Chapter 14 Facing a world without God

If there is no God, can a man do anything? ── Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov More than a hundred years ago, a madman appeared in the West who shocked the world.Standing on a high mountain by the sea, he declared to the sun, to all things, to all human beings and the whole universe: "God is dead!"The spiritual history of mankind has since entered a new era.The madman's name is Nietzsche. In fact, God should have died long ago.Since Copernicus' heliocentric theory overthrew Christianity's geocentric theory, who would really believe that Jehovah and Jesus lived on a certain sacred mountain outside the boundless horizon?But people still go to church, pray and confess, because "God" is actually synonymous with "faith".People must have some spiritual support, and they must have certain values ​​to grasp the material world.The real God does not live outside the horizon, but lives in everyone's heart.When you reflect and blame yourself, when you can't help but say "Oh my God", God is already with you.

The death of God announced by Nietzsche refers to the total collapse of traditional Christian values ​​believed by Westerners.After gradually entering the era of imperialism, the western world has experienced a serious crisis of faith and value.Generations of teenagers can't find their own value in the vacuum of belief, and emptiness and decadence have ruined many beautiful youths.But this is not what Nietzsche expected, let alone what Nietzsche brought.The significance of Nietzsche's announcement of the death of God is to allow people to obtain unprecedented freedom in an unprecedented collapse.He told people not to blindly believe in the Creator outside the body and the great savior outside the world, but to see the world with their own eyes and experience the world with their own hearts.God was originally man-made, but in the past people revered him as a divine creator and relegated themselves to the status of spiritual slaves.In such a spiritual structure where subject and object are reversed, all values ​​are reversed, and the meaning of life is not for human beings, but for the non-existent concept of God.When Nietzsche announced the death of God, he wanted to reverse all upside-down values, and reassess and reevaluate all previous truths and value standards with our human eyes.It is no longer the alien crucified on the cross that dominates the destiny of mankind, but ourselves.It is in this sense that Nietzsche sees the dawn of a new world and an incomparably vast future for mankind.

Just as Nietzsche predicted, after the death of God, although human beings have experienced emptiness, madness, cruel destruction and bloody wars, they are finally able to face themselves and the world more and more clearly. Civilization is leaping forward with unprecedented speed.Everyone can try to take control of his own destiny in a more rational way.God is dead, but people's instinct of belief has not disappeared, but this belief is more realistic, more scientific, and more closely related to people's own interests. In Chinese history, there have been two eras in which God died.

The first time was the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.The so-called "propriety collapses and joy breaks down", there are disputes among the heroes.The emperor of the Zhou Dynasty changed from the leader of the princes of various countries to a vassal.Traditional etiquette, system and mode of thinking have been completely destroyed.The countries no longer pay tribute to the central court, and the king of Chu actually sent envoys to ask the emperor Zhou about the weight of the tripod.The wave of economic reforms that began with the abandonment of well fields and the opening of rice paddies in the state of Lu spread rapidly.Rich and powerful families flocked to support scholars and recruit talents.People no longer believe in the one-man dictatorship of the emperor, but use their own thinking to explore the mysteries of the universe and society.On the one hand, there are a hundred schools of thought contending in the ideological world, and new trends emerge one after another.Everyone strives to be his own god.Chaos and prosperity are intertwined, and the national civilization has made a huge leap in the long-term war between the material and spiritual realms.The ideological wealth produced in this era has become the core of the essence of traditional Chinese culture, especially the thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and Buddhism, which are still exerting their positive effects thousands of years later and affecting the world. to many countries.After a long time in this era, a new God was slowly established in people's hearts, that is, Confucianism represented by Confucius, who was revered as a sage.

The second time God died was the May 4th era.Since Dong Zhongshu advocated "abandoning all schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", Confucius has been "God" for two thousand years.China's feudal emperors changed one after another, but the incense in the Confucian Temple became more and more prosperous. Both the ruler and the ruled regarded the saint's right and wrong as right and wrong, and the saint's likes and dislikes as their likes and dislikes.Taking Confucian thought as the moral standard and value standard, other beliefs are regarded as heresy. The "May 4th" movement burned down the Confucian shop, and advanced intellectuals held high the two banners of science and democracy, setting off the most magnificent ideological enlightenment in Chinese history.In the fierce collision between Chinese and Western cultures, people negate the destiny with science, and negate autocracy with democracy and equality.The advanced ideas produced by human civilization for hundreds of years are pouring in, from Darwin's theory of evolution to Marx's class struggle. For the first time, people know that the world is so vast outside the study of the saints.Only then did China begin to truly open its closed doors, consciously stand together with other nations, and run forward along the runway of civilization.The May 4th era was the era when the Chinese nation's humanity was awakened, and it was the era when the Chinese nation began to pursue modernization.The May 4th spirit of science and democracy still needs to be inherited and carried forward by middle school students today.

