About What God Did When He/She/It Found Out Nietzsche Wrote: „God is Dead.“ - Part 2
As explained in Part 1, god wasn’t exactly pleased with the fact this human called Friedrich Nietzsche was proclaiming him/her/it dead. So here we continue with god trying to wrap his/her/its head around the report Jim gave for the year 1883 AD.
„How can he say something like this? Telling everybody I’m dead; I’m not dead, I’m here!“ – god was saying to Jim in a frustrated voice – „I’ve been working really hard to keep the harmony between humans and sure, there have been some failures here and there, but that isn’t enough to accuse somebody of being dead, is it?“
Jim nervously tried to patch everything up: „Well sir, you see, it really isn’t that bad. I’ve read Nietzsche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra and...“
„You’ve actually read the book?! That means you’ve bought the book! For the love of me, even my own employees are turning against me. Isn’t this just great? What’s next, are you going to come with a shirt saying "Nietzsche is awesome, god sucks" tomorrow?“ – god asked.
„N-n-no, sir. I didn’t buy it. I went down there and read along with a woman who bought it. You know, using my divine powers and all. And as far as I understand, Nietzsche didn't mean you’re actually dead. He just thinks that humans have surpassed the idea of a god… I mean you. When he said “God is Dead”, what he meant was that humans no longer need the idea of there being a god. Before, humans created you so they could organize the harmony and give their lives meaning. But now, Nietzsche believes humans have evolved to the point where this idea is less and less needed. He also created this concept of ubermensch, a higher level of human conscience to which he believes humanity is heading. It’s more of a statement concerning humanity than you.” – Jim did his best to explain, but as you might imagine, this also didn’t sit all too well with god.
“So he’s saying I never existed in the first place and that I’m just an idea humans created?! Thanks, Jim, you sure do know how to comfort a god.” – god took few steps and continued: “This isn’t good for business you know. I can’t have a guy spreading this nonsense about me. Most of all, I’m hurt Jim, I’m hurt!”
Jim’s next step was to use historical facts to comfort god – “We survived worse sir. Remember when Renaissance came and all those philosophers started attacking religion? That was far worse than this.” Jim really didn’t want to be late for his 3000th anniversary with his wife.
“Oh shut up Jim. That wasn’t an attack on me; that was an attack on those priests that only had money in mind. I never liked them either. What’s next? Are you going to say the Crusades were my idea as well?” – god stopped for a second but then continued – “You mentioned ubermensch. Won’t that Hitler guy use Nietzsche’s writings to spread his idea couple of decades later?" A rarely seen evil smile appeared on god's face. "Maybe if we tell our marketing team to give this a little push, Nietzsche will get a bad reputation and the problem will be solved. Nothing much, just some propaganda about Nietzsche being a nazi or something…”
“Sir, you’re talking nonsense!!! Are you saying we should slander Nietzsche!? – Jim asked - “That doesn’t exactly go with your rule of not directly intervening in humanity’s business. Imagine the scandal if people found out god killed Nietzsche because god's feeling got hurt.”
“No no, you’re right. I’m talking nonsense. You know how I get when somebody speaks ill of me.” God said.
“Yes sir, I still remember that time when Voltaire said: “If god didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” We were just having a party when you started talking how we should send some disease to kill him. And he also wasn’t speaking about you, but how the idea of god is necessary for humanity to function. Later when he came here, you actually got along pretty well. If I remember it correctly, you had a long talk about those priests you mentioned earlier.” Jim said this while still continuously tapping the floor, just like in Part 1.
“Yes, I remember. I never actually wanted to kill him. I just get emotional sometimes, that’s all. So you think this Nietzsche guy doesn’t hate me? You think he’s all right?” - God asked.
“Yes sir, please don’t kill him or vilify; he’s just concerned about humanity. Hitler will later exploit his ideas anyhow, no need for you to make it harder for him as well.”
“All right, I won’t. I calmed down now. Anything else to report?”
“No sir, but promise you won’t kill Nietzsche?”
“For my sake Jim, who do you think I am? I’m god, and god’s word is absolute. That’s also a rule I’ve created, in case you forgot.” God gave Jim a calm, but authoritative look.
“Sorry, sir. I just want to be sure. All right, I really need to go now; my wife will kill me.”
“Ho ho, don’t worry Jim. If she kills you, I’ll just bring you back here. After all, I am a god."
“T-thank you, sir. But the memory of a chair hitting my head will stay nevertheless. I don’t want that.” Jim said while simultaneously giving the most genuine smile he could muster – “All right, I got to go. Have a good day sir and don’t worry about Nietzsche, everything will be all right.”
“Don’t worry Jim, I already forgot all about it. I’ll go and see how my son is doing. He’s been a bit under the weather again because he thinks he could've done a lot better last time he visited Earth. He believes people didn’t completely understand what he was telling them. Eh, kids, what can you do. He’s still young and full of hope. You could say he got that from his father, right?”
17 years will pass with nothing out of ordinary happening. Like every year, Jim would give the annual report, god went through them and delivered remarks that most of the time only he/she/it found funny. Needless to say, Jim was more than happy with the final result and everything getting back to normal.
Years passed and in the year 1900 AD, Friedrich Nietzsche died after suffering a mental breakdown a decade earlier. People tried to help him but nothing worked. Many doctors tried to diagnose Nietzsche’s illness – from tertiary syphilis to manic-depressive illness and psychosis, but until they managed to find out what was actually wrong with him, Nietzsche suffered at least 3 strokes, with the last one killing him.
On the day Nietzsche died, Jim was walking (floating) home from work thinking how god was even joyful than usual. As he was entering his house, Jim looked up to the sky and saw a simple sentence forming for everyone to see. The sentence said: “FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE IS DEAD” – SIGNED: GOD.