Abstract: For Nietzsche the atheism is not the quiet atheism of reason, as a result of reflection, but an instinctive, incidental atheism. From the perspective of the German thinker, the first occurrence of atheism is the monotheist atheism, that of the God at Sinai, who claims to be the only God, denying all the other Gods. The second is Peter the apostle, who replaces the good news with the bad news of obligation regarding the experience of the cross and the pain, dismissing life and admitting mortification. The third death of God occurred in the joyful science, a self-destruction of faith in God as held in the words “God is dead”. Yet, Nietzsche’s idea on the death of God is not a finished issue, as the death of the monotheist God doesn’t mean the disappearance of divinity. The choice remains between a religion of transcendental God and a “religion” where the divine can only be predicated by self-negation, with an exhausting, unacceptable pathos given by distance.

Keywords: Nietzsche, atheism, religion, divine, “death of God”