ABSTRACT
Nietzsche's attitude toward the death of God alters this Hegelian theme. For Nietzsche, the death of God is a monumental event, which may transfigure humanity by overthrowing its entrenched hereditary inertia and therewith by overcoming humanity itself. One of the reasons for the interpretation of Nietzsche's work as atheistic is that he rejects the Christian conception of God and all other-worldly, moralistic, and supersensory images of God. With this, most scholars take for granted that belief in God is no longer tenable for Nietzsche, and that belief is solely symptomatic of a weak, deteriorating life. Nietzsche addresses the problem of atheism in an especially critical fashion in his discussion of Schopenhauer's "honest, unconditional atheism." In fact, the problem of atheism first led Nietzsche to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's text is sophisticated; it tricks the reader, hermeneutically, in order to sustain a "pathos of distance" from all who are dogmatic, from all who would suppress chaos and unforeseen possibilities.
