God Dies: An Essay by Frances Farmer
“It wasn’t a murder. I think God just died of old age.” -Frances Farmer
I was listening to an old Nirvana song today (Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle) which drove me to dig up something that Frances wrote in high school in 1931.
High school. In 1931.
Her essay, below, won a Scholastic award that year and sparked an intellectual witch hunt in what was then a small town in northern Washington.
Ironically, like many icons, Frances has become a mythical figure, but the origins of her myth are more than a little profound:
“God Dies”
No one ever came to me and said, “You’re a fool. There isn’t such a thing as God. Somebody’s been stuffing you.” It wasn’t a murder. I think God just died of old age. And when I realized that he wasn’t any more, it didn’t shock me. It seemed natural and right.
Maybe it was because I was never properly impressed with a religion. I went to Sunday school and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn’t believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.
Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel. But there were only certain times when I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I’d had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God. “I am clean, now. I’ve never been as clean. I’ll never be cleaner.” And somehow, it was God. I wasn’t sure that it was … just something cool and dark and clean.
That wasn’t religion, though. There was too much of the physical about it. I couldn’t get that same feeling during the day, with my hands in dirty dish water and the hard sun showing up the dirtiness on the roof-tops. And after a time, even at night, the feeling of God didn’t last. I began to wonder what the minister meant when he said, “God, the father, sees even the smallest sparrow fall. He watches over all his children.” That jumbled it all up for me. But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn’t God. So at night, when I went to bed, I would think, “I am clean. I am sleepy.” And then I went to sleep. It didn’t keep me from enjoying the cleanness any less. I just knew that God wasn’t there. He was a man on a throne in Heaven, so he was easy to forget.
Sometimes I found he was useful to remember; especially when I lost things that were important. After slamming through the house, panicky and breathless from searching, I could stop in the middle of a room and shut my eyes. “Please God, let me find my red hat with the blue trimmings.” It usually worked. God became a super-father that couldn’t spank me. But if I wanted a thing badly enough, he arranged it.
That satisfied me until I began to figure that if God loved all his children equally, why did he bother about my red hat and let other people lose their fathers and mothers for always? I began to see that he didn’t have much to do about hats, people dying or anything. They happened whether he wanted them to or not, and he stayed in heaven and pretended not to notice. I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was…nothingness.
I felt rather proud to think that I had found the truth myself, without help from any one. It puzzled me that other people hadn’t found out, too. God was gone. We were younger. We had reached past him. Why couldn’t they see it? It still puzzles me.
“Frances Farmer, “God Dies,” The Scholastic, May 2, 1931, p. 14
Frances Farmer, early 1930's
Aron Campisano
This essay by Francis Farmer did not indicate her atheism, as some like to say, but her understanding of God. I think that what is really being said in this essay is not that God dies but that her understanding or motivation to understand God dies. In her essay she talks about the difference between religion and God himself. “Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something I could feel”…”That wasn’t religion, though. There was too much of the physical about it.” I realized from her essay that religion was not an end in itself but a vehicle to an end, which is God. How could a human who has the witness of history and birth say that their Creator doesn’t exist. It is because the understanding of the Creator perishes, leading to the denial of the Creator. So when Francis Farmer analyzes the ‘usefulness’ of God she comes to a stopping point, at which some theologians and many philosophers stop at. The stopping point of ‘deus otiosus’, in which the understanding of the will of God is limited to cause and effect or the cosmos. Francis Farmer’s analyzing is the same analyzing of many human beings from the past and for time to come, and that is to explain the world that we are in. Many come to the conclusion that He doesnt exist, but this is just a clear indicator of the intellect giving up on the search. Though one is unable to drive the vehicle of reason to The Well of Truth does not mean one should give up walking the spiritual path. Some can reach the Truth through reason but if we cannot we can through spirituality. Religion is the vehicle to understanding these paths of reason and spirituality; with revelation being the light to reveal the Truth of the world. Religion is a path and God is the end and my argument is not to stop searching for that end. Lest our hearts die.
