"God is (not) dead."

I'm not sure how to say this without coming off as mean, or a know-it-all, but here it goes.

I kindly request that my facebook friends who are sharing and posting the "God is not dead" meme/picture learn a bit more about what Nietzsche actually meant by that statement. What is being said in the three words this meme responds to ("God is dead") is insanely complex. Scholars have different opinions about what he actually meant. When that picture is posted as some sort of response to an 'atheistic world-view' it is responding to an argument is not really being made by the statement, "God is dead."

Here is where the phrase first appeared, in the words of Neitzsche's 'madman':

"God is dead. God remains dead. *And we have killed him*. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"
—Nietzsche, The Gay Science

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