Strauss went to a Lutheran high school in Blaubeuren, Germany. He studied with F.C. Bauer. He went to Berlin where he studied with Schleiermacher. He asserted that Christian thought was only possible if the stories were myths and ahistorical. He wrote The Life of Jesus Critically Examined where he wrote that Jesus was only the Son of God mythically. He died having rejected any idea of a personal God and immortality. His views led to scientific materialism, a Darwinian form of understanding humanity.