Friedrich Nietzsche was right. God is dead.

He was killed by people who thought they knew better than He did; people who believed they could impart justice more justly than He could. People who argued that God was too merciful to be allowed to continue his Devine deeds; too lenient with most humans, who deserved worse.

God was killed by people who defied His concept of life; people who contended that life was an error that ought to be rectified and death a blessing that must be cherished; people who determined who would go to hell and who would go to paradise – and when.

God was killed by people who transformed murder into a common occurrence and survival into a sin; people for whom the existence of any human being was an expendable tool, a tube used in an experiment at their mercy.

God was killed by people who ordered the slaughter of men, women and children as one would order a cup of coffee in a coffee bar; who wielded knives, pistols, machine-guns and bombs as one would hold a flower.

God was killed by people who rejoiced at the sight of blood, who reached sublime inspiration when hearing the anguished voice of a suffering woman, the last gasps of life of a dying child.

God was killed by people who created the world anew. Thus, in the beginning they created hell on earth; then they said "Let there be darkness," and there was darkness. They saw that darkness was good and they separated darkness from light, calling the latter sin and the former blessing. There was to be no day and night, only complete and utter darkness throughout the day.

Then they said, "Let the land produce corpses, and if it can't, we'll provide them in abundant numbers; corpses bearing seed to produce further corpses."

Then they said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness. So that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So they created creatures in their own image, as indifferent, vain and violent as they were; one sole kind of male and one sole kind of subhuman female. They blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and destroy it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground, behead them at will, knife them with pleasure, machine-gun them at random and bomb them out of existence."

They saw all that they had destroyed, and it was very good. And there was darkness, and there was further darkness – the sixth day.

God was killed by people who altered long-established concepts; nothing was to be construed the way it used to be: Good was death and bad was life; slaying a family was sacred, saving it sinful; rejoicing at the death of a bye-stander was commendable, crying for it was objectionable; weapons were the road to salvation, not a means to defend oneself; indifference to pain and anguish was a virtue, not something to be avoided.

God was killed by people who laughed at the sight of mourning. Their laughter is heard like an interminable echo everywhere.

Dr. Yoav J. Tenembaum is a lecturer in the Diplomacy Studies Program, Political Science Department, Tel Aviv University