The Arrival of the Death of God

Abstract

While there are many sincere religious believers, this culture no longer believes in God. That is why the Covid-19 pandemic did not raise serious issues of theodicy publicly. Friedrich Nietzsche’s Madman announcing the Death of God in 1882 concluded that he had come too early. His time is now. The Death of God unfolded through the disenchantment described by Max Weber and arrived with full force with the New Atheists in the early part of this century. Sam Harris announced the end of faith, which turned out to mean, in its denial of binding authority and objective justification, the death of truth. Now we each judge everything ourselves. The New Atheists also undermined human solidarity in politics. The breakdown in public life is the final flowering of the Death of God.