What's that smell?

"God is dead"

Nietzsche's lantern carrying sage descended from the mountains with that message, his dismay at being ignored overcome by calm when he realized "Oh... I have come to soon." And he certainly had, that was over 100 years ago. It was scandalous at the time, and probably only the fact that during his lifetime Nietzsche's writings were not particularly popular kept more harm from not being leveled his way. Character assassination was about the best that could be done as he had first gone crazy then died long before his works became standard reading. Interestingly, that same statement would again be equally as scandalous today amongst many in the mainstream, certainly to our glorious president it would be, though I'd like to hope he doesn't represent the mainstream (but I fear to an extent he does). In the roughly 120 years since it's publication, has God really died any more?

I wonder this because of a book I too am now reading, the End of Faith. I'm having a difficult time getting through it because I'm finding so much to loath about humanity in it. I knew about the Spanish Inquisition, the various witch "trials" throughout Europe and the early U.S., but reading graphic details of what people did to other people in those times was unreal. And all done in the name of Jesus and the protection of "society", "children", and "our neighbors". If there is any doubt as to the equanimity of Christian insanity and Muslim insanity, one need only pick up a history book. But certainly that will not happen, since the only book the modern citizen needs is the Bible, right?

A few years ago I was teaching at a summer music camp in Spokane, WA. Being fairly rural (despite it's size of nearly 600,000 people) and near to Idaho, there are various fundamental sects all around the area. I grew up running into them often enough, as well as run of the mill mainstream fanatics, the ones that seem so normal until they start to talk (you know, the president's "base"). One of those I ran into at the music camp, she was a violinist and we struck up a conversation before lunch. We continued it through all of lunch and the break afterward, about an hour and a half worth. While there were many highlights to the insanity, this one still sticks out in my mind;

"You can't have too open a mind, or the thoughts will fall out."

This girl, who was about 17, was bright and articulate, obviously talented and smart, but also from a profoundly fundamentalist family. When I heard her say that I had the thought trumpet through my mind "Oh... I've come too late."

I've thought of her comment many times while I've read, since it seems to be the underlying philosophy for most of humanity, whether they would admit it or not, and I'm finding it wildly disturbing. While I would like to be able to sit back and say "bah, let the crazies do what they will, I'll do my thing they can do theirs," I can't. Religion has become outdated, superfluous, and downright dangerous, and this I've been reminded of after reading only 1/4 of the book. God's time has come, and it's time for humanity to open their minds and stop worshiping over a rotting corpse.

Because really God has been dead for a very long time now, we've just become used to the smell.