In The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche tells “The Parable of the Madman.” In it, a madman lights a lantern in the early morning, runs to the marketplace, and declares, “God is dead.” Nietzsche’s point was that though Enlightenment philosophers had embraced atheism, they had not yet realized the huge implications. So, Nietzsche told them, via a rant from the Madman, which ends when he bursts into church buildings and asks, “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”