The Case of "the Death of God" and Religion

[Versão em Português]

“God is dead” declared Nietzsche, after the decline of religion in western society back in 1885. Much of it, influenced by the Modernist culture and the enlightenment era, which put reason in the place of faith and challenged traditional religious thought. 

But if God is dead, then necessarily something else must take its place. We see this symbolism when Christ was sentenced to death, Barabas (the thief) was released. Barabas means “son of the father” in Hebrew. So, he was a son of a different father. It’s a new identity. But I’ll talk about that later, let's focus on practical terms of a culture and a thought shift.

If we no longer believe in a transcendent God, then we lose quite a few things, such as: objective morals, values, meaning, purpose, a possible understanding/ transcendence from suffering and a shared commonality as we are created equal in the image of God.

This is the whole foundation of our lives, and this will shape everything else that induces our actions, thoughts, feelings, creativity and perception of reality and the world. Obviously, this shift did not happen immediately, as it takes time for a culture to shift. But if matters were not already bad, postmodernism comes and not only takes away faith, but also truth, reason, meaning, morality and we are left with our own egoic subjectivity, relativism and inevitably nihilism. No wonder we live in a world where a grand portion of the population lives under antidepressants or drugs to escape reality. Also no wonder why politics became a new religion and the secular way of bringing heaven on earth. 

Ok. So, so far I’ve only criticized one side. But what about religion? Even Jesus criticized the pharisees over their hypocrisy (Matthew 23). But little has changed ever since, we confuse religion (latin: religare = to bind, reconnect) with only a historical faith, adoration of mere words, going to churches or temples on sunday and obeying laws in the power of our own will. So nothing good can come out of this; either we are failing because we just can’t fulfil the law on our own, or the few times that we do, we become proud of ourselves and just makes matter worse by empowering one of the worst forms of “sin”: Pride.

We must understand that religion means to re-unite. But reunite with what? What was it that was lost? If we don’t understand that, religion means nothing. So, let's go back into the fall: In genesis, man was created in the image of God, and lived in his presence. Adam and Eve were free to do everything they wished; the only rule was: 

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

So, having freewill, they fell for the temptation of the Serpent (Ego/Our sense of self) which declared:

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5)

What is this knowledge of Good and Evil? It is duality itself. It is the sense of our separateness from God, which is our true identity. This fruit became part of us as our reality and we feed from it. The death that God promised would happen was not a physical death, but a spiritual death. A new identity was opened up, the old “I am” (which is the definition of God in Exodus 3:14), now became I am Mike, or I am Lisa. God is our consciousness itself, our true life, but we rejected this reality and opened up our own, trying to be “like God”, taking the seat of God. That’s when Adam and Eve realized they were naked, their separateness from God, made them open up a reality of an individual self, bound by their own bodies. 

So, from now on, most of the stories of the Bible will symbolize this battle between God, our true consciousness and the Ego (our illusory consciousness).  Cain and Abel, Egypt and Israel, Jonah and Nineveth, Elijah and Baal... Everything changes once you understand the symbolism behind these stories.

Sounds strange to call the concept of our Ego as an illusion? Then, try defining yourself: Are you your body, your profession, your thoughts, your memories, your past? This question has been puzzling philosophers since the dawn of the world. But how can we define an illusion? It is a lie, it is satan, the deceiver, the adversary, it’s the prince of this world, it is what separates us from God. 

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)

“he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.” (Mark 8:33) or 

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) or

 “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James 1:14-15) or

 (Ephesias 2:1-3, Mark 7:18-23, James 1:13-15, Romans 8:7, Proverbs 16:17-19, 1 John 3:8, Philippians3:19, Matthew 6:24-26,  etc…)

I’m reinforcing this because its a huge mistake to put the blame on something outside of ourselves for our mistakes, this is the excuse of Adam and Even in the garden as well. Unable to see themselves as the only perpetrators of their own sin. One excuse I hear is, what about Ephesians 6:12? But in this passage, Paul is clearly stating that our struggle is not against flesh and blood (with each other, with men), but with spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. The mistake is to imagine heavenly realms are somewhere else other than in ourselves: 

“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21)

But it’s far more comfortable to misinterpret one passage and forget about several others, if that prevent us from shining light into our own darkness. It’s painful, it takes responsibility, it takes surrender…

"If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion" - Aldous Huxley

So, clearly I seem to have detracted much from our topic and dived into theological matters more than I should, but I know no other way… Man pretends to be religious but flees from his union back with God. Because in order to reunite ourselves with God, we must inevitably, put our old man (the Ego) to death. Correcting myself, not "we" as not in the power of our Ego (since the Ego, cannot get rid of itself), but in the power of our divine Spirit (Christ in us); we let go of ourselves... Funny enough that is what Nietzsche proposed with his "Übermensch". It’s a self transcendence of the self (ego), by the self (ego) , a self creation, where one creates his own set of values, morals and embrace their “full” potential and their own individuality and their own path in life. Not all of this is bad… But what will guide us in this new creation? It is like drinking to forget you are an alcoholic. I understand his criticism of the conventions of society, but his “caricature” of religion as a source of guilt, weakness, punishment, self-hatred and control is very shallow for a brilliant mind like his. 

And back we are to the old problem of the self (Ego)... That is why there’s a cherub with a flaming sword guarding the entrance of the Garden. Because In order to get back in, you must put to death what expelled you from it. (The hebrew translation for Adam is Mankind), so Adam's story is our story. 

So,the corruption of religion, its hypocrisy, its negation, have certainly contributed to the way people understand what religion is (which is not). And we have thrown the baby with the bathwater one more time. BUT, even the religion misinterpreted by man, it is a big mistake to take it for granted and give all the power to this illusion, the ego, the individual self and its desires, its egocentric subjectivism, its relativisation of morality and its inevitable new faith in the fallen man or worse, in politics (estate) as a way of our redemption as society.  It is a much worse trade off.

But, religion must inevitable revive itself. A reformation that only divinises the written word and faith based on a cheap grace that does not transform man (in this reality), but just gives him a well chosen passage about his instant salvation based on mere words, won't be enough. If churches becomes spectacles with as many special effects for our senses to delight and beautiful words that are pleasant to the ears, we could be doing more harm than good by keep poisoning the well. 

Anyways... There's much at stake, and certainly even this veiled form of religion has given our society uncountable benefits (and some tragedies) and also produced despite of its mainstream mistakes, great saints and certainly have made man at least see himself as a potential form of evil and also as a potential form of good (and objective morals). Having a Transcendental God, gives us the knowledge of transcendence and the possibility of transcending our limited selves. Remember: As much as you desire something, it will be the amount of your transformation; and all transformation necessarily needs a rejection of something old, for something new to arise. 

I've written mostly about christianity because we are part of a western culture (and that was the religion Nietzsche was referring to). But make no mistake, I could say almost the exact same things about different religions. 

I wrote too much, I will continue on part II some other time… I also intend on connecting this with the teachings of the Vedas, Jung, Freud and others.