If God is dead, does mankind become God?

THE MADMAN
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. 'Has he got lost?' asked one. 'Did he lose his way like a child?' asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed.The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.""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? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves."It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

the idea that if God is dead, someone has to take His place, because life without a 'sovereign reality' is unlivable.

i don't think it's necessary that anything become god.

People who find life -with- a 'sovereign reality' to be unlivable, should consult a psychiatrist in order to have that depression treated.

we all manage to get out of bed in the morning, just fine.

that story is about the shifting cultural norms of europe away from a collective belief in the christian god concept.

I assume you meant to say without?, ...

I suppose you would be willing to give up your reality with ease?

Perhpas you are unawre how sovereign your own worldview is philosophically.

A striking figure once said that a rich man had as much chance of entering heaven as a Camel through the eye of a needle.

I wouldn't worry about my depression nwr, ...

However, philosophically speaking, God is reality (whatever God may be), reality is truth, and truth is the motivator, or the goal. So in that way, if there is no direction (or God), then that is God.

I don't claim ownership of reality. Rather, I deal with it as I find it.

I'm skeptical of worldview ideas in philosophy, particularly as they are used by fundamentalist theologians. They use it to hide from the fact that their theology is out of touch with reality.In any case, my own world view is constantly under revision, and has changed greatly over the last 15 years.

A striking figure once said that a rich man had as much chance of entering heaven as a Camel through the eye of a needle.I'm quite familiar with that text. It seem to pose more of a problem for fundamentalists than it does for me, for a desire for riches has never been a driving force in my life.

However, philosophically speaking, God is reality (whatever God may be), reality is truth, and truth is the motivator, or the goal. So in that way, if there is no direction (or God), then that is God. In which case our friend Eisenhower was speaking nonsense.

So, in other words, the word "God" means everything, every definition possible; and therefore means nothing.

I guess that if you define "God" to arbitrarily mean whatever you decide it means, and at that point, mankind - or anything else - can very well be "God". But if you think you've communicated a useful idea at that point, you're mistaken.