Dead Men Who Are Still With Us Today Episode 3

 If Freud moved authority inside the self, Nietzsche removed authority altogether.

With Nietzsche, the modern world crossed a line. God was no longer reinterpreted, psychologicalized, or marginalized — He was declared unnecessary. And once that declaration was made, everything built on Him was suddenly up for renegotiation.

Nietzsche did not merely critique religion. He diagnosed Western culture and concluded that its moral framework could not survive the loss of God. His famous announcement that “God is dead” was not a celebration — it was a warning.

The Death of Objective Truth

Nietzsche understood something many of his followers missed: if God is removed, objective truth cannot remain. Moral claims become expressions of power, preference, or perspective.

Truth, in this framework, is no longer discovered — it is created.

This was a decisive shift. What had once been received is now asserted. What had once judged humanity is now judged by it.

Power Replaces Morality

With no transcendent standard, Nietzsche argued that values are produced by the strong and imposed upon the weak. Morality becomes a strategy. Compassion becomes suspect. Humility becomes a weakness disguised as virtue.

The goal is no longer faithfulness, but dominance — not submission to truth, but the will to power.

This way of thinking did not remain confined to philosophy. It flowed into politics, education, art, and eventually everyday assumptions about right and wrong.

Why Nietzsche Still Rules

Nietzsche rules from the grave whenever truth is treated as personal, morality as flexible, and conviction as oppression. He rules wherever certainty is mocked and clarity is treated as dangerous.

You don’t need to quote Nietzsche to live downstream from him. His influence shows up whenever the question is no longer “Is it true?” but “Who gets to decide?”

Scripture in a World Without God

The Bible cannot be neutralized by Nietzsche’s framework. It either stands as revelation or is dismissed as power language. When Scripture claims authority, it is no longer debated — it is accused.

This explains much of the modern hostility toward the Bible. The issue is not interpretation alone, but authority itself.

The Consequence of Refusal

When God is removed, man kind does not become free — it becomes responsible for inventing meaning it cannot sustain. The burden of authorship is heavier than it first appears.

Nietzsche saw this clearly. The tragedy is that many who followed him embraced the critique without counting the cost.

Where This Leaves Us

Once truth is reduced to power, dialogue collapses. Persuasion gives way to force. And when Scripture refuses to cooperate with this framework, it is blamed — not the assumptions brought against it.

Stay with me.

In the next installment, we’ll look at a thinker who took Nietzsche’s ideas out of philosophy and embedded them into education and culture — shaping not just what people believe, but how they are taught to think.

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