Friedrich Nietzsche publishes The Gay Science in 1882, carrying the parable of the madman who announces that God is dead and that we have killed him. The sentence, and the demand to face its consequences honestly, becomes atheism's most quoted text.
Tagged: Atheism Secular and Non-Theistic
The Event
- Date
- 1882 (exact)
- Also called
- Die fröhliche Wissenschaft
- Era
- Secular Modernity; Standard periodization of secular and non-religious history
- Location
- Chemnitz; today Germany
- Traditions
- Secular
- Streams
- Atheism
- Key figures
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Key texts
- The Gay Science
Primary Sources
- The tradition's own record of the event.
Secondary Sources
- Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. New York: Liveright, 2016.
- Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.
- Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
- Zuckerman, Phil, ed. Atheism and Secularity. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.
Provenance: HIST-1320; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.
Related on This Site
No image; the post explains why
Art Entry
AI-Generated Religious Art
Image generators now produce Christs, Buddhas, and temple scenes on demand. The traditions are answering; some with welcome, some with prohibitions that reach the new medium directly. This page shows no generated image, because any single example would misrepresent the argument.
Art Tradition
Non-Theistic and Secular
Art without transcendence: humanist meaning-making, museums as secular temples, and protest art.
Artist
Doris Salcedo
The Colombian sculptor of political violence's traces; her Fragmentos floor in Bogotá is a counter-monument hammered from surrendered weapons by women victims of the conflict.
Artist
Käthe Kollwitz
The German artist of grief: her Pietà, enlarged in Berlin's Neue Wache, is Germany's central memorial to the victims of war; a mother holding her dead son, made by a mother who lost hers.
History Event
American Atheists founded
1963
History Event
Communist Manifesto
1848
History Event
Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity
1841
History Event
New Atheism
2004-2006
Art Tradition
Non-Theistic and Secular
Art without transcendence: humanist meaning-making, museums as secular temples, and protest art.
Artist
Doris Salcedo
The Colombian sculptor of political violence's traces; her Fragmentos floor in Bogotá is a counter-monument hammered from surrendered weapons by women victims of the conflict.
Artist
Käthe Kollwitz
The German artist of grief: her Pietà, enlarged in Berlin's Neue Wache, is Germany's central memorial to the victims of war; a mother holding her dead son, made by a mother who lost hers.
History Event
American Atheists founded
1963
History Event
Communist Manifesto
1848
History Event
Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity
1841
History Event
New Atheism
2004-2006