So my dear friend Nietzsche said. Of course, like so many misunderstood of his time, he was pretty much branded a heretic without even so much as a thought as to what he meant by the phrase. It wasn't simply a saying that he was an atheist, that he did not believe in God (he very well might have been one, but that's not the point), but a profound statement that the world that he knew was coming to realize that the God of the Gaps was becoming less and less important as science began to fill up those gaps.
I have yet to read any Joseph Campbell (beyond Action Philosophers #3, in stores now), but his writings on myth are very important to us in this day and age. Myth does not mean "fable" or "fiction" but it can take the format of a story. It is the narrative, generally belonging to a group of people. As people mature, the myth no longer fits into their worldview and it is "broken." Like Humpty Dumpty, all the kings horses and all the king's men can't put it back together again. Either the myth changes, or it is abandoned. Hence why religions do change, albeit very slowly.
Having previously commented on the problems with postmodernism, I began to contemplate the paradox of competing narratives. The whole "everybody's-opinions-are-equally-valid-so-long-as-they're-not-hurting-anyone" postmodern view of things. We like to see things clearly, as they say, in Black and White. If something is true, then clearly what is the opposite of that something is not true. It is my opinion that although the narratives look different on the surface, they are only put into competition with each other because people lack the insight to read into the myth and what it really says. As my grandmother's grandmother used to say, "All roads lead to the same place." Competing narratives are just making the same point in a different way, just like we can say "yes" and "oui" and "ja" and it all means the same thing. It is up to us to discover the meaning of it all, to dig deeper and not keep God in our back pockets. Since we are all unique, we can also utilize the different interpretations to understand the Truth more fully. The elephant is not just the legs, the ear or the trunk.
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -Niels Bohr
"Nietzsche is dead." -God