Nonsense.
When Frances says this:
“I felt rather proud to think that I had found the truth myself, without help from any one. It puzzled me that other people hadn’t found out, too. God was gone. We were younger. We had reached past him. Why couldn’t they see it? It still puzzles me.”
What else does “God was gone” mean to you? Come on. What’s there not to understand about that sentence, Saleem?
You obviously want to believe in God, and that’s great, but others clearly DO NOT. Suggesting that they do, because you want them to, is ridiculous. Plain and simple.
Well when she says that “God was gone” she is implying that He was there. Gone implies the previous existence of a thing, which in the case of God, with a correct ‘understanding’, is not the case. She also says “We were younger. We had reached past him.” This is an indicator that He was there, not in actuality but in ‘understanding’. One must not forget that she said that she ‘felt God’ and actually compared the experience with her concept of religion. So what else could that experience be besides God? It has been said ‘there are many ways to God as there are men’ and the religious experience is the human experience; its just a matter of tapping into the Greater Reality. For the sake of inner peace, it is not my objective to force an idea or religion on anyone. In this fabric of space and time everything is where they are supposed to be. In truth, I had found out about Francis Farmer on the 21st of January and when I found out what she went through socially I could strongly relate. Shes been known to say, looking back on her “God Dies” essay, “…for the first time I found how stupid could be. It sort of made me feel alone in the world. The more people pointed at me in scorn the more stubborn I got and when they begin calling me the Bad Girl of West Seattle High, I tried to live up to it.” I don’t mean to sound soft but this touched me when I read it and led me to read the essay itself. I did not know your position on God but wanted to share the light revealed to me in her essay with others.
Again, you just want to believe in God, Saleem. You have a strong existing bias (that God exists, probably because your parents said so) and you’re manipulating common word use to arrive at your forgone conclusion.
We’re also not discussing anything Frances ever said, which is a straw man argument. We’re discussing her famous essay. “God Dies” does not mean she thought he “lived” once, it obviously means that she changed her mind about the idea. “God was gone” does not mean he was there earlier, it clearly means he was never there, and she was wrong about the idea.
When one doesn’t believe in God, one comes to the realization that he NEVER existed. Then, “God” is just a word which describes something fictitious. Like “Godzilla”.
If you say “Godzilla doesn’t live in Tokyo Bay”, the clearly understood meaning is that he NEVER lived in Tokyo Bay. Not that he used to!
When I wrote this essay it contained the pretext that my audience would be those who believed in the existence(philosophically or subjectively) of God. Therefore it contains many loopholes that need to be filled. My argument was strongly philosophical. For example the emergence of an idea in someone’s head permits the existence of a thing; though in reality or in the material realm it doesn’t exist. Basically I was pointing to a fallacy of the human reasoning. Though we may have an understanding it may not always be correct. One could say that you could not prove the existence of God but on the other hand you could not prove that he doesn’t exist. This is the crux of my argument that led me to analyzing the phenomenon of human reasoning itself (Frances Farmer’s analyzing of the ‘concept’ of God). We both have an understanding that she had an idea or understanding of God. Her subjective experience in which she described as ‘God’ was his existence(philosophically speaking). Now, her understanding of God was satisfied until she came to a block. “God became a super-father that couldn’t spank me. But if I wanted a thing badly enough, he arranged it”…”That satisfied me until I began to figure that if God loved all his children equally, why did he bother about my red hat and let other people lose their fathers and mothers for always. I began to see that he didn’t have much to do about hats, people dying or anything. They happened whether he wanted them to or not, and he stayed in heaven and pretended not to notice. I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was…nothingness.” What Frances Farmer was describing here the degeneration or death of her ‘concept’ of God not the actual truth. The argument about the existence of God is similar to arguments for the existence of angels, djinn, ghosts, human emotion and other unseen phenomenon. Because that the proving for these things are widely subjective they are mute points. Yet, still one cannot contend that these phenomenon aren’t valid because its not possible to prove that they don’t exist. Therefore for her to say that he doesn’t exist is fallacious, but it would be more comprehensive to realize the limits of human understanding. I had not realized that I was tackling the fallacy of the doctrine of atheism until you had responded and did not mean for any offense.