The age when God died for the third time is the age we are facing today. On the issue of belief, contemporary Chinese youth are facing a world where "God is dead". If we want to define the boundary of "contemporary", it refers to the group of teenagers born after the 1980s.They were born in the new period after the Cultural Revolution.During this period, the residual prestige of "God" still lingered for a long time.The "God" here is not any one person, but refers to the long-term Cold War mentality that has created a fixed belief pattern in the psychology of the entire Chinese nation.

Viewed from a historical perspective, this belief has its rationality and progress.In terms of content, it takes communist ideals as its core, various selfless spirits of the times as its pillars, and its aesthetic characteristics are lofty and heroic.Under certain historical conditions, this belief model can inspire the national spirit, gather national power, mobilize and concentrate the positive factors of the whole nation, overcome all difficulties and overcome the enemy.Mao Zedong had a famous saying, "The army and the people are united as one, let's see who in the world can be the enemy!" For individuals, this kind of belief can purify one's soul, improve the realm of life, and enable people to obtain high-level spiritual satisfaction.However, according to the principle of dialectical materialism of Marxism, social existence determines social consciousness.Under the realistic conditions where the level of productivity is generally low and the material life is generally relatively poor, this kind of belief is not entirely produced voluntarily, but mainly by indoctrination and advocacy.When its advanced nature conflicts with reality, it often does not proceed from reality, but avoids reality and whitewashes life, thus planting the seeds of crisis for belief itself.Moreover, under the long-term rule of ultra-left ideology, this kind of belief has a strong feudal nature, and the sacred belief has degenerated into a mechanical and numb biological instinct.Worshiping Mao Zedong as a god is not an exaggeration, but a living reality.When this great man left us in accordance with the laws of nature, thousands of men, women and children would not believe it anyway. They thought that the three words "Chairman Mao" were as eternal as "God".There was a child named Xiaokun who once asked her elder brother, "Now Hua Guofeng is Chairman Mao?" At that time, rogue thieves in the Beijing area would say "Promise to Chairman Mao..." when they swore. How is it different from Westerners' "swear in the name of God"?The end of godly worship must be blasphemy.The lofty beliefs in communism that once inspired the Chinese people to strive for strength have ended up being nothing but a stylized written vocabulary.The middle and primary school students at that time were still intoxicated in the pure and beautiful illusion, but the older people had already begun to realize it.With the daily suffocation brought about by the despotism of this belief, the end of God will come.

People over the age of 35 may still vaguely remember the sad tide in September 1976 and the happy wave in October.Although psychology has long proved that childhood emergencies will leave imprints on people for life, but after all, they are "big events" that have nothing to do with themselves.A middle school student recalled fondly on the train how he buried his beloved kitten in tears when he was three years old, but when asked about his impressions of national events back then, he couldn't remember anything. Contemporary youth spend their childhood with their parents full of hope and joy.In their childhood, there was no war or fighting.When they turned to the first page of their elementary school textbooks, what they saw for the first time was no longer "Long live Chairman Mao", but "people hand, horses, cattle and sheep".In the art class, it was no longer Liu Shaoqi whose chest was pierced by a big pen, but birds, big trees, and small houses.The songs in the music class were no longer "The Traitor Lin Biao and Confucius", but "Let's Swing Our Paddles" and "Where is Spring".Little did they realize that while they were enjoying a happy childhood that their parents never enjoyed, "God" died slowly.

"Emancipate the mind and seek truth from facts" replaced "Chairman Mao waved me forward" and "two whatevers".Since the 1980s, China has truly entered the era of losing God.Layers of veils were lifted, and the myths were broken. Facing the history, people cried bitterly, angry, cursed, and then suddenly laughed up to the sky.Amidst this poignant laughter, one of the most famous poets of the new era delivered his heartrending poem: ………… tell you world I──do not──believe! Even if there are a thousand challengers under your feet, Then count me as number one thousand and one.

I don't believe the sky is blue; I don't believe in thunder's echo; I don't believe dreams are fake; I don't believe in death without retribution. ………… It is but one of the tricks of history that sacred faith changes face.Even such an insurmountable value is hollow, so what can be trusted in the world?Incomplete reflection on its own history, and all kinds of strange talks pouring in from the open country, finally overwhelmed all the authority in the Chinese spiritual world. "Looking forward with unity" has gradually become "Looking at money".One word difference, from spirit to matter.To cancel "look ahead" is to cancel any belief.By the time our protagonists entered middle school one after another, the 1980s had already passed, and the ideal field they faced at this time was really "the vast white land is so clean".This generation of young people began to learn to be their own masters in a world without God.