Wed 14 January 2026

Content Warning: this post is a downer. I will be dealing with issues of religious manipulation and existential guilt

Chidi grabs the drug dealer by the hoodie while reciting Nietzsche

In yesterday's post*, I discussed my favorite episode (s03e05 "Jeremy Bearimy") of my favorite series (The Good Place). I didn't want to spoil too much of the episode for those who hadn't already seen it, but Chidi's entire arc in that episode is just so good, and honestly so funny and relatable. I seriously could have copied and pasted the entire script for that part of the episode (Chidi's mental collapse) and analyzed all of it, but didn't want to spoil it for new viewers.

*I do recommend you read yesterday's post before this one

There is, however, one part I do want to focus on. Immediately after the "Jeremy Bearimy" conversation with Michael, Janet, and the other three humans, Chidi walks off, alone, disillusioned, and discombobulated. He immediately runs into a drug dealer:

DRUG DEALER: Hey, you want to talk to God?
CHIDI (grabs him by the hoodie)
CHIDI: "God is dead.
"God remains dead, and we have killed him.
"Who will wipe this blood off us?
"What festivals of atonement, what sacred
games shall we have to invent?"
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882.
DRUG DEALER: I was just trying to sell you some drugs, and you made it weird!

This scene was a bit of a sleeper for me, as it was in the midst of an episode packed with comedic and emotional impact. I felt my mind subconsciously bookmark that quote without really knowing why. Re-watch after re-watch, that daft Nietzsche quote gnawed at the back of my mind until I finally stopped and confronted it.

Here is a more complete excerpt of the quote (from Die fröhliche Wissenschaft):

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."

Now, most Christians will rather confidently tell you that God is not dead. There's a song called "God's Not Dead" that's kind of catchy, and there's also a movie called God's Not Dead, which I would like to say is one of the worst Christian films I've ever seen, but that is a breathtakingly low bar. 😂

Since I don't really think that God is dead, why did this crazy quote get jammed in my cognitive food processor?

Well, I'm no philosopher (nor indeed a Nietzschean), but my understanding is that the thrust of what he was getting at is that during his time, the place of God (religion) in public life and reason was effectively dead.
I'd hate to be the one to tell Friedrich that there are more gods now than ever: gods of violence, strife, lust, pride, rapine, arrogance, and greed. Postmodern humanity has "more offenses at [its] beck than… thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.". Nothing has fundamentally changed, even if academia did, for a time, earn a reprieve from dogmatic ideological meddling. Now, even that has reverted to kipple.

So again, why is this little quote rattling around in my head?

I think a lot of it has to do with the period of mourning I'm going through in my personal life. I am still scrambling to even map out the magnitude of the loss. I think that is the central thrust of the quote that grabbed me. Not so much the "we have done something truly awful" aspect of the quote at first, but that we do not yet understand the magnitude of it. I do not yet understand the magnitude of my loss. It is an unexplored galaxy, pressing in to the fringes of my mind, held at bay by sheer force of will. But beyond the personal mourning, I think there is a global mourning going on right now.

I wrote this little poem in an off-the-cuff comment to a friend's facebook post seven years ago:

I held truth in my arms as he expired.
Slain by political machinations,
Slain by the intellectual laziness and stupor of the culture,
Slain by the folly of a church serving wicked men,
Slain by my own complacency and passive complicity in all of the above.

In all these things, the intercessor remains limp and hog-tied, made immobile by the impossible interplay of a thousand living paradoxes, gagged by his own tongue, desperately seeking flight into a thousand imprecations.

But I think there's something deeper to it (what I'm feeling, the gnawing I'm seeking to form into words) than just a general sense of mourning (of all humanity).

So if God is not dead (as I am affirming), what is? What is this dreadful mourning and loss that I have been feeling for the past seven years?

Basically, I think that the American church has killed the Gospel for a generation. An entire generation of people are walking out the doors into a presumed Godless eternity, because they saw through the charade of Trumpism to the core of what it was: just naked human ugliness. Promised an encounter with God, they encountered avarice and lies in our churches.

But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea?

We did it through craven politicking.
We did it through convenient lies and manipulation.
We did it by "avoiding politics" and seeking unity at the price of truth.

How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?

I really don't know. I have seen in my lifetime the greatest Crime committed, and I'm still at a loss for words to even describe the deed, let alone understand how it happened, or how to reverse it.

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?

This is the crux of the thing. It's easy for a lifelong atheist to pan religion. It's easy for someone who has always reviled a thing to revile it all the more, and I honestly don't despise that. I came from an atheistic background and I can relate to it deeply.

But to the one who loved a thing to finally see it for what it is? For the one who loved church to now see only naked deception? That is the devastation. And I'm not even saying that I hate church, or that it is fundamentally bad everywhere. But something is deeply rotten in the American church, and I can't be quiet about it anymore.

So, what festivals of atonement must we now invent, who have downtrodden the Gospel handed to us by angels for the sake of stormtrooper boots and the illusions of power and influence? How can we again be "renewed to repentance" after exchanging the Lord of Glory for an orange imp of delusion?

Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?

Every bit of it. All I can do is look at the people around me and try to help and comfort them. The world is on fire, and the church is found holding the match while whistling Dixie.

The people I talk to in churches are either as quiet as the proverbial church mouse on the pressing issues of the day, or so completely deluded that they think that having a fascist president that makes abortions less accessible is a net positive.

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

No, but those who have done this must certainly esteem themselves so.

Category: Philosophy Tagged: Bible Christianity Content Warning Entertainment Ethics Life Loss Non-technical post Personal favorites Philosophy Polemic Prose