You begin with a false premise, Saleem. God isn’t “the truth” (whatever that’s supposed to mean). You keep crafting arguments that circle back to your existing bias, and your ideas crumble around you.
As you point out, ideas are not reality. However, you don’t describe how reality is understood, as if it’s some kind of mystery. Saleem, reality isn’t a mystery.
Reality is all around us, and it is determined by EVIDENCE. Of course, ideas themselves are not reality, but that does NOT mean the sum total of human reasoning is a fallacy. Human reasoning is found to be true all the time, and you know it. Ever get in an automobile? What makes it go? Prayers?
Reasoning becomes a fallacy when it does not refer to evidence. Not proof necessarily, but reality requires evidence. There is evidence for “unseen” things like emotions, but not for ghosts, so those two ideas are not related.
Also, any high-school kid that dabbles in philosophy knows that you can’t disprove a negative, Saleem. Suggesting God is real because I can’t disprove something you haven’t presented isn’t an argument at all. It’s nonsense. A psycho-clown lives in the center of the sun! Disprove it, Saleem!
Atheism isn’t a “doctrine”, it’s the refusal to deny obvious truths about the world. There isn’t a psycho-clown in the center of the sun, no matter how fun it is to think about. God isn’t “the truth” no matter how comfortable that makes us feel, no matter how much our parents insist it is so, and no matter what the ancient cult texts say.
The demonstrable truth matters, and the limits of human understanding do not validate God.
You don’t offend me Saleem, I just think you’re silly.
Im sorry to have left a deeper void of understanding in my argument. Don’t take offense to this but the crafting of my arguments is akin to grinding down food for a baby because swallowing it would be detrimental to it. Yes my argument is the same but it needs crafting so that it could be better swallowed by certain people. The essence of my argument was that though we cannot prove God exist does not mean he doesn’t exist. The proving or evidence for whether He exists or not could be subjective and objective and therefore would require both of these types of evidence. You are correct when you say that reason works best with evidence but these ‘proofs’ could either be subjective or objective. The unseen phenomenon(emotions, ghosts, dreams, etc.) are largely subjective and therefore are backed by subjective evidence. Yes there could be objective evidence(physiological, bioglogical) but even still we as humans who are created beings do not yet know the fuller picture(reality). Even astrophysics has proven that the majority of our universe is made up of dark matter and the rest is luminous matter. So there is still some things we do not know and cannot know just through human reasoning. Which goes back to another part of my argument which is not that reasoning is a fallacy itself but contains fallacy practiced in the human being. And to be clear ‘ism’ is usually used to describe an action, state or set of beliefs. Atheos means “without God” (theos = God). The proving for these types of things are largely subjective, which is one of the reasons why belief in them are described as ‘faith. It is dawning now upon me that even the atheist is faith-based. For the sake of inner peace it is not my objective to push ideas not tasteful to others onto others but to seek common grounds. I tend to find that the atheist is just as zealous as the religious fanatic, which is fine because their hearts are alive and searching.
I’m not a baby, Saleem. You don’t have to grind it up for me.
I understand your position, and it is not enlightened, special or parent-like. Assuming God exists is just your convenient false premise. You’re simply using the circular logic that all theists use to cling to pre-existing belief systems that they can’t, for emotional reasons, abandon, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
You assume God exists, because you have been taught so since a young age by authority figures, like YOUR parents. Every argument of yours presupposes that he is there, but you have no evidence to lean on, only “feelings”.
