Comment by the_third_wave

Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet! Wie trösten wir uns, die Mörder aller Mörder? Das Heiligste und Mächtigste, was die Welt bisher besaß, es ist unter unseren Messern verblutet.

The average teenager who reads Nietzsches proclamation on the death of God thinks of this as an accomplishment, finally we got rid of those thousands of years old and thereby severely outdated ideas and rules. Somewhere along the march to maturity they may start to wonder whether that which has replaced those old rules and ideas were good replacements but most of them never come to the realisation that there were rebellious teenagers during all those centuries when the idea of a supreme being to which or whom even the mightiest were to answer to still held sway. Nietzsche saw the peril in letting go off that cultural safety valve and warned for what might come next.

We are currently living in the world he warned us about and for that I, atheist as I am, am partly responsible. The question to be answered here is whether it is possible to regain the benefits of the old order without getting back the obvious excesses, the abuse, the sanctimoniousness and all the other abuses of power and privilege which were responsible for turning people away from that path.