentioned anywhere, THE ONLY THING people know about him and say about him is, "oh yeah, you mean the guy who said 'God is dead'? the guy who has no religion or values or beliefs? that guy? who tries to disprove anything anyone believes, and says there is no truth?"
yes, he IS the guy who said 'God is dead.' but people, please, when you read this passage, don't just stop there. continue to read the rest. he said 'God is dead and WE HAVE KILLED HIM.' and his argument makes sense:
1) there is a separation between the dionysian and the apollosian way of acting.
dionysian = passionately, using senses
apollosian = using reason
2) BOTH are necessary in life. you can't only follow one of them. the tension between them is required in your actions.
3) in modernity, because of the renaissance and the enlightenment and the german idealists, we have dispelled with the dionysian way. we see reason as above everything else. we see reason as necessary to suppress the passions and prevent them from ever manifesting themselves.
4) we apply this to nature. so, in nature, reason must be above all else.
5) we have also applied it to God. so we have decided that God must be complete reason and entirely devoid of any relation to passions. i.e. pure reason is the highest thing. God is the highest thing. therefore, God is reason at its fullest expression.
6) the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God (or any God for that matter) is related to passions however. He always participated in history and in people's lives before. He acted on His passions - He became angry and jealous and He loved and such...(for proof, read any religious text).
7) but we no longer allow for this, since we have devoid God of any passions (the dionysian) and therefore, of any ability to interfere in human life.
8) THEREFORE, WE HAVE KILLED HIM, and so God is dead.

so he isn't saying that God is dead, as in God is useless and you should get rid of Him cause then you'll be more free to do whatever you want. he is saying that with our extreme rationalism WE HUMANS have CHOSEN to kill Him.
capiche???


*speaking of confidence: beethoven said about himself, "i wish i had had more time to read philosophers like plato and rousseau, but it was my destiny to become the greatest composer of time." lol, i love it...