Evidence is required for truth. Evidence itself is never subjective, it is objective and actual. All ideas and feelings do not qualify as evidence, no matter how desperately we want them to in order to support the existing and comfortable beliefs we have been taught since childhood.
Atheism is obviously not faith-based in any way, it is evidence-based, and by common, conversational definition it is simply the refusal to deny obvious truths (i.e. “God is gone” does not mean he used to be there). Atheism is nothing like theism, and suggesting it is isn’t an enlightened unique perspective, it’s just common cliche.
“God Dies” does not mean God lives, Saleem, no matter how badly you want it to. This essay is not about Frances believing in God.
I disagree with you, and you do not hold a position of greater understanding to inform me otherwise.
The analogy that I left was not an explanation of arrogance but to explain the route of my argument. So again, don’t take offense to it in any way. I don not think lightly of you to take you as a fool, you are obviously very intelligent and the purpose of me responding is not to prove some height over you. Indeed, the essay is not about Frances believing in God, the point I was making about the essay was a matter of examining the process of belief. She believed in God before and then she didn’t, so my explanation was explaining the process of that change. Atheism which simply means not believing in God, is faith-based because it could not be proven and thus requires faith or trust. On the other hand, the majority of humanity is saying that they do believe in God, providing mainly subjective evidence. Objective evidence is not the only worthy type of evidence because some phenomenon(which I myself have experienced) cannot be explained objectively. So some proofs, by nature, require basic trust in them. Whether one wants to believe in a thing or not is not my aim but instead is to provide a common comprehensive understanding about things because in the end we are both part of the human phenomenon.
Nope. Saleem, you’re downing in nonsense. You’re now abandoning common word definitions to support your existing bias.
Atheism is not faith-based, it is evidence-based, clearly.
The validity of God isn’t proven by popular opinion.
Regarding your examination of belief, faith and trust are not the same concepts. You’re blurring the lines between the two ideas to support your mistaken reasoning that one must have “faith” in everything, which is untrue. Of course, your implication here is that some “faith-requirement” to reasoning validates the concept of God, which is ridiculous. There is no faith requirement to reason. Facts are not subject to faith. Facts are facts.
Saleem, “subjective evidence” is preposterous nonsense, a classic oxymoron, and an imaginary idea. Evidence, by it’s nature, is objective. “Subjective evidence” is like saying “objective subjectivity”. Just nonsense, literally. Does 2+2=5 when you need it to?
Moreover, have you considered that your personal “subjective evidence” is also known as your imagination?
In closing, you are not alone with your mystical experiences. They’re not special. Atheists have them all the time, we just have the courage to call them what they are. They are almost always our emotions, desires and biases at work. When Atheists can’t explain something, they just say “I don’t know”. They never say, “it’s God”.
Why? Because throughout human history, the real answer never turns out to be God. Never. It also never turns out to be Godzilla.
Saleem, why not pour your efforts into a philosophy based on reality? Why spend so much time pondering mystical places, beings and states of mind conjured-up by ignorant men in the Iron Age?
I have realized that the term subjective does not quite satisfy the understanding I’m trying to get through. Experiential evidence is what validates God for the majority of humanity. Whether we seek to understand these phenomenon, is in the end solely up to the individual. In Frances’s experience she tried to understand but decided not to look deeper. What are we calling reality other than the laws of causation(cosmos)? Indeed the world we are in and the laws behind them are intelligent, so who or what is behind this phenomenon? The question begs for the answer of a higher Intelligence or else deems the universe chaotic which is not coherent with the laws we are now studying. My definition of God is the One who brought everything into being. The Beginning and End of the universe. The One whom none other is like, nor is that One begotten or conceived of with anything. The One who is Eternal and unlimited by any laws, imperfection or dependence. The One who brought our core of being into existence and we like everything else will perish and return to that One. The universe is clearly not a light matter for us to throw out searching for its purpose. Whether we call that search science, religion or spirituality we are all in it together.