What happens to religion and morality if God is considered dead?

Osho, is god really dead?

Remember, those who were ascetic people, who were ready to deny their nature, were very happy to believe in God. And the people who were more natural, more normal, were happy to believe that there was no God. The reason is the same: the natural person will feel afraid because the natural person will have sex, will have anger, will have jealousy. And God is going to punish him; if God is there then punishment is certain. It is better to say that there is no God; at least for the time being he can feel relieved. And the person who can repress his sex, his jealousies, his anger, would like to declare that God is, because all his investment is in God's existence. God's existence is very necessary for his asceticsm. The pathological people declare that God is and the natural people declare that there is no God. And…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, GOD IS DEAD, RELIGION IS DEAD. THEN WHAT REMAINS? The death of God is the victory of truth. It is freedom for man. Now you need not pray, now you need not ask a favor. Now you need not believe in a messiah, in a savior, in a messenger -- they all died with the death of God. Without God there is no savior, no prophet, no messiah. There is no pope, no Ayatollah Khomeini, no shankaracharya. They are all living and exploiting humanity in the name of God -- who does not exist at all. The death of God is an immense freedom, multidimensional. It is not to be mourned; it has to be celebrated. Yes, I have declared that religion too is dead. If God is dead, how can religion survive? One lie leads you to another lie, and God is the fundamental lie.

All the religions are based on god. Their morality, their commandments, their prayers, their saintliness -- everything points towards god, and you say that god is dead. Then what will happen to all these great things that are dependent on the concept of god?

So Ma Tzu was a very strange man, perhaps there has never been another man so strange. A unique master in himself, he walked on all fours and always looked like a tiger. Whenever he looked at somebody, people started a deep trembling; he was a dangerous man. He was very healthy; he was bound to be, he was almost like a bull. Just the horns were missing, otherwise.... Between Ma Tzu on one side, Rinzai Zen, and Sekito on the other side, Soto Zen, Zen took flight; both were very powerful people, great masters. <q>AS A YOUNG BOY, SEKITO TOOK A STAND AGAINST AN OLD CUSTOM OF SACRIFICING A BULL AS A MEANS TO PLACATE EVIL SPIRITS; HE MADE A HABIT OF DESTROYING THE SHRINES DEVOTED TO SUCH SPIRITS, AND WOULD RELEASE BULLS FROM THEIR ENCLOSURES SO THEY COULD ESCAPE. AT THE AGE OF TWELVE, SEKITO MET MASTER ENO.…

We humans seem to like to be told what to do. If we don't have a "god," we have someone else to tell us what is right or wrong and what is good or bad. Why such a resistance to thinking for ourselves?

The pope is elected. And you will be surprised to know that even Jesus Christ, three hundred years after his death, was elected as a divine being by a conference under the Emperor Constantine. The conference is known as the Niscene Council. It was by election, by voting, that it was decided that Jesus is holy. You cannot decide by election that Jesus is holy. You cannot decide by election whether Albert Einstein is right or wrong -- by election, by people who don't know any mathematics, who don't know any physics. People who don't have any experience of the holy are voting for or against Jesus, whether he is holy or not. After three hundred years, people who have not known Jesus and people who have no idea and no experience of holiness, they are deciding by election! It was just because of the power of Emperor Constantine; he…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, GOD IS DEAD, RELIGION IS DEAD; THEN WHAT IS LEFT? God has never been in the first place. It is the greatest lie that has been told to humanity. When I say God is dead, it simply means the lie is dead, the fiction is dead. And when a lie dies, no corpse is left behind. So remember it, don't misunderstand the statement that God is dead. It does not mean that he was alive. It does not mean that he was sick, it does not mean that he was on his deathbed, it does not mean that you have to go to the crematorium again. He has never been there. Existence knows nothing of God. It is only the crafty priests who had invented the fiction. With the death of the fiction, the profession of the priests becomes irrelevant.